FLM005 Introduction to British Cinema

Home , Ealing Studios, Gainsborough Pictures, The Rank Organisation

Introduction to British Cinema 1930 to 1960

Semester A

Screening: Thursday 0900, Arts One G34 Lecture: Thursday 1100, Arts Lecture Theatre Seminar Group A: Thursday 1300-1400, Laws 1 Seminar Group B: Thursday 1400-1500, Maths MB 203 Course organiser: Adrian Garvey Email: [email protected] Office hour: Friday, 1415-1515 room 1.02 Arts One

Course Description

The course looks at some of the key films of the British cinema from the 1930s through to the 1950s, providing both a historical and critical overview of this rich period. While most of the films that will be screened during the course have been chosen as examples of the work of distinguished directors, room has also been made for films more squarely in the tradition of popular cinema. The aim is to provide an opportunity for the analysis of some of the characteristics of British national cinema, and to question some of the assumptions relating to that cinema, such as that it is too literary or theatrical. The chosen films will provide a focus for discussion in the seminars of such topics as British ‘auteurs’ (e.g., Hitchcock), stars (e.g., James Mason), genre (e.g., the Gainsborough melodrama), form (e.g. the tensions between realist and ‘expressionist’ approaches to film-making), censorship, the influence of the documentary tradition and the industry’s links with theatre, broadcasting and the state.

Assessment

Assessment consists of two 1000-word sequence analysis assignments (each worth 25% of the overall grade) and one 2000-word essay (worth 50%). The deadline for the first sequence analysis is Sunday 3 November (end of week 6). The deadline for the second sequence analysis is Sunday 15 December (end of week 12). The deadline for the essay is Sunday 12 January 2020 (the day before the start of semester 2).

Course Outline

Week Lecture and seminar Screening 1 Setting the scene: a brief outline of The Private Life of Henry VIII the British film industry in the 1930s (1933)

2 British Hitchcock Sabotage (1936)

3 Structure of the British film industry The Four Feathers (1939) on the eve of the Second World War

4 British Documentary Housing Problems (1934) Night Mail (1936) Spare Time (1938) Listen to Britain (1942)

5 Britain at War Went the Day Well? (1942)

6 Gainsborough Melodrama The Wicked Lady (1945)

7 Reading Week

8 The Rank Organisation, Independent Brief Encounter (1945) Producers and ‘Quality Cinema’

9 Powell & Pressburger Black Narcissus (1948)

10 Ealing Studios Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) 11 The Third Man and British Film The Third Man (1949) Noir

Reading List

Week 1: Setting the Scene

James Chapman, National Identity and the British Historical Film (I.B. Tauris, 2005) Dickinson, Margaret and Sarah Street, Cinema and State: The Film Industry and the British Government 1927-84 (BFI, 1985) Drazin, Charles, The Finest Years (I.B. Tauris, 2007) Drazin, Charles, Korda: Britain’s Only Movie Mogul (Sidgwick & Jackson, 2002) Low, Rachael, The History of the British Film 1929-1939: Film-Making in 1930s Britain (George Allen & Unwin, 1985) Walker, Greg, The Private Life of Henry VIII (I.B. Tauris, 2003)

Week 2: Structure of the British Film Industry 1939

Drazin, Charles, Korda: Britain’s Only Movie Mogul (Sidgwick & Jackson, 2002) Low, Rachael, The History of the British Film 1929-1939: Film-Making in 1930s Britain (George Allen & Unwin, 1985) Murphy, Robert, Realism

Week 3: British Hitchcock

Smith, Susan, Hitchcock: Suspense, Humour and Tone (BFI Publishing, 2000) McGilligan, Patrick, Alfred Hitchcock; a Life in Darkness and Light (2003) Allen, Richard, ed., Alfred Hitchcock; Centenary Essays (BFI, 1999) Ryall, Tom, Alfred Hitchcock and the British Cinema (1996) Barr, Charles, English Hitchcock (1999) Spoto, Donald, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock; 50 Years of His Motion Pictures (1999)

Week 4: The British Documentary Movement

Drazin, Charles, The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s Rotha, Paul, Documentary Diary: An Informal History of the British Documentary Film- 1928-1939 (Secker &Warburg, 1973) Sussex, Elisabeth, The Rise and Fall of British Documentary (University of California Press, 1976) Swann, Paul, The British Documentary Film Movement, 1926-1946 (Cambridge University Press, 1989)

Week 5: Britain at War

Aldgate, Anthony and Jeffrey Richards, Britain Can Take It (Edinburgh University Press, 1994) Chapman, James, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda 1939-1945 (I.B. Tauris, 1998) Drazin, Charles, The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s (André Deutsch, 1998) Houston, Penelope, Went the Day Well? (BFI Publishing, 1992)

Week 6: Gainsborough Melodrama

Aspinall, Sue and Robert Murphy , eds. Gainsborough, Melodrama (BFI, 1983) Cook, Pam, ed. Gainsborough Pictures (Continuum, 1988)

Week 8: The Rank Organisation and Independent Producers

Brownlow, Kevin, David Lean: A Biography (Richard Cohen Books, 1996) Macnab, Geoffrey, J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry (Routledge, 1993) Philips, Gene, Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean (University of Kentucky Press, 2006) Wood, Alan, Mr Rank: A Study of J. Arthur Rank and British Films (Hodder & Stoughton, 1952)

Week 9: Powell and Pressburger

Christie, Ian, Arrows of desire; the Films of Powell and Pressburger (Faber, 1994) Powell, Michael, A Life in Movies; and Autobiography (Faber, 2000) Street, Sarah, Black Narcissus (I.B. Tauris, 2005)

Week 10: Ealing Studios

Barr, Charles, Ealing Studios (Continuum, 1998) Drazin, Charles The Finest Years—chapter on Hamer Hamer, Robert, Kind Hearts and Coronets (screenplay, Lorrimer, 1983; Faber, 1987) Newton, Michael, Kind Hearts and Coronets (BFI, 2003)

Week 11: The Third Man and British Film Noir

Evans, Peter William, Carol Reed (Manchester University Press, 2005) Murphy, Robert, Realism and Tinsel (Routledge, 1992)

Reading List

Other books on the British cinema with which students should become familiar:

Ashby, Justine and Andrew Higson, eds., British Cinema, Past and Present (Routledge, 2000) Babington, Bruce, British Stars and Stardom (MUP, Manchester, 2002) Barr, Charles, ed. All Our Yesterdays: Ninety Years of British Cinema Chibnall, Steve and Robert Murphy, eds. British Crime Cinema (Routledge, London, 1999) Harper, Sue, Women in British Cinema; Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know (Continuum, 2000) Higson, Andrew, ed., Dissolving Views; Key Writings on British Cinema (Cassell, 1996) Hill, John, Sex, Class and Realism; British Cinema 1956-1963 (BFI, 1995) Landy, Marcia, British Genres; Cinema and Society 1930-1960 (Princeton University Press, 1992) Leach, Jim, British Film (CUP, 2004) McFarlane, Brian, The Encyclopaedia of British Film (Methuen, London, 2003) Murphy, Robert (ed.), The British Cinema Book (BFI, 1997) Richards, Jeffrey, The Age of the Dream Palace ______, Films and British National Identity (Manchester, 1997) Street, Sarah, British National Cinema (Routledge, London, 1997)

Other recommended sources: BFI Player https://player.bfi.org.uk BFI Screenonline http://www.screenonline.org.uk/ BritMovie http://www.britmovie.co.uk/ Talking Pictures TV https://talkingpicturestv.co.uk