Our history of English cinema.

Hi everybody,

I hope that today's seminars gave some impression of the type of work that I want us to try to do in this unit. Keep in mind the different exercises that you did in groups, think about how that differed from the type of thing that (for example) Aristotle or Shklovsky look for, and maybe begin to think about what type of approaches you prefer to adopt when writing criticism. Don't get fooled into thinking that writing essays or criticism is a passive or unimportant thing - I want you to get into the mindset that you can change things by writing about them. Think about what you want to achieve, discover, or change when you choose what you write about. I'm excited - and I hope you are too!

I'll post again tomorrow or Wednesday about the F.R Leavis article - perhaps giving you some questions to ask yourself when you read it. The lecture about Marxism, given by Thomas Docherty, that I recommended you download is available from here. Thomas's lectures are really quite brilliant - the podcasts will be working from now on so I recommend you download them in future, and try to attend next term when your timetable is freed up.

We'll be talking about last week's exercise this week - but for now I've collected together the different reponses and linked to trailers or clips from all the respective films. Try to get a sense of what we've immediately collated together as a representation of 'English cinema'. If you can see any of these films this week or anytime soon - then try and do so!

THE LADYKILLERS (Alexander MacKendrick/Ealing Studios, 1955)


KES (Ken Loach, 1969)

(A four minute clip from the film, rather than a trailer. Great film.)

MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN (Terry Jones, 1979)


WITHNAIL & I (Bruce Robinson, 1987)


FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL (Mike Newell, 1994)


THE FULL MONTY (Peter Cattaneo, 1997)

(The Dutch subtitles suggest why these issues might be important!)

LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (Guy Ritchie, 1998)


A ROOM FOR ROMEO BRASS (Shane Meadows, 1999)


NOTTING HILL (Roger Michell, 1999)


BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (Sharon Maguire, 2001)


28 DAYS LATER (Danny Boyle, 2002)


THIS IS ENGLAND (Shane Meadows, 2007)


SOMERS TOWN (Shane Meadows, 2008)



Try to think about which directors, writers and stars re-occur across our history of English cinema. Perhaps also take a minute to reflect upon the years around which these films are mostly clustered - and think about why that could be. If you've seen some or all of these movies, think about what type of narrative or narratives that they collectively tell about England.