Transformation and Tradition in 1960s British Cinema

by Farmer, Richard; Mayne, Laura; Petrie, Duncan; Williams, Melanie

• ISBN13: 9781474423113
• ISBN10: 1474423116
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2019-06-01
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

Over half a century on, the 1960s continue to generate strong intellectual and emotional responses - both positive and negative - and this is no less true in the arena of film. Making substantial use of new and underexplored archive resources that provide a wealth of information and insight on the period in question, this book offers a fresh perspective on the major resurgence of creativity and international appeal experienced by British cinema in that dramatic decade.

Transformation and Tradition in 1960s British Cinema is the first scholarly volume on this period of British cinema for more than twenty-five years. It provides a major reconsideration of the period by focusing on the central tensions and contradiction between novelty/revolution and continuity/tradition during what remains a highly contentious period of cultural production and consumption.

Author Biography

Richard Farmer is Post-doctoral Research Associate at the University of East Anglia.

Laura Mayne is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate on the Transformation and Tradition in Sixties British Cinema project, based at the University of York.

Duncan Petrie is Professor of Film at the University of York. He has written and edited numerous books on British and Scottish Cinema including Creativity and Constraint in the British Film Industry, The British Cinematographer and Screening Scotland.

Melanie Williams is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of East Anglia. She has published work on British cinema in many journals and edited collections and is the author of Prisoners of Gender: Women in the Films of J. Lee Thompson and the co-editor of British Women's Cinema, Ealing Revisited and Mamma Mia! The Movie: Exploring a Cultural Phenomenon.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section One: The Industry and Its Institutions
Chapter One: Mapping the British Film Industry in the 1960s
Chapter Two: Whither Public Support? The Fluctuating Fortunes of the National Film Finance Corporation
Chapter Three: Carry On Down the Kitchen Sink: Low-Budget Independent Production and the Franchise Film
Chapter Four: Finding Alternative Models: From Low Budget Genres to Subsidised Art Film
Chapter Five: Hollywood England Reassessed: The American Presence in British Cinema

Section Two: Production Cultures: Creative People and Creative Industries in the 1960s
Chapter Six: Film Personnel in Britain in the 1960s
Chapter Seven: British cinema and British Television Advertising
Chapter Eight: Dressing sixties cinema: fashion and British film
Chapter Nine: New screens for old: interactions between film and television
Chapter Ten: Cinema and popular music

Section Three: National branding: Selling British cinema, Home and Abroad
Chapter Eleven: National Identity as a Brand: Promoting British Films at Home and Abroad
Chapter Twelve: The Critical Response to British Films

Conclusion: The Legacy of Sixties British Cinema