In a film business increasingly transnational in its production arrangements and global in its scope, what space is there for culturally English filmmaking? In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Higson demonstrates how a variety of Englishnesses have appeared on screen since 1990, and surveys the genres and production modes that have captured those representations. He looks at the industrial circumstances of the film business in the UK, government film policy and the emergence of the UK Film Council. He examines several contemporary 'English' dramas that embody the transnationalism of contemporary cinema, from 'Notting Hill' to 'The Constant Gardener'. He surveys the array of contemporary fiction that has been re-worked for the big screen, and the pervasive - and successful - Jane Austen adaptation business. Finally, he considers the period's diverse films about the English past, including big-budget, Hollywood-led action-adventure films about medieval heroes, intimate costume dramas of the modern past, such as 'Pride and Prejudice', and films about the very recent past, such as 'This is England'.
Finally, he looks in detail at two key films, Howards End and Elizabeth, and at their production, distribution, exhibition, and critical reception." "The book is based on extensive empirical research but is written in an accessible and jargon-free style. As well as dealing with a specific production trend, it also raises more general questions about genre, national cinema, the relations between commercial and cultural interests, and the processes of reception and interpretation."--BOOK JACKET.
This book offers insightful analysis of cultural representation in Japanese cinema of the early 21st century. The impact of transnational production practices on films such as Dolls (2002), Sukiyaki Western Django (2007), Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009), and 13 Assassins (2010) is considered through textual and empirical analysis. The author discusses contradictory forms of cultural representation – cultural concealment and cultural performance – and their relationship to both changing practices in the Japanese film industry and the global film market. Case studies take into account popular genres such as J Horror and jidaigeki period films, as well as the work of renowned filmmakers Takeshi Kitano, Takashi Miike, Shinya Tsukamoto and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
The film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger was one of the most remarkable and visionary in cinema. They made an extraordinary range of films, from The Spy in Black and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp to A Canterbury Tale and The Red Shoes. With champions like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, and revived critical interest worldwide, they now find new generations of admirers. This illuminating new book looks closely at these classic films to explore their complex relationship to national identity, and their interest in exile, borderlands, utopias, escapism, art and fantasy. Moor reveals for example how the visual imagery of the films of the Second World War question current cinematic styles and how post war films like The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman are in their highly expressive use of design, music and dance utterly international in character.
Since 1983, Aki Kaurismäki has made classically styled films filled with cinephilic references to film history, influencing Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson. Yet the director is often depicted as the loneliest, most nostalgic of Finns (except when promoting his films, making political statements and running his many businesses). Drawing on revisionist approaches to film authorship, this text links Kaurismäki's work to issues in film aesthetics and history, nostalgia, late modernity, commerce, film festivals, and national cinema.
The Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, across five sectors of the French coast - Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword - constituted the largest amphibious invasion in history. This study analyses in depth the preparations and implementation of the D-Day landing on Gold Beach by XXX Corps. Historians have tended to dismiss the landing on Gold Beach as straightforward but the evidence points to a different reality. Armour supported the infantry landing and prior bombing was intended to weaken German defences; however, the bulk of the bombing landed too far inland, and many craft foundered in difficult conditions at sea. It was the tenacity of the assault units and the flexibility of the follow up units which enabled the Gold landing to secure the right flank of the British Army in Normandy. Using detailed primary evidence from The National Archives and the Imperial War Museum, this volume provides a substantial assessment of the background to the landing on Gold, and analyses the events of D-Day in the wider context of the Normandy Campaign.
There is a growing body of work on white farmers in Zimbabwe. Yet the role played by white women – so-called ‘farmers’ wives’ – on commercial farms has been almost completely ignored, if not forgotten. For all the public role and overt power ascribed to white male farmers, their wives played an equally important, although often more subtle, role in power and labour relations on white commercial farms. This ‘soft power’ took the form of maternalistic welfare initiatives such as clinics, schools, orphan programmes and women’s clubs, mostly overseen by a ‘farmer’s wife’. Before and after Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence these played an important role in attracting and keeping farm labourers, and governing their behaviour. After independence they also became crucial to the way white farmers justified their continued ownership of most of Zimbabwe’s prime farmland. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the role that farm welfare initiatives played in Zimbabwe’s agrarian history. Having assessed what implications such endeavours had for the position and well-being of farmworkers before the onset of ‘fast-track’ land reform in the year 2000, Hartnack examines in vivid ethnographic detail the impact that the farm seizures had on the lives of farmworkers and the welfare programmes which had previously attempted to improve their lot.
Modernist writing has always been linked with cinema. The recent renaissance in early British film studies has allowed cinema to emerge as a major historical context for literary practice. Treating cinema as a historical rather than an aesthetic influence, this book analyzes the role of early British film culture in literature, thus providing the first account of cinema as a cause for modernism. Shail’s study draws on little-known sources to create a detailed picture of cinema following its ‘second birth’ as both institution and medium. The book presents a comprehensive account of how UK-based modernism originated as a consequence of—rather than a conscious aesthetic response to—this new component of the cultural landscape. Film’s new accounts of language, endeavor, time, collectivity and political change are first considered, then related to the patterns that comprised modernist texts. Authors discussed include Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, H.D., James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Richardson.
In 1970 at the height of the Cold War, the young Sandhurst-trained Sultan Qaboos of Oman, with secret British military backing, took on communist insurgents in a fierce but little known war. Along with regular British Army and contract officers, the Special Air Service played a key role in this bitterly fought but ultimately successful campaign.The value of winning the Hearts and Minds of the local population was quickly recognised and this is where a select band of Royal Army Veterinary Corps officers came in. The local economy was a primitive one based on agriculture, and the author, freshly qualified and, by his own admission, somewhat naive, found himself solely responsible for the veterinary care of a territory the size of Hungary.Attached to A Squadron, 22 SAS, Andrew Higgins learned how to respond to the Jebali peoples love and concern for the animals that provided their livelihood goats, camels, sheep and most importantly their cattle. Then there were the Sultans horses, pedigree dogs, exotic birds and even bears and hyenas.His first-hand experiences and anecdotes of life dealing with every level of Omani society, from the Ruler and his Court to the humblest refugees and their varied livestock make for wonderfully atmospheric and amusing reading. It also provides a thoughtful insight into the value of hearts and minds campaigns in other military operations where the support of the civilian population is crucial to success.With the SAS and Other Animals is an unusual and potent mix of Special Forces action and veterinary experiences. Readers may well conclude that it really shouldnt have happened to a vet even in a desert war!
This volume chronicles the making of the Harrier Jump Jet—the innovative Cold War fighter aircraft designed to operate from virtually anywhere. In 1957, the British engine manufacturer Bristol Siddeley turned aircraft design on its head with the creation of the Pegasus engine. Until then, aircraft designs would seek out suitable engines. Now the Pegasus was an engine in search of a suitable aircraft. The result was the famous Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first military airplane capable of vertical takeoff and landings. To this day, Harrier Jump Jets are still in front-line service with air forces around the world including the Royal Air Force and US Marine Corps. In this volume, former Bristol Siddeley executive Andrew Dow offers an in-depth look at the Pegasus engine's original design concept, production and flight testing. Dow then covers the developments and improvements that have been made over the years. He also includes experiences of operational combat flying, both from land and sea. Written in straightforward prose that avoids technical jargon, Pegasus, The Heart of the Harrier is copiously illustrated with many previously unseen photographs and diagrams.
French novels, plays, poems and short stories, however temporally or culturally distant from us, continue to be incarnated and reincarnated on cinema screens across the world. From the silent films of Georges Méliès to the Hollywood production of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary directed by Sophie Barthes, The History of French Literature on Film explores the key films, directors, and movements that have shaped the adaptation of works by French authors since the end of the 19th century. Across six chapters, Griffiths and Watts examine the factors that have driven this vibrant adaptive industry, as filmmakers have turned to literature in search of commercial profits, cultural legitimacy, and stories rich in dramatic potential. The volume also explains how the work of theorists from a variety of disciplines (literary theory, translation theory, adaptation theory), can help to deepen both our understanding and our appreciation of literary adaptation as a creative practice. Finally, this volume seeks to make clear that adaptation is never a simple transcription of an earlier literary work. It is always simultaneously an adaptation of the society and era for which it is created. Adaptations of French literature are thus not only valuable artistic artefacts in their own right, so too are they important historical documents which testify to the values and tastes of their own time.
An absorbing reference work that explains the meanings of references and allusions in modern English, from Adonis to Zorro. It is fascinating to browse, and is based upon an extensive reading program that has identified the most commonly-used allusions.
Wheatley's Road Traffic Law in Scotland is a highly regarded source of reference for all those involved in the detection and prosecution of road traffic offences with all the relevant law and authority presented in a clear and accessible style. The sixth edition of this authoritative text has been updated to reflect the many legislative changes brought into force since the Road Safety Act 2006. This edition updates case law and takes account of the focused priorities of Police Scotland and guidance by the Lord Advocate on matters such as careless driving. Consideration is also given to statutory changes given further devolution of power under the Scotland Act 2012.
Typical Men is the first book length study of masculinity in British cinema and offers a broad and lively overview from the Second World War to the present day. Spicer argues that masculinity in popular fiction can best be understood as a range of dynamic and competing cultural types which rise and fall in relation to shifting patterns of film production, audience taste and social change. Specific chapters are devoted to each of the major types debonair gentlemen, civilian professionals, action adventurers, the Ever yma n, Fools and Rogues, criminals, rebels and damaged men - which trace their changing histories through innovative readings of key films, together with a fresh look at the performances of particular stars including James Mason, Kenneth More, Michael Caine and Sean Connery. A final chapter explores the complex and hybrid types that have evolved within a volatile and unstable contemporary British cinema, now part of an array of interrelated media images of masculinity. Typical Men will be of keen interest to those concerned with the cultural history of gender, and its detailed and carefully contextualised interpretations of films afford a reappraisal of British cinema history, especially the neglected and despised 1950s. 'Andrew Spicer's Typical Men is a major intervention in debates about masculinity in the cinema. It takes a lot of intellectual risks, and locates cinematic stereotypes of masculinity in a cinematic and cultural context. It is trenchant and original, and redefines the field of gender representation.' – Sue Harper, Professor of Film History, University of Portsmouth 'The strength of this elegantly and wittily written book is that, in the precision of its detail about individual performances, actors and films, it never loses sight of its argumentative threads.' – Brian McFarlane, Screening the Past
The new NHS is a very different organisation to the one set up 60 years ago. Two decades of reforms have introduced a market element, unprecedented transparency, patient choice, new incentives, devolved accountabilities and a host of new regulatory bodies. All these changes have made governance a crucial and contested issue in health care. Governing the New NHS makes sense of the new systems and will enable anyone interested in healthcare governance to navigate their way confidently through the maze. It describes, assesses and critiques the new governance arrangements. It examines how they are working in practice and how practitioners are responding. The book: explains current governance arrangements and explores related issues and tensions discusses the roles and interrelationships of boards and effective board practice offers a range of practical tools and frameworks. Each chapter is supplemented with expert witness statement written by leading practitioners in the health system. This practical book will be invaluable to all those interested in health governance, policy and management - whether academic, student or practitioner.
Idols of the Odeons examines British film stardom in the post-war era, a time when Hollywood movies were increasingly supplanting the Pinewood/Elstree studio system. The book encompasses the careers of sixteen actors, including Stanley Baker, Diana Dors, Norman Wisdom, Hattie Jacques, Peter Finch and Peter Sellers. Such extremely diverse careers provide the opportunity to explore overlooked films, in addition to examining how the term ‘star’ could apply to a stalwart leading man, a Variety comic, a self-created ‘Vamp’ and a character actor. Above all, this is a book that celebrates, with idiosyncratic humour and warmth, how these actors accomplished much of their best work during the transitional period between the Rank/ABPC roster of stars and the US domination of the British film industry.
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