Andrew Higson
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Silent landscapes
Rural settings, national identity and British silent cinema
in British rural landscapes on film
Chapter DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526104687.00007
Online Publication Date:
01 Sep 2016
Abstract only
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From Hepworth’s scenics in the late 1890s and early 1900s to the heritage films of the last couple of decades, the representation of a particular version of traditional, rural England has been central to the articulation of national identity in British films. It is perhaps worth remembering too that 1895 saw not only the first public performances of films, but also the foundation of the National Trust, known at the time as the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest and Natural Beauty. This chapter offers some reflections on the use of rural landscapes in British films of the silent period, and the ways in which those films and their landscapes were promoted and taken up in contemporary critical debate. Inevitably, this will touch on the role of landscape in articulating national identity – and on the centrality of the concept of the picturesque in the film culture of the period. It will also become clear that in contemporary critical debate picturesque Englishness is very often seen as synonymous with high quality photography. I will draw upon examples from the late 1890s to the late 1920s, and from fiction and non-fiction films alike.
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Editor:
Paul Newland
eISBN:
9781526104687
Publisher:
Manchester University Press
Cover British rural landscapes on film
Subjects:
Film, Media and Music
Page Count:
23
Publisher:
Manchester University Press

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Cover Dance and politics

Dance and politics

Moving beyond boundaries

Author:
Dana Mills

Book

Publication History:

Online Publication Date:
21 Nov 2016
Subjects:
  1. Film, Media and Music
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Dance has always been a method of self- expression for human beings. This book examines the political power of dance and especially its transgressive potential. Focusing on readings of dance pioneers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, Gumboots dancers in the gold mines of South Africa, the One Billion Rising movement using dance to protest against gendered violence, dabkeh in Palestine and dance as protest against human rights abuse in Israel, the Sun Dance within the Native American Crow tribe, the book focuses on the political power of dance and moments in which dance transgresses politics articulated in words. Thus the book seeks ways in which reading political dance as interruption unsettles conceptions of politics and dance.

Cover Tony Garnett

Tony Garnett

Author:
Stephen Lacey

Book

Publication History:

Online Publication Date:
19 Jul 2013
Subjects:
  1. Film, Media and Music
Available In:
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This is a book-length study of one of the most respected and prolific producers working in British television. From ground-breaking dramas from the 1960s such as Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home to the ‘must-see’ series in the 1990s and 2000s such as This Life and The Cops, Tony Garnett has produced some of the most important and influential British television drama. This book charts his career from his early days as an actor to his position as executive producer and head of World Productions, focusing on the ways in which he has helped to define the role of the creative producer, shaping the distinctive politics and aesthetics of the drama he has produced, and enabling and facilitating the contributions of others. Garnett's distinctive contribution to the development of a social realist aesthetic is also examined, through the documentary-inspired early single plays to the subversion of genre within popular drama series.
Cover Theorising Media

Theorising Media

Power, form and subjectivity

Author:
John Corner

Book

Publication History:

Online Publication Date:
19 Jul 2013
Subjects:
  1. Film, Media and Music
Available In:
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This book explores how issues of power, form and subjectivity feature at the core of all serious thinking about the media, including appreciations of their creativity as well as anxiety about the risks they pose. Drawing widely on an interdisciplinary literature, the author connects his exposition to examples from film, television, radio, photography, painting, web practice, music and writing in order to bring in topics as diverse as reporting the war in Afghanistan, the televising of football, documentary portrayals of 9/11, reality television, the diversity of taste in the arts and the construction of civic identity. The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, three big chapters on each of the key notions provide an interconnected discussion of the media activities opened up for exploration and the debates they have provoked. The second part presents examples, arguments and analysis drawing on the author's previous work around the core themes, with notes placing them in the context of the whole book. The book brings together concepts both from Social Studies and the Arts and Humanities, addressing a readership wider than the sub-specialisms of media research. It refreshes ideas about why the media matter, and how understanding them better remains a key aim of cultural inquiry and a continuing requirement for public policy.