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Brezhnev (1985), A Room with a View (1985), Mona Lisa (1986), Comrades (1986), Caravaggio (1986), Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), Drowning by Numbers (1988), Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), Life is Sweet (1990), Riff-Raff (1991), The Crying Game (1992), Raining Stones (1993), Shallow Grave (1994), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Trainspotting (1996) and Secrets and Lies (1996). The more politically radical Department of Independent Film and Video also provided support for more experimental low-budget independent films, which
Mass, no servant girl will make the bed. Now that is grave, my friends, it is no matter small: For independent spirit spreads like foul diseases! Yet life is sweet and man is weak and after all – How nice it is, for a change, to do just as one pleases! As if taking its revolutionary cue, the camera also liberates itself for the first time
television comedy, telling one interviewer that ‘If I wasn’t what I am, I would be a cartoonist. My work is in the tradition of Hogarth, Gillray and Rowlandson’ (Wapshott 1982 ). Harlan Kennedy argues ( 1991 : 22) that Abigail’s Party anticipates [Leigh’s later cinema films] High Hopes and Life is Sweet
received a wider UK release than any of his previous work and ‘made more at the box office than his last three films combined’;2 it also ‘took $50 million worldwide, propelling Leigh into the directorial front rank’.3 As evidence of its continuing popularity it was voted fortieth in the 1999 ‘BFI 100’ industry poll. (Life Is Sweet also made it in, at number 95, although Naked, astonishingly, was nowhere to be seen.) The film had also marked a turning point in that it moved Thin Man Films into the European co-production market, funding from the French company CiBY 2000
mother’s Morrison_Achebe.indd 61 26/05/2014 12:03 62 Chinua Achebe hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland ... Is it right that you, Okonkwo, should bring your mother a heavy face and refuse to be comforted? Be careful or you may displease the dead. Your duty is to comfort your wives and children and take them back to your fatherland after seven years. But if you allow sorrow to weigh you down and kill you, they will all die in exile.’ (TFA, 94–5) His
Achebe’s fiction will recall from Things Fall Apart, in which Okonkwo’s uncle Uchendu explains to a gathering of his kinsmen why Nneka is one of the commonest names given to their daughters. ‘It is true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland’ (TFA, 95). Uchendu goes on to castigate Okonkwo for believing himself the greatest of sufferers, by holding up the
la vie inventée est plus douce et plus agréable que la vie réelle, pourquoi hésiter?’ (When the lie is more beautiful than the truth, when the invented life is sweeter and more pleasing than real life, why hesitate?). Nice, simple stories are always easier to swallow than complex narratives; they are also easier to recall. As Audiard explained in an interview with Plazzo: L’ambigüité est dans l’époque où se situe le film, l’hiver 44–45 a compris l’imposture individuelle et collective … Il y a eu
him a literary frame of reference too (Zola, Flaubert, Carroll, Proust, Kafka, Mann), but Maf is first and foremost a philosopher and he scorns the poetic etherealism of cats, whose narcissism he cannot abide. Along with dyspeptic Jewish robins (‘Poor Limey Schmucks’ [O’Hagan, 2010a: 19]), argumentative Brooklyn rats (‘Summa us got woik to do’ [O’Hagan, 2010a: 69]), and easily pleased squirrels (‘Peanut butter … life is sweet’ [O’Hagan, 2010a: 98]), Maf ’s realm parodies that of his owner, undercutting human neuroses and vanities with the immeasurable pleasures of
bella (Life is Sweet, Roberto Benigni, 1998) and Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998). In the end Bovaira and Cuerda decided to deal with Cruise and Miramax, partly because of their track record (including Oscar successes) and global marketing ambitions but also because Amenábar insisted he wished to work in Spain, thus giving him greater creative control and a less stressful shooting schedule (Ubeda-Portugués 2001
Featuring more than 6,500 articles, including over 350 new entries, this fifth edition of The Encyclopedia of British Film is an invaluable reference guide to the British film industry. It is the most authoritative volume yet, stretching from the inception of the industry to the present day, with detailed listings of the producers, directors, actors and studios behind a century or so of great British cinema.
Brian McFarlane's meticulously researched guide is the definitive companion for anyone interested in the world of film. Previous editions have sold many thousands of copies, and this fifth instalment will be an essential work of reference for universities, libraries and enthusiasts of British cinema.