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The introductory chapter is written to help position the reader regarding the academic climate that saw the first edition of Hammer and Beyond materialise, to consider some of the book’s omissions, and to assess the state of British horror in the years immediately leading up to, and following, its publication.
cinema and society in the last twenty years will also be considered. From acting and scriptwriting to directing Serreau’s early career is typical of many of her female contemporaries. Although a few older female filmmakers (such as Agnès Varda, Marguerite Duras and Nelly Kaplan) managed to make films in the 1960s (even late 1950s for Varda), most of the baby boomers became directors only in the 1970s. They often started with acting and felt, as numerous actresses did at the time, either a growing frustration with the roles
– La mala educación and Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces, 2009 ) – which blur distinctions between past–present and fact–fiction, it is not surprising that Volver (encouraged by Almodóvar’s production notes and marketing materials) prompted reviewers to focus on the film’s local colour and its autobiographical dimension, aspects that mask the film’s engagement with the silencing of the past, the ramifications of unaddressed trauma, and the specularisation of girls and women in cinema and society in general. Volver employs mother–daughter relationships
Despite his controversial reputation and international notoriety as a filmmaker, no full-length study of Henri-Georges Clouzot has ever been published in English. This book offers a re-evaluation of Clouzot's achievements, situating his career in the wider context of French cinema and society, and providing detailed and clear analysis of his major films (Le Corbeau, Quai des Orfèvres, Le Salaire de la peur, Les Diaboliques, Le Mystère Picasso). Clouzot's films combine meticulous technical control with sardonic social commentary and the ability to engage and entertain a broad public. Although they are characterised by an all-controlling perfectionism, allied to documentary veracity and a disturbing bleakness of vision, Clouzot is well aware that his knows the art of illusion. His fondness for anatomising social pretence, and the deception, violence and cruelty practised by individuals and institutions, drew him repeatedly to the thriller as a convenient and compelling model for plots and characters, but his source texts and the usual conventions of the genre receive distinctly unconventional treatment.
how they were received by popular contemporary magazines such as Picturegoer and Picture Show, and what trade papers like Kinematograph Weekly and Today’s Cinema made of them. These might be thought to have had their fingers on the pulse of what was likely to appeal to large, receptive audiences. Notes 1 For example, Charles Barr, Ealing Studios, London: University of California Press, 1977; Robert Murphy, Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939–48, London: Routledge, 1989; Charles Drazin, The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s, London: I
. Murphy, Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939–1949 (London: Routledge, 1992) , p. 34; A. Davies, ‘A Cinema in Between: Postwar British Cinema’, in A. Davies and A. Sinfield (eds) British Culture of the Postwar: An Introduction to Literature and Society 1945–1999 (London: Routledge, 2000) , pp. 110–124, at p. 111. 9 M. Sweet, Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema (London: Faber & Faber, 2005), p. 5. 10 Deborah Sugg Ryan’s analysis of ‘suburban modernism’ and Judy Giles’ exploration of domestic modernity and the suburbs
. In the only historical survey of Pakistani cinema done in recent years, Cinema and Society: Film and Social Change in Pakistan , surprisingly, the only notable mention of the film Zerqa is that of the film’s poster ( Figure 12.2 ): Posters of the 1960s also include political and revolutionary, anti-colonial themes, most
(London: BFI, 1992), p. 142. 6 Robert Murphy, Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939–49 (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 113. 7 Squadron Leader Ken Cater MBE (retd) (personal communication). 8
a blend of all three’ ( 1967 : 39) – and that is what Stanley Baker achieved without apparent effort. Bibliography Aldgate , Anthony and Richards , Jeffrey ( 1999 ), Best of British; Cinema and Society from 1930 to Present , London : I. B. Tauris . Anderson , Lindsay ( 1957 ), ‘ Get Out and Push! ’ Encounter , November, 14 – 22 . Barr , Charles (ed.) ( 1986 ), All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema , London : BFI . Barr , Charles ( 1998 ), Ealing Studios (3rd ed.), London
event’ of quite extraordinary prominence and duration, and time and again the trade press 5 6 Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45 contained reports of attendances fluctuating in response to events as dramatic as the blackout or the blitz, or as prosaic as the changing of the clocks or the seasons. This book will explore the interconnectedness of cinema and society in Britain during the Second World War not only in terms of the impact that the war had on British cinemas and cinemagoing between 1939 and 1945, but also in terms of how the cinema