Here's British Cinema
Having recently viewed the awe inspiring ‘Wonderland'' (dir: Michael Winterbottom; 1999) it got me thinking…
Our American counterparts cinematic output is usually awarded a micro focus when discussing the filmic medium, but I truly believe Britain is enriched with cinema worthy of a national pride from all occupants of the United Kingdom. Not that we are better or worse than our global brethren, it's just I feel that people of the ‘Word'' community would have an opinion to share/vent/exhaust with regards to ‘Britannia's'' committal to celluloid perfection. As Mr. James Nesbitt said: ‘I think a British film should probably say something about our identity, or our past, or our shared vision of the future.'' And here are the ones I think have achieved that (and more):
In no particular order:
1) Mean Time (dir: Mike Leigh; 1986)
2) Last Resort (dir: Pawel Pawlikowski; 2000)
3) 10 Rillington Place (dir: Richard Fleischer; 1971)
4) A Clockwork Orange (dir: Stanley Kubrick; 1971)
5) Dead Mans Shoes (dir: Shane Meadows; 2004)
More to add?
Mike Leigh
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Excuse me, but...
.. no Ealing comedies (Kind hearts and Coronets deserves a special mention here), no Billy Liar, no, I repeat NO Powell and Pressburger films AT ALL? Outrageous. To list the P&P films alone which should be in any list: Black Narcissus; The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp; I Know Where I'm Going, A Canterbury Tale; and, my favourite film, A Matter of Life and Death.
Thank you Gatz
I would say without even hesitating that the greatest British film ever made is The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp. Or possibly A Matter Of Life And Death. Then you've got David Lean's film of Great Expectations, Brief Encounter...those are just off the top of my head. I'm still on my first cup of coffee.
I go for...
...'Get Carter'. I think that one's the best gangster film I've seen. I hate those laddish Guy Ritchie movies which I think have had a negative effect on the perception of British crime films, but 'Get Carter' is as gritty and downbeat as they get.
obviously
Made In England
Kes
This Is England
24 Hour Party People
Control
Five films that could only be made in England.
Do I need to see "Control"?
Is there really, really any more to be said and shown about Ian Curtis than what was said and shown in "24HPP"? (I'm not a JD fan, by any means, so I'd need some kind of incentive besides the music.)
Yes
It's a great film. It stands as a love story and a story about a band. It is exciting, funny, poignant and heartbreakingly sad. I would add, see it at the cinema if you can.
I miss Film Four...
After Shallow Grave they got too greedy for international success but I remember the British films Channel 4 used to show:
Rita, Sue And Bob Too
Letter To Brezhnev
Restless Natives
Everything Peter Greenaway ever did
The best british film I've seen recently was Red Road.
Hiss
Letter To Brezhnev was a big, heaving blancmange of a film. The rest of Film Four's output was brilliant though....'Secrets and Lies'' being the pinnacle.
Point Taken...
...but it doesn't half remind me of the early eighties. Loads of Film Four was iffy but they did capture moods of Britain at the time. Not like now with this horrid transatlanticism.
not sure I understand this
not sure I understand this thread are we just listing "great" British films or films that tell/show us something about living in Britain and shine some light on the lives most people live. As out list so far Wonderland,24HPP,Control are the only recent film that show a world I recognise. I've never knowingly met a gangster, gone to cotswold wedding with a film star, been banished from my family and had to redeem myself on the beaches of Dunkirk, I went to a comp not Hogwarts but I have been to the fireworks in Battersea park (wonderland), lived in a boring isolated northern town (control) queued outside the Hacienda etc. We seem to have stopped making films about ordinary life, the extremes get covered the rich (love actually) and the poor (Nil by mouth) but the middle where most people life is never mentioned. And before we get jibes about less than thrilling films about accountants, well surely that's a challenge to find the interest, humour, emotion in the seemingly dull and work a day.
As to Kes it's not a work of fiction it's just a beautifully shot and edited documentary of my school and the best film ever made in Britain.
Greatest British Film
THE THIRD MAN..I win. agree that KES, DEAD MANS SHOES,A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH: ANY EALING COMEDY and of course CARRY ON CLEO,are fantastic films
Archetypically British films that speak of being British
and which have not yet been mentioned:
Scum - Alan Clarke 1979 - Ray Winstone's astonishing early performance. Borstal as a deterrent? You betcha. Borstal as an element of an enlightened criminal justice system? Discuss.
Lawrence Of Arabia - David Lean 1962 - watch this and contemplate the class system, Britain's relationship with eccentricity and obsession, the nature of leadership, the nature of imperialism, and where the heck Britain and the middle east are today, and why. A film about the events of the early 20th century reveals much about the events of the early 21st century. Discuss.
Brazil - Terry Gilliam 1985 - it took a genius American anglophile to focus on our obsessional predeliction for bureaucratic procedures and summon up this nightmare dystopia, which is nevertheless very much a British film. How many years into the future is it really set? Discuss.
Theme-park Britain
It is true that many British films present the country in a way that is alien to most of its inhabitants. I think this is the price we pay for speaking the language of Hollywood. German, French or Italian cinema doesn't suffer this problem to the same extent.
That said, Chris Petit's take on late-70s Britain, Radio On, is an excellent slice of German inflected English entirely in tune with the times.
Is that the one about
the bloke driving to Bristol on the old A road to meet up with his brother? Bumps into Sting pumping petrol and playing "Three Steps To Heaven" on an acoustic, perched in the door of a caravan?
Neat movie.
That's the one
I recently got a DVD of it. It's a gem. (Especially if you have ever lived in Bristol.)
Got to disagree there. Look
Got to disagree there.
Look no further than 'London To Brighton''. Represents both places with municipal accuracy.
Sorry Liam
you lost me there.
I was responding...
...to innominate's comments about British film depiciting England in an 'alien light''.
Most, not all
I agree that some British film is true to our lives, but the need to make big bucks on the other side of the pond leads to the unreality of Four Weddings..., Notting Hill and Love, Actually.
True, true.
I can't think of a single British feature (well, one that has opted for realism over idealism) which has translated over seas.
If the Americans want a piece of the English pie, we have to condense our cinema down to quintessential British fare (bumbling, fop-haired socialites - swaggering east end spivs - strawberries and cream - Paddington Station etc.)
I want the Yanks to appreciate a depiction of a hoop-eared, alco-pop swilling ladette pissing herself on a pavement covered in chips.
Withnail & I
"I can't think of a single British feature (well, one that has opted for realism over idealism) which has translated over seas."
As someone who lives overseas I can throw up the title of an unmistakably British film that went over well in this country at least.
There was a TV show here titled something like "Australia's favourite films". It had various celeb types offering up their opinions on the movies that had topped an on-line poll. The British film I remember being very high was "Withnail & I". The show only focussed on the top ten or twenty.
An unmistakably British film that I loved when I saw it 20+ years ago was "Quadrophenia".
I can't speak for how realistic either film is.
I saw Quadrophenia (for the first time) the other night.
Oh deary deary me.
Oh dear indeed
I saw The Who do the whole thing at Hyde Park in 1996. Longest afternoon of my life. I should have just left after Bob Dylan's set.
well...
''Withnail and I'' is the only leading light.
It's also my 4th best film.
But has violate murders in
But has violate murders in it I've bben to lonodna dn Brighton loads of times and nope not been involved in any murder where are the films that aren't about low lifes?
Naked
I might have missed mention of it above but Naked (early-ish Mike Leigh, some time last century)doesn't seem to have been mentioned... how can this be?
I've been trying to find
I've been trying to find that film on a suitable viewing format for years...luckily it's included in the forthcoming Mike Leigh Boxset
british films
Bill Forsyth's trilogy of 80's classics "Gregory's Girl", the magnificent "Local Hero" and not forgetting "Comfort and Joy"
Where are ye Billy???
Cinema
British cinema does not necessarily mean good cinema. Its works like Terence davies' A long Day Closes or the work of Jarman that make me pound to British and independent. For a culture that is of the cinematic map we just need to either write about our fantasies of living in Spain or stand up tall with a fresh young generation of film makers who aren't wooed by the thought of filming a gang fight with a red-rock, a generation that can still see and fall in love with the wonders of celluloid. While the rest of the world is occupying the big screen, why not uses the small ones in every corner and ally, and start talking about films as though they were books again.