Studying the British crime film /
"Ever since its inception, British cinema has been obsessed with crime and the criminal. One of the first narrative films to be produced in Britain, the 1905 short Rescued by Rover, was a fast paced tale of abduction and kidnap; the first British sound film, Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Leighton Buzzard :
Auteur,
2014.
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| Series: | Studying British cinema series.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "Ever since its inception, British cinema has been obsessed with crime and the criminal. One of the first narrative films to be produced in Britain, the 1905 short Rescued by Rover, was a fast paced tale of abduction and kidnap; the first British sound film, Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929), was concerned with murder and criminal guilt; and the first ever BAFTA for Best British film was awarded to Carol Reed's 1947 work Odd Man Out, a narrative surrounding a failed robbery and prison escape. Yet for a genre that is seemingly so important to the British cinematic character, there is little direct theoretical or historical work written upon it. The Britain of British cinema is often written about in terms of its national history, its ethnic diversity or its cultural tradition but very rarely in terms of its criminal tendencies and its darker underbelly. Studying the British Crime Film makes the assumption that, in order to know how British cinema truly works, it is necessary to pull back the veneer of the costume piece, the historical drama or the rom-com and take a glimpse at what hides beneath. Studying the British Crime Film looks closely at a variety films relating to different aspects of criminal behaviour, including gangland culture from Brighton Rock (1947) to Essex Boys (2000), the heist film from The League of Gentlemen (1960) to Sexy Beast (2000), from the post-war serial killer of 10 Rillington Place (1971) to the seedy underworld of contemporary Britain in London to Brighton (2006). Each chapter not only offers an in-depth reading of the films under discussion but also guides the reader through the processes of studying British cinema in terms of both genre and nationality, giving practical skills as well as theoretical knowledge."--Publisher's website. |
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| Physical Description: | 170 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 163-167) and index. |
| ISBN: | 1906733740 9781906733742 |
