A mirror for England : British movies from austerity to affluence / Raymond Durgnat ; with a foreword by Kevin Gough-Yates.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Durgnat, Raymond, author.

Contributor:

British Film Institute, contributor.

Series:

BFI silver.

BFI silver

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures--Great Britain--History.

Motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 394 pages) : illustrations.

Edition:

2nd Edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Summary:

"Raymond Durgnat's classic study of British films from the 1940s to the 1960s, first published in 1970, remains one of the most important books ever written on British cinema. In his introduction, Kevin Gough-Yates writes: 'Even now, it astounds by its courage and its audacity; if you think you have an 'original' approach to a filmor a director's work and check it against A Mirror for England, you generally discover that Raymond Durgnat had said it already.' Durgnat himself said about the book that 'the main point was arranging a kind of rendezvous between thinking about movies and thinking, not so much about sociology, as about the experiences that people are having all the time.' Durgnat used Mirror to assert the validity of British cinema against its dismissal by the critics of Cahiers du cinéma and Sight and Sound. His analysis takes in classics such as In Which We Serve (1942), A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and The Blue Lamp (1949), alongside 'B' films and popular genres such as Hammer horror. Durgnat makes a cogent and compelling case for the success of British films in reflecting British predicaments, moods and myths, at the same time as providing some disturbing new insights into a national character by whose enigmas and contradictions we continue to be perplexed and fascinated."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note:

Contents

Introduction

Where we come in

When is a British Film a British Film?

Meaning Cut Meaning

Critic: Judge or Accomplice?

CHAPTER I: THE STATE OF THE NATION

The British Constitution

Good Irresolutions

Trouble at t'Mill

CHAPTER II: CROSS SECTIONS

The Nine Lives of Colonel Blimp

Pigs in the Middle

Journey to the edges of the Working-Class

Odds and Bods

CHAPTER III: POINTS OF VIEW

Left, Right and Centre

And so, as the Sun Sets slowly, We Bid Adieu

Tunes of Bogey

Gangrene

British Style

Standing up for Jesus

Bloody Foreigners

CHAPTER IV: OUR GLORIOUS HERITAGE

History is Bunk

The Impotence of Being Earnest

The Doctored Documentary

CHAPTER V: THE AGE OF ACQUIESCENCE

System as Stalemate

Dance to your Daddy

Stresses and Strains

My Famous Last word is my Bond

God Bless Captain Vere

Hard Conscience and Nonconformity

The Glum and the Guilty

Laugh and Lie down

Love in a Damp Climate

The Lukewarm Life

CHAPTER VI: ROMANTICS AND MORALISTS

Between Two Worlds

A Gothic Revival

Terence Coloured

Shammerteurism

Flesh and Fantasy

The English Moralists

Have Scalpels

Will Travel

Suspended Animation

Lists

References

Bibliography

Filmographical Index

Film Artists Index

Foreign Film Artists and Film Index

Other Names Index.

Notes:

Compliant with Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Content is displayed as HTML full text which can easily be resized or read with assistive technology, with mark-up that allows screen readers and keyboard-only users to navigate easily.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781349883462

1349883468

9781838711290

1838711295

9781838714239

1838714235

OCLC:

1120196735