Option A cinema The Dam Busters (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Dam Busters (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is another British war film we will be looking at.

Option A cinema David Lean - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Lean - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On Friday we have our last class, since the 9th May will be the day of the final test. We will be looking at a couple of films. One of them will be "The Bridge on the River Kwai" directed by David Lean. Here is the wikipedia article about this director for you to have a read through.

British cinema Revision

British cinema Revision - MP3 files, extracts from classes

To help you revise for your exam (which is just after the April holidays), you will find behind this link some extracts from the history sections of our classes, in MP3 form. Don't hesitate to download and listen to them on your MP3 players.

Remember also to read the books recommended in the course description, especially

Pilard, Philippe Histoire du cinéma britannique, Paris : Nathan, 1996

and, of course, to go to the cinema!

Option A cinema homework

As I explained in class, for students on Régime général, the second marked exercise will be a comparison of two films, one in English, one in French, in the same category. Below are the different choices. Remember you only choose two films!

NB Plagiarism : any one sentence copied from another source is a serious problem, except if the source is both quoted and justified.

First category
Heritage Films
Compare one of the films on the right with one of the films on the left


Orgeuil et préjugés Jean de Florette
Raison et sentiment Manon des sources
The Remains of the Day Les choristes
Howards End


OR
Category two
« Social films »
Compare any one of the films on the right with one of the films on the left


Dirty Pretty Things Le fils
My name is Joe Ressources Humaines
Brassed Off La Graine et le Mulet
East is East La Promesse
Trainspotting La Haine

OR
Category three
Comedies
Compare one of the films on the right with one of the films on the left
Monty Python and the Holy Grail Les Visiteurs
The Full Monty Bienvenue chez les ch’tis
Bridget Jones Diary Le dîner des cons
Love Actually



Your comparison should be between 600 and 800 words long. You should not tell the story of the films, or talk too much about the actors, but talk more about why the director may have chosen this story, what values are presented, how the audience is attracted and amused or educated by the film, why people liked or did not like the film, and what image of France (or Belgium) and England are presented in the films.

Option A cinema - DST suggested answers

DST Option A Cinema mars 2008. Suggested answers.

Note : There are several answers possible, these are just suggestions. If you show both your understanding of the passage and extract shown, and your knowledge of the main challenges and successes of British cinema in the 20th Century, that should be fine.

Part one (6 points)
Watch the extract from the film “East is East”.

Write a few paragraphs about the extract, noting what image of Britain is given and how, and how this compares to images of Britain in the main types of films we have seen so far. How interesting do you find the image presented ?

Suggested answer :
In this extract we see a part of town where ordinary people live - they obviously are not part of the elite. The houses are basic and uniform, the children play in the streets, the parents and children are not sophisticated and polite. It is a part of town which is ethnically very mixed, and we see the mixing and interaction, in particular of different religious and cultural customs.

The showing of the lives of working class people is typical of the films of Ken Loach and others over the last few years. However, many of Loach’s films until recently have shown parts of the working class which are not ethnically mixed.

The image given in the extract from “East is East” is in many ways very positive, some might even say idealized. The only racist seen is a ridiculous and isolated character, obviously not enjoying the sypmathy even of his daughter and grandson, who, on the contrary are very much friends with the non-white children. It is an image of multicultural Britain where there is no tension. Even religious customs - the Christian procession at the beginning, and then the Pakistani wedding ceremony, do not cause tensions between the communities. Everybody enjoys watching the Christian procession. The whole street except for one person is excited about the pakistani wedding. The priest is a friend to everyone (and can play good football too). The Pakistani father and the extremely English mother both have faults. Although the father has tried to impose his culture on his son, the father too is shown with some sympathy.
We can see the director is trying to deal with complex questions carefully, but is it oversimplified?
Part two : read the following passage and answer the questions (14 points)

i. British director Ken Loach has launched an attack against other UK film-makers, saying they are far too preoccupied with Hollywood. Loach, famous for films like My Name is Joe, Raining Stones and Riff-Raff, is in Cannes for a special screening of his film Kes, which was made in 1969. Loach's comments could hit a raw nerve this year, as no British films have been shortlisted for the prestigious Palme d'Or.
ii. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The climate generally in Britain is to make films that look across the Atlantic and I think that's disastrous." "It means our own culture gets devalued and it's as though there has to be an American in everything."
iii. Loach said that British films and many directors use British films as calling-cards for the states. "I think it's time British film-makers stopped allowing themselves to be colonised so ruthlessly by US ideas and stopped looking so slavishly to the US market," he said, adding that it "demeans film-making when they do that".
iv. Ironically, his latest film, Bread and Roses, was made in Los Angeles, but Loach insisted it was a "very anti-Hollywood film". He said it was a story of the people who clean the offices in LA. "There is a nice irony in making a film in LA about that half of the people you don't see - that aren't represented - they're the ones who do the work really," he said. "Their lives are as full of drama and comedy - much more so really - than the white people who live in the hills."
v. But despite dipping his toes in US waters, he imagined it will be his last film in America. "It's a fairly hostile place to be in - probably the most difficult place in the world to make films, oddly enough because they have very fixed ways of doing things," he said.
BBC News
Read the document and answer the questions in your own words. Do not quote the article. You are expected to show your knowledge of recent British cinema.

1 What does Loach complain about ? (3 points)

Suggested answer : Ken Loach is unhappy because the films he sees being made in England are too much centred around American values and American preoccupations. Directors are only worried about whether their film will sell in America, and are careful to use an American star to help things along or, even worse, they only make a British film in the hope of being invited to work in Hollywood afterwards. He would like to see a real independence in British films.

2 How does Loach try to avoid being too « Hollywood » - give examples from the article and also from outside the article. (5 points)

Suggested answer : He deliberately uses stories about ordinary people, who Hollywood normally doesn’t write about, and at the centre of his stories is the dignity and drama of ordinary people, a very positive image. He rejects the idea of an automatic « happy end » to a movie. In addition, to try to give an impression of real life, he frequently uses amateur actors, people who have really lived similar experiences rather than people who have learned how to act at acting school. Sometimes he does not give the actors scripts, as he wants them to be spontaneous. Even his lighting and camerawork are often rough and ready rather than smooth as Hollywood is.

3 American domination is a long-term problem for British film-makers. Explain some of the different strategies that British film-makers and governments have used throughout the last hundred years to survive despite US domination. (6 points)

Suggested answer :
US domination is a very old problem for British film makers. At some periods the government has made laws to defend British film production - for example in the 1920s, a law was passed obliging all cinemas to present a certain percentage of British-made films. (a Quota). One of the disadvantages of the law was that cinemas were tempted to make very cheap, low-quality films simply to fill the quota. The government later tried to stop this practice by establishing a minimum amount that could be spent on a film, per minute of film.

In more recent years the most important tactics to protect British film making have been attempts to find « niche markets » - to specialize in particular types of film, and not to try to compete with the American bestselling blockbusters. So « heritage films » of famous British romantic novels, (Emma, The English Patient, The Remains of the Day,and so on)sophisticated comedies about the upper middle classes, (Four Weddings and a Funeral) or working class « realist » films (Ken Loach’s films, Trainspotting, the Full Monty, and so on) have made up the greater number of films made in Britain.

Other tactics include making joint projects, using American money, and/or making sure there is an American star in the film (Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, A Fish named Wanda, and so on).

Option A Category:British films - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:British films - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is probably too much information for your needs at this link, but it is interesting to browse these pages.

Option A cinema :James Bond 007

James Bond 007

This site tells you a lot of things about James Bond. But what do the James Bond films mean in terms of images of Britain and of Britishness (or is it England and Englishness?)

If you like James Bond films, try to think about why you like them.
If you don't like them, try to think about why they are so popular.

Option A cinéma Photos from The Navigators

All Photos from The Navigators

All Photos from The Navigators

The release of a film is always accompanied by photos and posters, and sometimes by trailers. All of these elements show how the production company hopes to attract an audience. They often do this by emphasizing that the film will be the sort of films which their audience *already like*.

This link shows you some photos connected to Ken Loach's film "The Navigators", about working conditions for railway workers after the privatization of Britain's railways. How does the company try to make the film look interesting ? What are you expecting, afetr seeing these photos ?

These photos come from another film, My Name is Joe

These photos come from Sweet sixteen

Look particularly closely at the posters, which are always carefully chosen as a way of presenting the film.

Option A cinema Basil Dearden - Wikipedia,

Basil Dearden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is a short wikipedia article on Basil Dearden, the director of the early Police film we watched last week.

We will see that police films were some of the first to attempt "social realism" in fiction.

Option A cinema : Ken Loach

There is no shortage of information about Ken Loach on the web.
Here are three interviews he has given over the last few years :

Interview with Loach about My Name is Joe
Interview with Loach from 1996 about Land and Freedom
Interview with Loach from 1998

Option A cinema Ken Loach: Still angry after all these years - People, News - Independent.co.uk

Ken Loach: Still angry after all these years - People, News - Independent.co.uk

Next week, we will be looking at an extract from one of Ken Loach's early films, "Kes". Here is an interview of the director in the daily newspaper, "The Independent".

Option A Cinema of the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

Cinema of the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

The wikipedia article (follow the link) on UK cinema may be useful. It does tend to consist rather too much of a list of films and rather too little of a consideration of what the film-makers were trying to do and why, but as background information can be handy.

Option A cinema - images of Britain in British films

A few days ago I put on this blog some links for students of option A cinema.
Today administrative information : the marking scheme.

For régime général
50% is based on the end of semester "contrôle final"
The other 50% is based half on a mid-semester test (no doubt a commentary on a film extract), and half on work you will do at home, comparing two films. I will be giving you a list of films from which you can choose.

Option A cinema Pride and Prejudice on Yahoo! Movies

Pride and Prejudice on Yahoo! Movies

We looked in class at a heritage film "Sense and Sensibility", based on a Jane Austen novel. Are these films all the same? Here are some links which will allow you to watch short extracts of other films which are normally considered as heritage films.

Click on this link to watch extracts from another film based on a Jane Austen novel, Pride and prejudice.

Click here to read reviews of "The English Patient"

Click here for the trailer of Elizabeth