Steve Crook

And The Long Good Friday reflected the "entrepreneurial" side of Thatcherism :)

Steve

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DB7

Anticipates it really Steve as she only came to power months earlier.

Gibbie

I don't think the tide of time is over yet.

To say it didn't make an impact for British film is to pass it by. Although, I agree the "revitalization", as you say, didn't happen; because, I think Brit films went in another direction that was rather self-immolating regarding subject matter and we are still in that period.

And, per the charge that it was merely Thatcheristic is inaccurate - It had a good popularity - even in Argentina. It won an Academy Award here - Best Picture of the Year. Colin Welland's screenplay was far from being nationalistic.

Gibbie

Steve Crook

The seeds were there for a while, she just reaped the crop :)

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lambchopnixon

Thanks for all the interesting replies but I have practically no films still, to look for because of anyone loving them or recognising them as very good films. Surely the '80's can't be so completely barren within the veritable flood of films produced at least post-1983. Film books like Time Out in fact pay compliments to more films from the '80's than even the '40's golden period but of those available to buy i've not yet found the quality. Recommendations anyone?

Girl drink drunk

Although the draughtsmans contract was mentioned I think other films by Greenaway rate a mention as well. Drowning by Numbers and The Cook and the Thief... ( now there is the film that defines the decade!). These were innovative, distinctive and wonderful cinema. His short films such as Making a Splash were also a joy.

On the decline and re-emergence of production at that time I'm surprised no mention has been made of Channel Four. TV / Video was said to spell the death of cinema at that time - in the end it actually gave it a boost. Channel Four, through its co-funding, put money into films in a way no other broadcaster had at that point.

Stephen frears had not made a cinema film since his debut in 1971 with Gumshoe when they funded The Hit in 1984 (as well as a lot of his later films). I think his previous film Walter (1982) may also have had a limited release. Same story with Mike Leigh - Bleak Moments (1971) and then all TV until High Hopes (1988). Examples of new talent, as mentioned above, Neil Jordan was also C4 promoted - Angel (1982), Company of Wolves (1984) and Mona Lisa (1986). The last another film to reflect the spirit of the age.

lambchopnixon

Errr, still no-one has been able to name a single movie that they love from this prolific period in Britfilm, the '80's...i'd like to hear of a number of faves if poss. to persue..

dar111

Absolute Beginners 1986

helldriver

Absolutely! AB was rather pilloried by critics at the time mainly because it wasn't what a "British film" was supposed to be. It was a brave move for Julian Temple to "Hollywoodize" (for want of a better word) what was a serious cult novel that dealt with important social issues that were still current at the time, and it rather backfired...the casting of Bowie and Kensit probably didn't help matters either. I'm not sure how it stands up nearly 20 years on but it was in terms of British cinema a sort of Archers film for the 80's.

Another film which might invite a comparison with Powell and Pressburger is Richard Marquand's EYE OF THE NEEDLE, that was generally dismissed simply beacuse of what it was: a WWII tale of romance and espionage. It affords a rare leading role to the excellent Kate Nelligan.

Temple's earlier ROCK N ROLL SWINDLE probably works better now than at the time, as does another punk film, Jack Hazan's RUDE BOY, which is essential if only for its footage of The Clash, but it truly captures the period.

Well, that's four to be going on with...

Steve Crook

Talking of Julien (with an 'e') Temple...

Yes, he declared his admiration of Powell & Pressburger when I met him. The P&P connections ain't accidental. Have you seen Pandemonium (2000)? Some very Powellian imagery.

Eye of the Needle (1981) has often been compared (for style as much as story) to The Spy in Black (1939) (amongst others).

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helldriver

Sorry about losing Temple's e!

No, I'd never even heard of PANDEMONIUM until now. The last work of his I saw was FILTH AND THE FURY which I quite liked but left me wanting. His best work is probably EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY, which i have added to my DVD collection but have yet to revisit, though while the IMDB credits this as UK/US production it's a very much a Hollywood movie in every sense of of the word. Being something of a Mickey rourke fan I even saw BULLET but both actor and director must've been at their lowest ebb when making this one.

Re. EOTN, THE SPY IN THE BLACK is the obvious reference point here though I'm not sure how stylistically similar it is to EOTN. SPY is very much a Hitchcockian suspenser with some of the director's obsessions present rather than a fully realised Powell & Pressburger work, and actually I much prefer the follow-up CONTRABAND, which shows how fast the director was progressing with BLIMP only 3 years away. EOTN was of course based on a Ken Follet novel; how closely the film followed the book or if Follet himself was inspired by SPY I don't know.

EOTN is certainly the outstanding work in Marquand's curious filmography. I recall seeing THE LEGACY theatrically and subsequently on TV and it was very ordinary, while the huge success of the routine JAGGED EDGE can be attributed more to Joe Eszterhas's script than Marquand's direction, though neither could make a success of HEARTS OF FIRE. Of course, the biggie is RETURN OF THE JEDI (who knows how he got that job?) but how much input the credited director's had in the STAR WARS's sequels is obviously open to discussion.

Steve Crook

Remember that The Spy in Black was Powell & Pressburger's first collaboration and they were both brought in to tidy up & finish off work that other people had started so it's only got a few hints of the pleasures to come.

Contraband I really like. It's a very sexy movie - for the time.

Between those two & Blimp, we also have 49th Parallel and One of Our Aircraft is Missing which was the first with that lovely title "Written, Produced, and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger".


As for Julien Temple, do check out Pandaemonium (2000). I haven't seen all his other films - but we were mainly talking about Powell & Pressburger rather than his own work :)

Steve

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helldriver

Was another director actually slated to do THE SPY IN BLACK? Yes, I wasn't forgetting 49P or OOOAIM, both films I like very much, but I think BLIMP was the film where the Archers really became a singular and unique force.

Actually Temple's filmography is pretty thin...most of his credits are for music productions.

Back to projects taken over by other other directors, I was just going thru the extras on THE GUNS OF NAVARONE DVD and in an interview Anthony Quinn talks about the film's original director and why he was replaced, but refuses to name him. On the audio commentary (which I could only get thru about an hour of) I'm pretty sure J. Lee Thompson says the original director was "Steve MacKendrick" - does he actually mean Alexander Mackendrick, whose involvement with the film I must admit I was totally unaware of?

eib

Heat & Dust 1983 is one of my all time faves - fantastic screenplay

James Fox

Bond fans will debate this forever, but I thought "License To Kill" was pretty terrific. Of course, Dalton is my second favorite Bond of all time after Connery.