British Film Class

[Angerr]

I'm a student of film theory/history on our local (Czech) university. We are now nearly finished with our 3 months long course concerned with British cinema. This is the list of films we had seen and had a lecture about afterwards:

The Private Life of Henry VIII. - Alexander Korda
Lady Hamilton
In Which We Serve - David Lean
Brief Encounter
Oliver Twist
The Entertainer - Tony Richardson
A Taste of Honey
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Karel Reisz
Oh! What a Lovely War - Richard Attenborough
Hamlet - Laurence Olivier
King & Country - Joseph Losey
Secret Ceremony
The League of Gentlemen - Basil Dearden

I have to note that the course was in no way meant to be an introductory course to British Cinema. Rather it was a compilation of films our lecturer found interesting for some reason and wanted us to see them. Because all films were shown in 35mm copies with Czech subtitles (with the only exception of Oliver Twist, which was shown without subtitles), availability of the films in our National Film Archive was also an issue. The proffesor runs this course every term, each time concerning on a particular theme (either a country profile or a director's profile).
If, though, you had to make a proper term-long profile of British cinema, with one lecture/one film per week (which means 12 to 14 films at best) and without limits on local subtitled version available, what films do you think are missing on this list and which ones would you exclude from it?
I don't think it necessary to include notoriously well-known films like A Clockwork Orange by Kubrick though its British.
Personaly, I think a film by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger is a must and maybe also The Wicker Man and The Third Man.

[penfold]

I'm terribly biased, but I would always want to include The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp...The Third Man perhaps, and either The Wicker Man or a Hammer classic to reflect our love of Gothic Horror...but what to leave out...Lady Hamilton does show how History was put to propagandistic uses during WW2, but as a piece of art...disposable.I wouldn't have both Saturday Night and A Taste of Honey...both fine films, one or the other, but both seems wasteful if you have so little time....I don't know Secret Ceremony....and I think Zulu might have been found interesting by your colleagues.

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by Angerr Personaly, I think a film by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger is a must

I'd agree with that

Steve

[CaptainWaggett]

I'd definitely have a British Hitchcock - 39 Steps or The Lady Vanishes instead of Private Life of Henry VIII if you want to show that 1930s cinema could be fun. Henry V is a much better film than Hamlet and also covers the war propaganda angle, allowing you to ditch Lady Hamilton and have an Ealing comedy instead.

[batman]

Originally Posted by CaptainWaggett Henry V is a much better film than Hamlet

I have to disagree there. HV is a fine film but so is Hamlet. The performances are uniformly excellent and Olivier's direction is masterly. The castle settings and the atmosphere that he creates within it are almost like a Universal horror at times. I don't say Hamlet is better than HV ..... but it certainly isn't it's inferior.

[penfold]

And it does have The Charge of the French Knights....one of the most stirring sequences in British film. If you had space, a comparisom with the Branagh version would be an interesting study..

[batman]

Originally Posted by penfold And it does have The Charge of the French Knights....one of the most stirring sequences in British film. If you had space, a comparisom with the Branagh version would be an interesting study..

I like both versions HV .... I watched them back to back one weekend and Branagh's version holds up pretty well. However, I find Branagh's version of Hamlet overlong and terribly dull, which disappointed me because I saw his stage interpretation in 1993 and it was stunning.

[CaptainWaggett]

Full-text Hamlets do tend to be over-long (I still bear the scars from the Daniel Day-Lewis stage version) but I'm glad at least one film-maker dared to do it and there are some fine performances (not always from the people you would expect). I prefer it to the Olivier one which is rather flat, IMO and let down by an Ophelia who couldn't act at that point in her career.

[batman]

Originally Posted by CaptainWaggett Full-text Hamlets do tend to be over-long (I still bear the scars from the Daniel Day-Lewis stage version) but I'm glad at least one film-maker dared to do it and there are some fine performances (not always from the people you would expect). I prefer it to the Olivier one which is rather flat, IMO and let down by an Ophelia who couldn't act at that point in her career.

Interesting you point out Ophelia because I thought Winslet's was one of the really weak performances in KB's version .... maybe it's the role, because HB-C wasn't too great in Zeffirelli's version with Mel Gibson (which I think is a fine film). The full-text KB stage production worked really well (the weak performance in that was Jane Lapotaire as Gertrude) and although there are some good performances in the film (KB himself and Nicholas Farrell as Horatio in particular) the whole enterprise just doesn't do it for me.

I enjoyed KB as Iago as well. I'd love to see him get to grips with Dickie 3 but as McKellan did that excellent 'fascist' version I don't think that will happen. Well, not for a long time anyway.

[CaptainWaggett]

I like Nicholas Farrell in anything (he was about the only decent thing in Trevor Nunn's underwhelming Twelfth Night) and I like Michael Maloney's Laertes though he was was forced to deliver some fairly incomprehensible speeches. I hated Mel's version, mainly because it was so annoying that he had a proper haircut and everyone else looked like they'd been turned away from Woodstock for being too scruffy.

I believe Ken is planning Macbeth for his next Shakespeare which doesn't fill me with excitement but I assume it's guarenteed to sell a lot of dvds to schools. I wish someone would do Comedy of Errors - there's a good b/w tv version with Ian Richardson and Alex McCowan (yes, I know they look nothing like each other) but you wouldn't need doubling nowadays.

[batman]

I saw an hilarious verson of Comedy of Errors about 15 years ago with Desmond Barritt in the dual roles.

[CaptainWaggett]

Originally Posted by batman I saw an hilarious verson of Comedy of Errors about 15 years ago with Desmond Barritt in the dual roles.

Directed by Ian Judge. That was ace. I saw it in London where they had doubles at the end though I'm told at Stratford it was done with mirrors. Desmond Barrit used to be everywhere but I haven't seen him in anything for a few years.

[Dame Starry]

Originally Posted by batman I saw an hilarious verson of Comedy of Errors about 15 years ago with Desmond Barritt in the dual roles.

Is that cinema or theatre, Bats? Only Angerr's course is about British cinema - and she may get confused.

DS x.

[batman]

Originally Posted by Dame Starry Is that cinema or theatre, Bats? Only Angerr's course is about British cinema - and she may get confused. DS x.

It was on the stage young Dame.

[Greyandwhite]

How about A Man For All Seasons? Great film about a crucially important part of Brit history.