MB

I came across this whilst looking for something else earlier


THE BRITISH NEW WAVE at Film Forum in New York City

I think there were some interesting choices there - I particularly like 'The Lambeth Boys' documentary which was, possibly, put in to give context.


I just wondered if we could tap in to the wideranging individual experience on here to find out more about how British films are recieved in different parts of the world..how they are shown, whether they are considered and what is popular, well respected etc..

TimR

Well, I will make an attempt at this.....

I'm not sure if you are referring to current films or the films of the past as well, but I'll make reference to both.

I can say that the classic British films certainly have a large following in the US among those who care about film, and that is a substantial minority.

The first thing I would say is that British films are known, first, for the actors and actresses in them, rather than by title or director - except perhaps for Hitchcock and Lean and Powell and Pressburger - but then again, only for a minority. That would not be the case with the films of France, Italy or Sweden or the great German and Russian silent classics.

Of course, British films are unique, along with Australian and Canadian films, because subtitles are not required (well, not usually ). My favorite films growing up were David Lean's epics. All of his epic films were as successful here as they were in Britain.

The films you list on your link are certainly well respected and many were highly successful here. I don't especially enjoy them, but many Americans do. The Ealing comedies, the historical epics ( no one makes them like the Brits) and mystery films each have their specific audience. Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers also continue to have a large following - at US universities, there are Sellers and Guinness retrospectives on a regular basis.

Also, Carol Reed has a very high reputation here. I am surprised there are not more references to him on the forum.

I do not go to see new films from any country very often now in the theatre, so I would not be a likely person to comment on how British films are perceived now.

I will say that they seem to be much too close to American films. I enjoy British fillms partly because they provide something that I cannot get at home. No other nation could produce The Happiest Days of Your Life or The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp or Kind Hearts and Coronets or Lean's Great Expectations or Hitchcock's The 39 Steps.

Even minor films like Cottage to Let with Alistair Sim and John Mills and The Smallest Show on Earth, which I recently saw, are fascinating to me because they are filled with small details that are foreign - but also familiar. They also are glimpses of a whole set of beliefs and traditions that are appealing and attractive.

Those films do not make it easy for an outsider like me - and I like that. It's a challenge. There is a slighly prickly defensiveness and protectiveness and insularity in many of these films which is a challenge for anyone who watches them who is not British. But again, I like that - Britain is worth protecting.

It is not necessary to know French culture and history to enjoy most of the great French films. Ingmar Bergman's films do not assume that the viewer knows Sweden. But British films DO demand some knowledge of Britain, or at least they used to. That may be something that Brits are not fully aware of because you are part of it.

I hope that British films regain that self-assurance.

Steve Crook

A very good point, and one that many people forget when writing about British films, wondering why they're not universally popular

Steve

CaptainWaggett

Don't you think that is partly because of the language barrier? There are many nuances one misses with foreign language films but often one doesn't even know one has missed them (for example, Truffaut, whose command of English was not brilliant, didn't realise that the second Mrs De Winter doesn't have a first name). We assume that English-language films will be familiar because we understand the language but we take it for for granted that there will be details we will miss with a Swedish film (well, unless other peoples' Swedish is a lot better than mine!).

Annoyingly in many British films, the references to popular culture have been edited for Americans - one example was Sliding Doors in which British characters unconvincingly talked about Jeopardy and Seinfeld rather than Mastermind and, well a show that any Brits actually watched.

TimR

It's more than the language.

The films made in Britain that I enjoy the most are the ones made before 1960. They almost always assume that the viewer knows something about the history of Britain, the class system, the geography and the location of cities and the local culture. Many of these films are about Britain and how the people of Britain behave and respond in various situations. They look inward. I think the British find themselves fascinating!

Those changes to cultural references are very recent.

Four of the very greatest French films are The Rules of Game, Grand Illusion, The Earrings of Madame de and Children of Paradise. They are also great films by any standard.

Three of the four are set in Paris. Grand Illusion is set in a POW camp. All assume some knowledge of France. But none of them make constant reference to France and the uniqueness of French life and culture. The Rules of the Game indirectly - and brilliantly - addresses the lack of readiness of the part of the French before WWII. But all of them are accessible - far more accessible than Kind Hearts and Coronets or The Belles of St. Trinian's, which assume that the viewer shares a whole set of specific cultural references.

Most British films were made for those who are part of the family. Others are welcome to view them, but whether or not they understand them is not a concern. Even A Matter of Life and Death, which I enjoyed hugely, is created for a specific British audience - and it is easily the most accessible of the Powell and Pressburger films I have seen.

MB

Thanks Tim R

I think the best idea would be balance - I don't see the harm - if you are making a film that is likely to be shown worldwide - in opening up the references a little..but when it slides to the point of references being used that are clearly inaccurate then that is quite bizarre...!

I think, in the UK, we are so used to watching US imports (as they are extremely popular) that we have become accustomed to 'missing out' on references..I found this a lot with 'Seinfield' and 'The Simpsons' - some of the jokes were just not accessible and I agree - it doesn't bother me either - I quite like looking something up.

CaptainWaggett

I've seen all the films you refer to and am puzzled as to what the shared cultural references that Kind Hearts and Coronets assume that, say Rules of the Game doesn't. Actually I found Rules of the Game rather confusing as I wasn't immediately sure which side of the class divide everyone as one (in a British film the accents/clothes would have instantly given it away - to a British audience anyway - but in a French film I'm far less aware of the signifiers. I can't get accents in foreign languages at all so obviously I missed some of those nuances. Again Madame De makes lots of assumptions about the customs of the period, just as Kind Hearts does but I don't know whether either are specifally of their culture.

Plenty of American films assume a knowledge of particular aspects of US culture - non-Americans are always going to be baffled by a film with a climax in a baseball match for example and US high schools seem very odd to us (if only because they seem to take pupils up to the age of 35 if Grease is anything to go by). I don't think nationalism (if that's the right word) is peculiar to British cinema but I suppose it depends what you're looking for in films.

Steve Crook

Interesting. What cultural references are there in AMOLAD that you think Americans wouldn't immediately get? And do you mean Americans nowadays or Americans in 1946?

Steve

billy bentley

I recently i took an American friend to see "It Always Rains on Sunday", he's middle aged, visited London many times and a big film fan. Afterwards he asked me how realistic the film was and I told him the setting and chararcters were very real for their time and his comments were that it was hard to believe everyday life could have been so grim. I think for most post Depression era white Amricans there is a real disconnect with the British when it comes to class and its effect on British society. Also on how unglamorous evryday life was (still is) for many in the U.K.

orpheum

Do you think that we Brits could relate to a film based on life in the Bronx for example.I am sure that most people who visit NY dont visit the Bronx or Brooklyn and have little conception of what life is like ther.Ihave been there and i believe that life is no better or worse than the area depicted in "It Always Rains...."

Welcome To Highbury The Home Of Football

TimR

It might sound surprising, but I prefer the British fillms that are uniquely British and do not make concessions. It is a whole world that has many connections to my own, but is still different in so many ways.

I think Seinfeld was very over-rated and more than a little sleazy, but it was funny and clever at its best - and both the tone and many of the jokes were also not immediately accessible to many Americans. The humor of that show is New York-Jewish, and emphasizes the humor of complaining and self-pity. That is not always considered funny in other parts of the country, where an extremely positive attitude, extraversion and cheerfulness are not only important - they are required (and can be exhausting). Seinfeld made the humor of whining acceptable outside New York. They refused to compromise and made the audience work at understanding the show.

TimR

The class system of Britain is the basis for Kind Hearts and Coronets . The film is impossible to understand unless the viewer knows something about it. The Rules of the Game assumes a stratified society, but the relationships between people are the point of the film. As you mention, it is not always clear where everyone fits - and it doesn't really matter that much.

In Kind Hearts and Coronets, class envy and hatred are the fuel for the humor and the basis for the plot as well as the motivations. It is a class system of an ancient nation that is both clearly defined and flexible for those with enough money and ambition to break through. It is difficult, but possible. There is nothing comparable in the US or anywhere else.

It is not only the class system - it is the specific humor as well, and the context.

The humor itself is very black and almost surreal - as in The Ladykillers. But the characters are so well bred and refined that the most outrageous acts are made to seem funny because of the contrast, just as in The Ladykillers, the old woman is so kind and good and the criminals are so absurd that the humor of murder is made to seem innocous. That would be unimaginable in the US: it just wouldn't work. Even Arsenic and Old Lace has an abrasive, ugly side to it.

It is the product of an extremely subtle and complex society that developed apart from other nations.

I would not call it nationalism. I would call it an unapologetic self-consciousness and, in many films, a celebration of Britain. I find it highly appealing.

The Smallest Show on Earth has a cast of great character actors who play eccentrics who have given their lives to an old movie theatre. They are not considered ridiculous or pathetic, but have their own dignity - although they are cerainly eccentric. The film is clear: it is possible in Britain to live an unsual life that elsewhere would be seen as foolish or even weird, but in Britain it is acceptable.

That tone can become coy and self-congratulatory, as in Cavalcade, which was too self-righteous. But I prefer that to the sour, sentimental self-hatred of the ghastly 1968 version of The Charge of the Light Brigade.

I certainly understand what you mean by the baseball reference, but it is very unusual for an American film to be about baseball. As for Grease, that is a ludicrous cartoon. The high school in Grease is as bizarre to me as it is to you.

TimR

Yes, certainly cultural references apply to American films - and to most films from any nation. There is no question about it. But I would say that the cultural references in British films are only part of my point.

British films generally make a point about life in Britain and British society. They are very rarely just about relationships alone. Even the dramas of the late 50s and early 60s which are referred to as "New Wave" in the link by the OP are about Britain even though they may involve only a few characters and take place in a small, enclosed setting.

TimR

Americans at any time.

I would say first that A Matter of Life and Death is one of the most accessible British films to all audiences, and that my points in this thread are less applicable here. But the presentation of the United States in the trial sequences is always in the context of a former colony, which impressed me immediately - and made me smile. It is a Britain-centered world view.

It is clear that Powell and Pressburger had a generous, warm and also realistic view of the US. A Canterbury Tale is the standard for this. In this film, Kim Hunter surprised me with her excellent performance; somehow Powell brought out a quality in her that I had never seen in her mediocre television performances. It was also very nice to see an American without an accent.

But Powell's point of view intrigued me: the US is one of many current and former colonies in the trial scene. It is presented in relation to Britain, and only in that way.

This is only an incidental point in a delightful film, and it is certainly did not leave a negative impression - not at all. It is just fascinating to me. No American, however traditional or anglophile, would think of the US in that way.

TimR

Any American who is interested in the topic can find plenty of information on that - and in film, the kitchen sink dramas are enough to convince anyone how unglamorous life can be in Britain.

Everyday American life is just as unglamorous. Based on your posts, you are living in NYC. Bayonne, NJ can compete with anything in the old industrial sector of northern England - which I have seen. And the small towns of western PA, Ohio and West Virginia are often bleak and harsh in the same way.