matty*boy

Hi there,

New to this forum, I love British cinema, I have over 100 Brit movies in my collection. I particularly like 60's Brit cinema, but I was wondering, why were so many brit movies in this period made up north?

Cheers Matt

Billy Liar

Maybe to give a fair representation of Britain to the world. Rather than the old London = Britain.

To be honest though it's pretty even in terms of locale for British cinema in the 60's.

Steve Crook

It was just a phase to provide some "gritty realism" to counteract the polite dramas that were the norm and were usually set in London and the South East. This was what they called the "British New Wave" and was an extension of the "kitchen sink" reality that was also happening in the theatre at the time.

There were some dramas set oop north before the 60s (Gracie Fields, George Formby etc.) and afterwards (Full Monty, Trainspotting etc.) but most were set in the Home Counties.

Steve

penfold

It was more common than that in the 30's and forties, and not just Lancashire-based comedies; Yorkshire grit too..think of the AJ Cronin films, or Love on the Dole, Millions Like Us, Red Ensign (Steve, shame on you) in the silent era Hindle Wakes (several times) Owd Bob (ditto), Black Diamonds, let alone the main thrust of the documenary movement, from Drifters onwards.
The New Wave, Anderson, Reisz, Richardson et al produced a few good films between them, but for the most part I find them overrated, occasionally pretentious, usually misogynistic and almost always condescending. Their attempts to portray Northern English life which they tried to think was revolutionary, was nothing of the sort; watch Elvey's 1929 Hindle Wakes if you don't believe me.
Their impact was similar to that of punk rock in the late 70's; fashionable despite a tenuous grip of the necessary craft, in retrospect not that different to what they affected to despise, (how much 70's punk sounds like 50's Rock and roll now) but wrecking - temporarily at least - long distinguished careers, from their vaunted heights in such influential journals as Sequence and Sight and Sound. Because Anderson hated Powell's films for example, he was practically a non-person until the US movie brats - Scorsese et al - started to champion him, in the late 70's. One of the most important British filmmaker ever, yet you try and find a reference to him in Sight and Sound between 1955 and 1975...and even as late as 1995, when Anderson is interviewed for the BFI's official video for the centenary of cinema, Anderson comments that Powell had no talent, and nothing is said to contradict him...well, I have yet to see This Sporting Life, but have seen the rest of his work; I have yet to see a film of his to measure up to the least of Powell's films.
If you want a gritty, realistic drama of life in the north in the sixties, try to get hold of black-and -white Coronation Street episodes, far more like it.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

mysteriesofedgarwallace

I think another reason is location; with many production companies located in the south, its easier to get to.
An obvious example is Merton Park, who would film as close to Merton Park as possible, with many of their own production offices doubling as offices, factories, etc.

BTW, what are we currently on; The New Wave, or the New Wave of New Wave?

O/T>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

God, I remember when Oasis were tagged 'TNWONW' along with Smash, and These Animal Men; how times change.........
Now Smash and These Animal Men are stacking shelves, and Oasis think they're the 2nd coming.................sorry, I'll shut up now.

Clinton Morgan

Get the Boy Scout Movement to make motion pictures and we can call it the British Riding Along On A Crest Of A Wave.

dylan

It probably arose because best-selling novels like ROOM AT THE TOP and SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING showed there was a market for such themes. The trend only lasted about 3 years culminating in BILLY LIAR. By then the public had gone off *kitchen sink* drama and companies like Woodfall turned to historical romps like TOM JONES. If you watch the trailer on the DVD of BILLY LIAR it seems to be a film about swinging teenagers with no trace of *its grim up north*.

See: Angry Young Men FAQ

Gibbie

Steve stated well, "It was just a phase to provide some "gritty realism" to counteract the polite dramas that were the norm and were usually set in London and the South East. This was what they called the "British New Wave" and was an extension of the "kitchen sink" reality that was also happening in the theatre at the time."

And, to follow, Dylan said, "It probably arose because best-selling novels like ROOM AT THE TOP and SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING showed there was a market for such themes. The trend only lasted about 3 years culminating in BILLY LIAR. By then the public had gone off *kitchen sink* drama and companies like Woodfall turned to historical romps like TOM JONES. If you watch the trailer on the DVD of BILLY LIAR it seems to be a film about swinging teenagers with no trace of *its grim up north*."

Other movies like "This Sporting Life" and "A Taste of Honey" to name a few were some big grimmys. The father of all that sort was Osborne's "Look back In Anger," a post-war atheistic end-of-colonial-days angst. The Punks were just a resurgence of all that once the commercial Media world had had its day.

Much of the Brit New Wave were early 60s. Beatlemania changed the tone measureably. New Wave, btw, had its origins in France, Truffaut's "400 Blows" was the big influence there. Many of the Mods and hipsters of the early 60s would go about smoking Galoises and hanging out at French films. I should also mention the Italian Fellini and Antonioni, etc. The Italian thing was a big Mod influence. Schlesinger's "Darling" shows all this.

I would also mention Ingmar Bergman's influence with his northern suicide films and of course there is S. Beckett. And, before them were the late-Romantics with their Gothic medieval ruins and northern mythology with a pining for things lost(Wagner, Tolkien et al - lots of varieties there).

Many of us who grew up late catching these things after we were kids at one time looked back with mystery and a seeming romantic knowing of the past, these films lead one toward darkness and a solemn disposition.

Blow Up, which influenced my earlier notions about photography, is a good example of merging the feel good 60s with the hopeless New Wave thing, which was also a part of the 60s - actually a pose. Billy Liar was really a grinner.

More recently, I think "The Limey" tried to go back there and update it as Brit gone to America - it succeeded in the cinematic bit, but not as story. Things have changed.

The legacy is today's harsh realism, along with the nastiness. I think the winsome playful part of New Wave drew off of things that most have left in the past.

One of the Brit New Wavers that still rings true for its view of human depravity and guile is The Servant.

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Back to what Steve said, period dramas and musicals became the mainstream, I would say- after "A Hard Days Night". And don't forget the spy thrillers.

penfold

Yes, before the 'Nouvelle Vague' you had the Italian neorealists, Rossellini and co; they took their cue, surprisingly perhaps, from the US cinema, sound and silent, particularly those such as Vidor's The Crowd (compare that with Bicycle Thieves) and Ford's Grapes of Wrath.
I'm not sure how directly influential Bergman was - except, perhaps in his continued use of monochrome - apart from obvious examples like Polanski's sixties work, and Woody Allen's later. Bergman in his turn was massively influenced by the silent films of Victor Sjostrom/Seastrom and Carl Dreyer - in fact he gave Sjostrom a late acting role in Wild Strawberries, as an act of homage.
The point is, though, that actually that there were plenty of films made in Britain dealing with a) social issues and [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif[/img] the north, way before the Free Cinema clique came along; it's just they chose to portray the film industry's output as being middleclass and Londoncentric in order to portray their own work as something new and exciting, when it was for the most part quite derivative......

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Gibbie

Interesting how things go round. You are right Penfold, the cinema is quite derivative.

When I mentioned Bergman, I was trying to throw it all in to show upon whom the New Wave etc movies influenced. Guess I throwing in the kitchen sink, what??

Billy Liar

The French 'New Wave' was started for me by the likes of Franju, Melville & Resnais. Truffaut get's far too much credit for mine.

Gibbie

Accepted Mr. Smiths.

Tigger

You could argue that the French New Wave was started by the Italian Neorealists.

Gibbie

Could, though I think the previous notes on the various influences is closer to it. A melange of influences, which could probably put Italian neorealism at the top.

I think the New Wave has a very southern Euro sensibility to it.

penfold

Do try and see King Vidor's The Crowd (1928?)....it's a great film anyway, but you'll see what an influence it had on films like The Bicycle Thieves...

Bit of a Bay Window, what??