Uncool Britannia

[DB7]

Uncool Britannia (including two views of Top 50 British films)



O Mike Leigh, where art thou? And Lindsay Anderson? John Walsh laments the cinematic poverty of a new poll of favourite British movies: it's all Sixties comedies, crime capers and epics, or Bridget bloody Jones at the multiplex

13 May 2005

It's official. The people have spoken, and they have decreed that the best British film of all time is The Italian Job. Not the remake, but the original 1969 heist movie, directed by Peter Collinson, starring Michael Caine, Noël Coward, Benny Hill, three customised Minis, some unconvincing "dolly birds" and a deeply irritating song called "The Self-Preservation Society".



We'll give you a minute to digest that information, before hitting you with the news that Bridget Jones's Diary is the third-best British movie of all time (beaten to the runner-up slot by Trainspotting); that last year's mildly amusing rom-zom-com hybrid Shaun of the Dead is fourth; and the Hugh-Grant-gets-cute-with-Julia-Roberts vehicle, Notting Hill, is fifth.



These are the findings of HMV, the records and DVDs chain, which asked 7,000 customers to vote via its website for their favourite British movie. Before you ask, Love Actually is at No 13, and the first Harry Potter at No 32.



Were you a raging snob or a Cahiers du cinéma anorak, you might wonder if the people who frequent HMV have any interest in visual magic, any sense of cinema history or any clue about the great British directors whose works do not appear in this list.



None of that, unfortunately, is the point. HMV's list is not the result of critical argument. It's a list of favourite films. The "favourite" films of the British do not have to be classics. They don't need to be works of vision, wit, style or adventurousness. They need to be written by Richard Curtis, directed by Danny Boyle or starring Michael Caine.



Caine turns up in four movies on the list: along with the winner, he's also in Alfie, Zulu and Get Carter. All these came out between 1964 and 1971: the Sixties is the decade best represented in the HMV line-up, with 10 movies in all.



And a close look suggests that the HMV voters fall into three distinct bands. There's a senior generation who've rooted for two Thirties classics, The 39 Steps and Goodbye Mr Chips (both starring Robert Donat) and a handful of Ealing comedies, including Passport to Pimlico (1949), whose exasperated references to rationing mean nothing to most under-forties.



The slew of Sixties titles suggests that these epics - The Great Escape, Lawrence of Arabia, Zulu, Dr Zhivago - were seen in cinemas by baby-boomers in their impressionable teen years and were never forgotten.



And the third band is the modern young multiplex filmgoer who - like a child - thinks that the most recent film seen is the best ever. Nothing else could explain the presence of Matthew Vaughan's formulaic thriller Layer Cake and the execrable sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, both released last year.



There is much to enjoy and admire in the list, but too many choices seem the result of laziness or tokenism ("But we always vote for Monty Python's Life of Brian..." and, "But everybody loves The Railway Children because of the bit at the end when Jenny Agutter meets her old man at the station and shouts, 'Daddy, my Daddy!'"). There's a superfluity of puny, structurally minor films here - The Full Monty, Bend It Like Beckham, Withnail and I - that get by on charm rather than achievement, reliant on some good scenes and bits of dialogue that can be easily remembered and quoted ad nauseam.



It's frankly shocking that, in a round-up of best British movies, there's no sign of if..., Lindsay Anderson's blistering satire on English public schools, or his bruising debut This Sporting Life; nor of the work of John Schlesinger, who charted the coming social rebellion of the Sixties in Billy Liar and Darling, and discovered Julie Christie and made her glow in Far from the Madding Crowd.



The cameraman on Madding Crowd was Nicolas Roeg, another artist whose exclusion is baffling. Have HMV's customers never seen the unforgettable Performance, or Don't Look Now? It's also a shame there was no one to vote for the maverick Ken Russell, whose operatic fascination for nuns, nudity and sexually disarrayed composers led him into the occasional excess, but whose Women in Love is a luminous, passionate and intelligent reading of DH Lawrence's novel. David Lean is well represented (Zhivago, Brief Encounter, Arabia, River Kwai), but it seems perverse that his two Gothic, monochrome and very English versions of Dickens - Great Expectations and Oliver Twist - don't get a look-in. It's like leaving Dickens himself out of a consideration of the best English novels.



It's baffling that none of Mike Leigh's work (Secrets and Lies? Naked?) was deemed better than, say, the leaden Battle of Britain. It's amazing that Britain's most versatile director, Alan Parker, and most sweeping helmer of modern epics, Ridley Scott, should be ignored. But that calls into question what we mean by a "British" film. Was Alien British, with a UK director, with John Hurt and Ian Holm? Or not?



HMV's 200 shops are launching an eight-week DVD campaign to flog the top 50. How marvellous it would be if they asked previously uncanvassed punters what films they thought had been left out - and sold those too. If there were a chance of getting if... and Women in Love on DVD, I'd be first in the queue.



THE TOP 50 FAVOURITE BRITISH FILMS

Chosen by HMV customers



1. The Italian Job (1969, Peter Collinson)

2. Trainspotting (1995, Danny Boyle)

3. Bridget Jones' Diary (2001, Sharon Maguire)

4. Shaun of the Dead (2004, Edgar Wright)

5. Notting Hill (1999, Roger Michell)

6. Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (1998, Guy Ritchie)

7. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, Mike Newell)

8. Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979, Terry Jones)

9. Snatch (2000, Guy Ritchie)

10. The Full Monty (1997, Peter Cattaneo)

11. Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)

12. Withnail & I (1995, Bruce Robinson)

13. Love Actually (2003, Richard Curtis)

14. Zulu (1964, Cy Endfield)

15. The Great Escape (1963, John Sturges)

16. Get Carter (1971, Mike Hodges)

17. Monty Python & The Holy Grail (1975, Terry Gilliam/Terry Jones)

18. Layer Cake (2004, Matthew Vaughn)

19. The Wicker Man (1973, Robin Hardy)

20. The Ladykillers (1955, Alexander Mackendrick)

21. 28 Days Later (2002, Danny Boyle)

22. A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick)

23. The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)

24. The Long Good Friday (1980, John Mackenzie)

25. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, David Lean)

26. A Matter of Life and Death (1946, Powell/Pressburger)

27. Quadrophenia (1979, Franc Roddam)

28. Billy Elliot (2000, Stephen Daldry)

29. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949, Robert Hamer)

30. Brief Encounter (1945, David Lean)

31. Dog Soldiers (2002, Neil Marshall)

32. Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone (2001, Chris Columbus)

33. Shallow Grave (1994, Danny Boyle)

34. Chariots of Fire (1981, Hugh Hudson)

35. Kes (1969, Ken Loach)

36. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004, Beeban Kidron)

37. Gandhi (1982, Richard Attenborough)

38. The 39 Steps (1935, Alfred Hitchcock)

39. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, Stanley Kubrick)

40. Oliver! (1968, Carol Reed)

41. Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939, Sam Wood)

42. Alfie (1966, Lewis Gilbert)

43. A Fish Called Wanda (1988, Charles Chrichton)

44. Bend It Like Beckham (2002, Gurinder Chadha)

45. Battle of Britain (1969, Guy Hamilton)

46. Doctor Zhivago (1965, David Lean)

47. Passport to Pimlico (1949, Henry Cornelius)

48. The Railway Children (1970, Lionel Jeffries)

49. A Bridge Too Far (1977, Richard Attenborough)

50. Sense & Sensibility (1995, Ang Lee)



THE ALTERNATIVE TOP 50

Chosen by John Walsh



1. Great Expectations (1946, David Lean)

2. Oliver Twist

(1948, David Lean)

3. Darling (1965, John Schlesinger)

4. Billy Liar (1963, John Schlesinger)

5. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962, Tony Richardson)

6. if... (1968, Lindsay Anderson)

7. O Lucky Man! (1973, Lindsay Anderson)

8. Women In Love (1969, Ken Russell)

9. Whistle Down the Wind (1961, Bryan Forbes)

10. Naked (1993, Mike Leigh)

11. Secrets and Lies (1996, Mike Leigh)

12. In Which We Serve (1942, Noel Coward/David Lean)

13. Topsy-Turvy (1999, Mike Leigh)

14. Room at the Top (1959, Jack Clayton)

15. The Innocents (1961, Jack Clayton)

16. The Trilogy (1972-78, Bill Douglas)

17. My Name is Joe (1998, Ken Loach)

18. Gregory's Girl (1981, Bill Forsyth)

19. The English Patient (1996, Anthony Minghella)

20. The Talented Mr Ripley (1999, Anthony Minghella)

21. Local Hero (1983, Bill Forsyth)

22. Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993, Nick Park)

23. Hope and Glory (1987, John Boorman)

24. The Draughtsman's Contract (1982, Peter Greenaway)

25. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989, Peter Greenaway)

26. The Commitments (1991, Alan Parker)

27. The Butcher Boy (1997, Neil Jordan)

28. Henry V (1989, Kenneth Branagh)

29. The Lady Vanishes (1938, Alfred Hitchcock)

30. Brighton Rock (1947, John Boulting)

31. The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger)

32. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960, Karel Reisz)

33. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951, Charles Chrichton)

34. The Servant (1963, Joseph Losey)

35. The Crying Game (1992, Neil Jordan)

36. Dr No (1962, Terence Young)

37. A Man for all Seasons (1966, Fred Zinnemann)

38. The Madness of King George (1994, Nicholas Hytner)

39. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943, Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger)

40. I'm All Right Jack (1959, John Boulting)

41. Shakespeare in Love (1998, John Madden)

42. Tom Jones (1963, Tony Richardson)

43. This Sporting Life (1963, Lindsay Anderson)

44. My Left Foot (1989, Jim Sheridan)

45. The Go-Between (1970, Joseph Losey)

46. The Man in the White Suit (1951, Alexander Mackendrick)

47. Blow-Up (1966, Michelangelo Antonioni)

48. The Remains of the Day (1993, James Ivory)

49. Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton)

50. Peeping Tom (1960, Michael Powell)

[Marky B]

I didn't know The Great Escape was British!!!

Ta Ta

Marky B

[Gibbie]

Originally posted by Marky B@May 13 2005, 12:33 PM

I didn't know The Great Escape was British!!!

Ta Ta

Marky B

Ooi! Claim it while you can!

[Wetherby Pond]

Originally posted by Gibbie@May 13 2005, 02:20 PM

Ooi! Claim it while you can!

Well, the Americans claimed Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, The Third Man and A Clockwork Orange when the AFI put their American Top 100 together a few years ago...



(Not to mention The African Queen, which is technically British, though I agree it's less obvious to the eye of the beholder)

[Gibbie]

Originally posted by DB7@May 13 2005, 09:05 AM

Uncool Britannia (including two views of Top 50 British films)

It's official. The people have spoken, and they have decreed that the best British film of all time is The Italian Job. Not the remake, but the original 1969 heist movie, directed by Peter Collinson, starring Michael Caine, Noël Coward, Benny Hill, three customised Minis, some unconvincing "dolly birds" and a deeply irritating song called "The Self-Preservation Society".

Actually, "The Self-Preservation Society" is part of what made The Italian Job so fetching as a kid watching it on TV with its conclusion. Also, liked Matt Monro's intro singing "On Days Like These." Still one of the best movie songs.



7,000 don't tell it all. Need a national vote. These just reveal a certain segments taste and even that is varied among individuals. It's not like the FA Cup result.



Comments by movie goers on this Website tell me more about BritFilm viewers than a poll.

[DB7]

Originally posted by Marky B@May 13 2005, 01:33 PM

I didn't know The Great Escape was British!!!

That stood out for me too. I've always considered it a US film.



Another is The Talented Mr Ripley in John Walsh's 50. (the sequel maybe is)