DB7

Classic cinema
If only ... we had a fresh selection of British classics to serve up. John Patterson has some tips for restoring our low cinematic self-esteem

Saturday August 4, 2007
The Guardian

It's time British cinema went to work on what psychotherapists would call its "low self-image". Or perhaps, should I say, the image imposed upon it by the BBC and the Film Council's Summer Of British Film, in their selection of classic British films to restore and present nationwide over the coming months.

What a sorry, retrograde, inward-looking, cliche-driven sense of nationhood is laid before us by their choices, many of them long since staled and drained of their power by four decades of reruns. All our national distempers and cultural fevers, circa 1954, are represented here: the self-deluding postwar victory complex and nostalgia for the great good fight (The Dambusters, Henry V); the post-imperial compensation fantasy (Goldfinger); the chinless emotional constipation of the English (Brief Encounter); our lovable and harmless eccentrics, gawd bless 'em (Withnail And I, Billy Liar). And one perfect, long-lost, almost unnervingly British masterpiece in The Wicker Man. Lists like this explain why foreigners make better British movies than the British themselves.

I foresee teenagers watching Brief Encounter and whispering confusedly among themselves, "What is wrong with these people?" and "Is he gonna make his move or what?" What will be their reaction to the name of Guy Gibson's dead dog in The Dambusters? Or the stentorian bark of Olivier in Henry V, which soon will seem almost as mannered as silent movie acting? Of the more "modern" material, Billy Liar is the tamest of the northern-provincial boomlet we call our new wave ("Is he gonna get on that train with her or what?"). As for Goldfinger, Wicker Man and Withnail, well, those 50 viewings and two worn-out DVDs of each will probably keep me going for now, thanks.

The first step we should take towards restoring some sort of national cinematic self-esteem (and sanity) is to dethrone David Lean - the man who twice presented us with Alec Guinness in blackface - and cast him down among the dunces where he and his fat-headed epics belong, stripping him of his knighthood and then gluing the medal to Michael Powell's gravestone, begging Powell's forgiveness as we do so. Then we could toss Brief Encounter in the burn-bag and replace it with A Canterbury Tale, which has plenty of interesting things to say about the sexually repressed English without being sexually repressed itself.

The selection reminds me of the American Film Institute's Top 100 American Movies list, one of those documents that petrifies rather than galvanises our sense of cinema. Any fool could do better, as this fool will now prove: A Canterbury Tale, The 39 Steps, Spare Time, Culloden, The Servant, Performance, Barry Lyndon, If...., Morvern Callar, Carry On Up The Khyber, A Hard Day's Night...

I could make another list tomorrow, twice as long, with no repetitions. And another the day after. And so could you.

Ted Holmes

It's a pity the writer has to show his admiration for his favourite films and film-makers by being so abusive about the ones he doesn't like. The piece seems to be more about his social attitudes than about quality of cinema. He hasn't exactly come up with any unknown gems from the vaults either. The Grauniad's as bad as the rest of them in its own way.

Ted

Fellwanderer

Exactly! I thought it was an appalling bad article - and badly researched - even if I did agree with some of his points.

I wonder what he thinks today's teenagers would make of two of his favourites, The 39 Steps and ACT [which are being shown although he doesn't seem to realise that!], if he thinks they'd be confused by Brief Encounter.

It doesn't even claim to be the Best of British Film but simply to be a season of films to celebrate British film. Some of them I'd consider classics, some ok and some dreadful. However, they do represent British cinematic history and I congratulate the BBC for doing it.

Still, I've no doubt that Patterson would be equally scathing about the relevance of Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart and Shakespeare to the yoof of today.

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

ChristineCB

Ted, good argument for your side. As for "Canterbury" not being sexually repressed? HUH?!! Sorry - I didn't realize it was a Porn In The Fields or Porn On The Train film at all - that escaped me completely. I guess it's wild use of sex, sexual expression and the monotony of a porno film score escaped me!

The writer bases his complaints on his presumed "today's kids evaluations" and I can certainly understand why he places such high merits for those lofty standards - he's hoping and praying to achieve a 12-year-old's intellect himself.

alan gowdy

Everyone's entitled to an opinion - even hacks who want to make an impression by being contentious. This principle has certainly served Jeremy Clarkson well over the years.

Fellwanderer

Indeed - but he's being paid for such rubbish. Of course - so is Clarkson

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

Steve Crook

Wasn't the man who deposited sticky stuff on the hair of young girls enough of a clue?
And that same man didn't seem to like women very much and lived with his mother.

Steve

Cheeky Bob

Especially as you'd never encounter such behaviour on these forums in a million years. It must be a real shock to the system.

Foster twelvetrees

The thing that makes me puke is the line that begins ....I foresee teenagers watching..........

Why FFS must everything be aimed towards teenagers?

Pointless article by pointless journalist.

Ted Holmes

"The very word 'teenager' has become a commercial word."

Dennis Potter, 1960

Foster twelvetrees

But what it actually means is - we can't afford to let anything take it's time, we have to charge ahead full steam ahead not giving our audience any time to take things in and think, we have to be loud and have to fill every second with noise.

As a teenager I didn't like things I have come to appreciate in later life. We don't need everything to cater for the teenagers.

christoph404

I agree, and my teenage years were so long ago I can hardly remember my likes and dislikes! It would seem to me that filmakers today are labouring under the belief that the largest group of the film going public is in the teenage age group and so that is the main target audience that is catered for? Pure economics it would seem......I would have thought the over 40 age group(me) is in the minority of the film going public, it never surprises me that there are few films out there that I would be interested in going to see, that is why I prefer to watch films on DVD that I can choose from over the last 30 years or so....and why I enjoy being involved in this forum

Ted Holmes

Exactly what Potter was saying 47 years ago. I absolutely agree with you (both).

Ted

Foster twelvetrees

I agree - the strength of disposable income. But if I was a teenager I'd be extremely dissapointed with the quality of material that I was being offered. Look at all the films this year, sequels and sequels of sequels and comic book adaptions.

Wolfgang

I have to be honest I am really looking forward to The Bourne Ultimatum.