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British Film Culture in the 1970s

The Boundaries of Pleasure

Justin Smith author Sue Harper author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Edinburgh University Press

Published:30th Nov '11

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British Film Culture in the 1970s cover

This volume draws a map of British film culture in the 1970s and provides a wide-ranging history of the period. It examines the cross-cultural relationship between British cinema and other media, including popular music and television. The analysis covers mainstream and experimental film cultures, identifying their production contexts and the economic, legislative and censorship constraints on British cinema throughout the decade. The essays in Part I contextualise the study and illustrate the diversity of 1970s moving image culture. In Part II, Sue Harper and Justin Smith examine how gender relations and social space were addressed in film. They show how a shared visual manner and performance style characterises this fragmented cinema, and how irony and anxiety suffuse the whole film culture. This volume charts the shifting boundaries of permission in 1970s film culture and changes in audience taste. This book is the culmination of an AHRC-funded project at the University of Portsmouth, For more information about '1970s British Cinema, Film and Video: Mainstream and Counter-Culture' (2006-2009) please visit the project website at www.1970sproject.co.uk.

"Herein, Professor Harper and her droogs saunter out of the Karova milkbar, power up the Durango-95 and engage in a bit of the old ultra-analysis. The Portsmouth posse take a penetrating peek at the pictures in the period of punks, power-cuts and politicos, flinching neither at Robin Askwith's Y-fronts nor Malcolm McDowell's swastika jock-strap. Viddy well, O my brothers." -- Steve Chibnall "British Film Culture in the 1970s is certain to become the definitive study of British cinema's least understood decade. Sue Harper and Justin Smith must be commended for marshalling a wealth of material into a volume that represents not only scholarship of the highest order but is also a compelling narrative in its own right. What emerges is a fascinating account of the complex relationships between economic crises and aesthetic innovation as British film-makers responded to far-reaching changes in the industry and in the wider society and culture. This is not just one of the best recent books about British cinema - it is one of the best works of film history I have read." -- James Chapman "Herein, Professor Harper and her droogs saunter out of the Karova milkbar, power up the Durango-95 and engage in a bit of the old ultra-analysis. The Portsmouth posse take a penetrating peek at the pictures in the period of punks, power-cuts and politicos, flinching neither at Robin Askwith's Y-fronts nor Malcolm McDowell's swastika jock-strap. Viddy well, O my brothers." "British Film Culture in the 1970s is certain to become the definitive study of British cinema's least understood decade. Sue Harper and Justin Smith must be commended for marshalling a wealth of material into a volume that represents not only scholarship of the highest order but is also a compelling narrative in its own right. What emerges is a fascinating account of the complex relationships between economic crises and aesthetic innovation as British film-makers responded to far-reaching changes in the industry and in the wider society and culture. This is not just one of the best recent books about British cinema - it is one of the best works of film history I have read."

ISBN: 9780748640782

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

336 pages