The British Are Coming! British Movies In The1980s

"It is now fashionable to be rich, not poor, to consume rather than to care" Hugo Young"One Of Us" (Macmillan 1989)

This virtual demise just preceded British cinema's "rebirth" on thesmaller screen - courtesy of Channel 4's Film on Four.

VideoJohn Hill argues the trend since 1950's has been that British homes havethe largest share of tv screens in Europe and that video technology had a

Cinema admissions attheir lowest since WW2BUT

454 filmsmade

Industry and AudiencesA time of contradictions

The 1980's saw the rise of the "Yuppie", the conspicuous consumer.Thatcher's credo was hardwork and self reliance, with the emphasis onindividual enterprise, competition and ambition and if you couldn't adaptyou were marginalised. She and her government radically reshaped Britainand British institutions, producing streamlined versions where survival ofthe fittest was paramount.

Inevitably this lead to state upheaval, with old certainties being thrownout or undermined and a reappraisal of national values and what it was tobe British. Film Education argue that it was these competing notions ofBritishness that the nation's film industry were concerned with in the1980's.

BackgroundMay 1979 sees Margaret Thatcher as the 1st female British PrimeMinister with a pocketful of policies for radical change. PreviousConservative PMs had sought to bind the nation together through socialwelfare and shared national aspirations, but her emphasis was theeconomy, the marketplace and the individual's progress within it throughhardwork and self-interest.

Channel 4TV production and co-production accounted for 49% of all GB productionby 1989. Channel 4 important here.On air 1982 with a clear "public service" remit despite funding fromadvertising. However from the outset Channel 4 pledged itself to addressneeds of minority audiences with innovative programming and almost totalreliance on independent production. Went on to fund the decades mostdistinctive films.Jeremy Isaacs 1st controller"..if funds allow, to make, or help to make, films of feature length for television here,for cinema abroad." (Sight & Sound Feb 1981)

Channel 4 done much to re-establish and promote GB filmmaking in over300 films. It's a commissioning house for original drama offering up &coming directors TV money with the potential for cinema release. Thispolicy helped to encourage talents such asPeter GreenawayMike LeighKen LoachMike NewellTerence Davies

"High Hopes" (Mike Leigh 1988)

One of Channel4's greatest critical successes of the 1980s-most directand corrosive critique of Thatcherism made in the 1980s. Throughdepiction of 7 main characters Leigh evokes the social mood & class

tensions of the period."In creating his slice of London, he moves from satire to farce, to genuine pathos."(Quart, GB Cinema & Thatcherism by Lester Friedman UCL Press 1996)

Demonstration of analysis of class &Thatcherism (clip 12)

Elderly woman Mrs Bender loses her housekeys and is forced to ask forhelp from a yuppie, Tory neighbour Laetitia who's more concerned abouthaving such a woman in her kitchen.

Questions related to clip in here.

positive effect on film viewing in that it prolongs the life of a film beyondcinema exhibition and this can mean enormous revenues.

Video technology became more widely available from the early 1980's andthis led to a hugely successful home video rental market in Britain. This,combined with the success of other home based entertainments, likecomputer games, meant that cinema admissions suffered and many closed.

There was also a renewed American interest in financing British filmproduction after the critical, commercial and Oscar winning success of"Chariots of Fire" (Hugh Hudson, 1981). The US needed to increase itsfilm supply to cable television who were setting up new channels devotedentirely to films.

Finally, the radical social, political, ideological and economic shake-upbrought about by the new Conservative government affected the film

industry both on, and behind, the screen.

GoldcrestGoldcrest, founded in 1976 by David Puttnam and financial expert JakeEberts,the creator and part financier of "Chariots of Fire", was asuccessful independent company in the early 1980's. It was set up tofinance "quality", "thoughtful", "adult" films and family entertainmentthat didn't contain explicit sex and violence.

SO FAILED!

Over-extended itselffinancially with joint USventures like MTheMission" (Joffe, 1983),"Revolution" (Hudson,1985) & "AbsoluteBeginners" (Temple,1986)

BUT

Huge successes in early1980's: "Chariots ofFire", "Gandhi"(Attenborough, 1982),"The Killing Fields"(Joffe, 1984) & "LocalHero" (Forsyth, 1983)

Channel 4 became a major player and took with commercially untriedformulae, directors, writers and actors. Its mission statement was toproduce innovative television programming and to target minorityaudiences and so it took them in new directions. Large proportions of thedrama budget went on filmmaking. In some cases this encouraged avantgarde film makers like Greenaway "The Draughtsman's Contract" (1982),"The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover" (1989) and Jarman"Carravaggio" (1986), "The Garden" (1990) to produce challenging, non

mainstream work.