The British Are Coming! British Movies In The 1980s Background May 1979 sees Margaret Thatcher as the 1st female British Prime Minister with a pocketful of policies for radical change. Previous Conservative PMs had sought to bind the nation together through social welfare and shared national aspirations, but her emphasis was the economy, the marketplace and the individual's progress within it through hardwork and self-interest. "It is now fashionable to be rich, not poor, to consume rather than to care" Hugo Young "One Of Us" (Macmillan 1989)
The 1980's saw the rise of the "Yuppie", the conspicuous consumer. Thatcher's credo was hardwork and self reliance, with the emphasis on individual enterprise, competition and ambition and if you couldn't adapt you were marginalised. She and her government radically reshaped Britain and British institutions, producing streamlined versions where survival of the fittest was paramount. Inevitably this lead to state upheaval, with old certainties being thrown out or undermined and a reappraisal of national values and what it was to be British. Film Education argue that it was these competing notions of Britishness that the nation's film industry were concerned with in the 1980's.
Industry and Audiences A time of contradictions 454 films made
BUT
Cinema admissions at their lowest since WW2
This virtual demise just preceded British cinema's "rebirth" on the smaller screen - courtesy of Channel 4's Film on Four.
Video John Hill argues the trend since 1950's has been that British homes have the largest share of tv screens in Europe and that video technology had a
Channel 4 TV production and co-production accounted for 49% of all GB production by 1989. Channel 4 important here. On air 1982 with a clear "public service" remit despite funding from advertising. However from the outset Channel 4 pledged itself to address needs of minority audiences with innovative programming and almost total reliance on independent production. Went on to fund the decades most distinctive films. J eremy 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 over 300 films. It's a commissioning house for original drama offering up & coming directors TV money with the potential for cinema release. This policy helped to encourage talents such as Peter Greenaway Mike Leigh Ken Loach Mike Newell Terence Davies "High Hopes" (Mike Leigh 1988) One of Channel4's greatest critical successes of the 1980s-most direct and corrosive critique of Thatcherism made in the 1980s. Through depiction 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 for help from a yuppie, Tory neighbour Laetitia who's more concerned about having 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 beyond cinema exhibition and this can mean enormous revenues. Video technology became more widely available from the early 1980's and this led to a hugely successful home video rental market in Britain. This, combined with the success of other home based entertainments, like computer games, meant that cinema admissions suffered and many closed. There was also a renewed American interest in financing British film production after the critical, commercial and Oscar winning success of "Chariots of Fire" (Hugh Hudson, 1981). The US needed to increase its film supply to cable television who were setting up new channels devoted entirely to films. Channel 4 became a major player and took with commercially untried formulae, directors, writers and actors. Its mission statement was to produce innovative television programming and to target minority audiences and so it took them in new directions. Large proportions of the drama budget went on filmmaking. In some cases this encouraged avant garde 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. Finally, the radical social, political, ideological and economic shake-up brought about by the new Conservative government affected the film industry both on, and behind, the screen.
Goldcrest Goldcrest, founded in 1976 by David Puttnam and financial expert Jake Eberts,the creator and part financier of "Chariots of Fire", was a successful independent company in the early 1980's. It was set up to finance "quality", "thoughtful", "adult" films and family entertainment that didn't contain explicit sex and violence. Huge successes in early 1980's: "Chariots of Fire", "Gandhi" (Attenborough, 1982), "The Killing Fields" (Joffe, 1984) & "Local Hero" (Forsyth, 1983)
BUT
Over-extended itself financially with joint US ventures like MThe Mission" (Joffe, 1983), "Revolution" (Hudson, 1985) & "Absolute Beginners" (Temple, 1986)
SO FAILED!