ENH2930

National fictions

B McFarlane

8 points - 4 hours per week - First semester, Clayton - Second semester, Caulfield

Objectives Upon successful completion of this subject, students should be able to articulate responses to a range of narrative paradigms and cinematic styles; assess a range of critical and theoretical approaches; understand the concept of a national cinema; analyse a film text in relation to the social reality and to the field of cultural production which constitute its context.

Synopsis The period covered by this subject is 1939 to 1963: that is, it traces the wartime impetus to British cinema, the postwar prestige which derived largely from the literary/theatrical adaptations and the influences of documentary realism in fictional narratives, the growing sense of stasis which accompanied the rise of 1950s' affluence, and the 'new wave' of social realist films, again rooted in literary and theatrical trends, which changed British cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This is essentially a subject based on the interaction of film and society. It will focus on such issues as class and gender, wartime and peace-time expectations, and how these cultural influences have helped to determine the nature of British film narrative during its most productive period. The subject will also explore ways in which a national cinema such as Britain's in this period constructs itself in opposition to the dominant American cinema. It has, for instance, been a cinema which has foregrounded its affiliation with the literary and the theatrical, with the 'high culture' of the period. Film texts will include The Stars Look Down, Fanny by Gaslight, Black Narcissus, This Sporting Life, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Way Ahead, Genevieve, Room at the Top, The Intruder, Brief Encounter.

Assessment Essay (2500 words): 40% - Class Test (2hours): 30% - Class paper and participation (1500 words): 30%

Prescribed text

McFarlane B An autobiography of British cinema Methuen 1997

Preliminary reading

Bordieu P The field of cultural production Polity, 1993
Dixon W W (ed.) Re-viewing British cinema, 1900-1992 SUNYP, 1994
Durgnat R A Mirror for England: British movies from austerity to affluence Faber and Faber, 1970
Haste C Rules of desire: Sex in Britain - World War I to the present Pimlico, 1992
Higson A Waving the flag: Constructing a national cinema in Britain OUP, 1995
Lant A Blackout: Reinventing women for wartime British cinema Princeton U P, 1991
Marwick A Class: Image and reality in Britain Fontana, 1981
Murphy R The British cinema book BFI, 1997

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