The Unknown Cinema of Britain

Abstract

cinema. The discontent is unfocused; in so far as it is articulated it suggests that the British cinema is not living up to the standard one might expect of it. The complaints are varied; British films are generally mediocre; they have no style; they lack humour; they are snobbish and class-bound; they are too dependent on documentary modes; too literary; too unsophisticated. The explanations are just as varied: the failure that is sensed is blamed on (a) the production system (b) the dominance of the literary tradition (c) the lack of a visual culture (d) the general philistinism of the English (e) a British suspicion of popular art (f) British film-makers' lack of talent. My aim is to try and focus this discontent (which I share) a little better. But I realize that my initial seemingly modest ambition creates extravagant problems. There is no framework for such a discussion. In critical writing about the cinema, there is no model for an examination of a particular cinema over a period of time. Or to be more precise, there is no model which doesn't dissolve into a discussion of particular artists with a few general remarks about the context they worked in. And even if such a model were available, the gaps at the level of both basic information and critical discussion are so large as to make any such model unusable. There is no general history of the British cinema except for one trivial undocumented book (Where We Came In by Charles Oakley). The scholarly volumes by Rachael Low have not yet reached the sound period. There is only one popular biography of Sir Alexander Korda. There is no full-scale account of the Rank Organization (although Alan Wood's biography of Lord Rank has some useful information), no account of the Associated British Picture Corporation. There is no sustained critical discussion of such important figures as Alfred Hitchcock (his British period), Carol Reed or Humphrey Jennings. There is no history or critical discussion of the documentary movement or of Ealing films. So one could go on. The British cinema certainly qualifies for the title of the unknown cinema. What I have to say about the British cinema will inevitably lack any kind of intellectual rigor; any generalizations I make will be on the basis of inadequate information; critical estimates can only be regarded as of the