London Film Research Articles

South Asian films at the London film festival

South Asian films at the London film festival

Marion Urch, London Film Festival 10 November 91

Marion Urch, London Film Festival 10 November 91

Film and Television Studies in Great Britain

that as compared to the United States only a small number of people are involved. Currently there are about ten persons employed to teach film fulltime in British universities. Fewer are employed to teach television, though there are research programs at the universities of Leeds, Leicester, and Strathclyde. In the polytechnics, the parallel system of higher education, the numbers are greater, but film and television are likely to be integrated into a wider field of activity, known variously as Communications or Media Studies in which radio, journalism, and information technology all play a part. Given this small base of operation, the question of whether to choose film or television is a luxury which few can afford to contemplate. And, in practice, the two fields have for some time been yoked more or less happily together. Thus the nearest equivalent to SCS in Britain, the Society for Education in Film and Television (SEFT), publishers of Screen, added the final T to their acronym a long time ago. SEFT's parent body, the British Film Institute, has, its title notwithstanding, been moving closer to parity between film and television in its operations. It should be added that the two industries are also coming closer together. Historically, Britain's film industry has always been weak, exposed as it has been to the direct competition of Hollywood without even the protection of a language barrier. Television, on the other hand, has been heavily protected, and, as a result, has a strong economic and cultural base. Increasingly the film industry has had to turn to television for help. A high proportion of the new British features screened at the last two London Film Festivals

An Interview with Gavin Lambert

Gavin Lambert, a close friend of both Isherwood and Bachardy, talked with me on July 28, 1975, in his suite at the Cavalier Motel in Los Angeles. Mr. Lambert was born in Sussex, England, and was educated at Cheltenham College and, for a year, at Magdalen College, Oxford. The next decade he lived in London, writing and editing film magazines: Sequence, which he founded, and Sight and Sound, sponsored by the British Film Institute. During this period, in addition to writing film criticism, he wrote and directed in Morocco a film Another Sky, which Isherwood calls absolutely marvelous. In 1956, Mr. Lambert came to Hollywood, where he wrote his first novel, The Slide Area, and worked on the film scripts of Sons and Lovers and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. For a time, Mr. Lambert lived in Santa Monica, across the canyon from Isherwood and Bachardy. He became an American citizen in 1964, and now lives in Tangiers, Morocco. His other novels include Inside Daisy Clover, of which a movie was made, Norman's Letter, which was dedicated to Isherwood, and The Goodbye People. He has published a book on the films of Cukor and, most recently, The Dangerous Edge, an inquiry into the lives of nine masters of suspense (Grossman/Viking, 1976).

London Film Chronicle: Variation on a Personal Theme

London Film Chronicle: Variation on a Personal Theme

Howells' English Travel Books: Problems in Technique

In the first decade of the twentieth century, Howells wrote three books on England: London Films (1906), Certain Delightful English Towns (1906), and Seven English Cities (1909). As with most of his book publication, nearly all of these three had appeared in magazines, with about forty pages of London Films first coming out in the December 1904 issues of Harper's Monthly and the North American Review and with one essay of Seven English Cities printed in Harper's as late as July 1909. The first two books resulted from Howells' visit to England from March to October 1904, and the last partly from a visit in May and June 1908, though it drew also upon his earlier, longer stay. From the beginning he showed an outward reluctance to return to travel literature, his first extended work in the genre since Tuscan Cities in 1886 and A Little Swiss Sojourn in 1892. In a letter of 12 April 1904 to his wife he complained that Colonel George Harvey, of Harper & Brothers, “in spite of our agreement … has told round that I'm going to do a book,” and he went on to ask her to remember “that I have not yet promised any sort of book on England, though probably I shall do one of some sort.” But in the same letter he reported doing “a tentative impression which could be used in the Spectator and Harper's Weekly” (neither did print it); he had already written letters and sent a “diary” to his wife, from which his daughter, who accompanied him to England, has observed he drew upon for his first two books; and he had begun the first of four notebooks soon after his landing at Plymouth in March. At least as early as February 15, as Robert W. Walts has found, Howells had written to F. A. Duneka of Harper's about a proposed travel book; and as Walts remarks, after quoting more extensively than I have from the April 12 letter to Howells' wife: “Nevertheless, after the indignation had been smothered, two books, London Films and Certain Delightful English Towns, were produced from that trip.”

Heard and Seen: Critic in the Cinema

Today the conflict in critical opinion over controversial films often seems more pronounced when it comes to the kind of film that is most likely to engage the interest of Catholics. Never has it been more important that the intelligent Catholic should make up his own mind over a difficult picture than in the present state of the cinema; and by and large there is not, in this country, a great deal that will help him enlarge his cinematic critical apparatus. In France, Belgium or Italy the highbrow Catholic is not ashamed to admit to enthusiasm for the cinema: in England one only too often finds him saying that he cannot be bothered with films. This puts us at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to international gatherings concerned with any form of mass media and, worse still, at a visible loss when it comes to discussion with alert non-Catholic cinema-goers in this country about any particular film on which we should certainly have clear views one way or another.The eighth London Film Festival held last autumn provided a pertinent case in point. Owing to the massive rebuilding that is still taking place on the South Bank, the films this year were shown in the West End; in consequence a much larger proportion of the general public (as opposed to members of the British Film Institute) came to the performances. Three of the films shown were OCIC (Office Catholique Internationale du Cin?ma) prize winners – one of them the Grand Prix for 1964 – and several others were of lively interest to Catholic audiences.

New Vistas for the Film in Britain

BASIL WRIGHT'S article complements Arthur Mayer's “Fact Into Film,” published in the Summer 1944 issue of this QUARTERLY. Mr. Mayer concerned himself primarily with the documentary and informational film in the United States. Mr. Wright discusses the spectacular development of the same type of film in Britain. The British experience, Mr. Wright believes, might be an important contribution to the United Nations' efforts to establish international understanding. Mr. Wright is a distinguished director and film critic as well as a pioneer in the British documentary movement. At present he is Executive Director of the famed London Film Center.

London Scientific Film Society

THE proposed formation of a scientific film society, which would give shows of scientific documentary films to its members and their guests, was announced in NATURE of June 4. Such a society has now been formed, under the name of the London Scientific Film Society, and its inaugural meeting was held on October 14 at the Conway Hall. At the meeting Mr. L. V. Chilton explained how the formation of the Society was a direct result of the work of the Association of Scientific Workers on scientific films. One of the functions of the Association is the promotion of a proper understanding of science by the general public, and of what science can do for society ; the Association is therefore interested in the teaching of science and in the proper treatment of science on the screen. Mr. Arthur Elton referred to the London Film Society, which was formed eleven years ago and has had a broadening influence on the aesthetic film. He said that if the London Scientific Film Society is to be successful, it must reveal to the public both the achievements of science and the potentialities of the scientific documentary film. Such a society can do much to raise the standard of scientific accuracy of the films shown in public cinemas, and also to increase the number of scientific films shown. The first show of the Society will be held at 2.30 p.m. on Sunday, November 13, at the Academy Cinema. Particulars of the Society and forms of application for membership can be obtained from the Secretary at 28 Hogarth Road, S.W.5.