Essay from the year 2019 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, Nottingham Trent University, course: British Cinema, language: English, abstract: The term “heritage film” is not easily recognised, even among fans of historical films and costume dramas. That is because it does not describe a genre of films as such, but rather a critical concept that is associated with “a powerful undercurrent of nostalgia for the past conveyed by historical dramas, romantic costume films and literary adaptions”. Costume dramas were neither new nor confined to the UK, as films such as “Gone with the Wind” (1939, US) and “My Fair Lady” (1964, US) prove, however it was the British film studies that defined the term “heritage film” in the early 1980s in light of the National Heritage Act. The original cycle refers to films, almost all of them adapted from literature, from the 1980s and 1990s that depict pre-Wold-War-II England in a nostalgic fashion. The basic ideas and concepts of the plot and the setting tend to be very similar. Nostalgia, the image of the upper-middle class and rural white Englishness are used to define a supposed English national identity. Because of these features, the heritage films were quickly related to Thatcherism and the very conservative Thatcherite values. In this essay, I am going to look at three films that are considered “heritage”, two of them coming from the first stages of the heritage film in the 1980s and the third one coming from the late 1990s when the heritage film had already undergone a major shift due to changes in politics and it being criticised. In comparing the three films firstly to the Thatcherite values and secondly to each other, I will look at the conservative undertones and the shift they underwent.

While film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays captured the popular imagination at the turn of the last century, independent filmmakers began to adapt the plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries. The roots of their films in European avant-garde cinema and the plays' politically subversive, sexually transgressive and violent subject matter challenge Shakespeare's cultural dominance and the conventions of mainstream cinema. In Screening Early Modern Drama, Pascale Aebischer shows how director Derek Jarman constructed an alternative, dissident approach to filming literary heritage in his 'queer' Caravaggio and Edward II, providing models for subsequent filmmakers such as Mike Figgis, Peter Greenaway, Alex Cox and Sarah Harding. Aebischer explains how the advent of digital video has led to an explosion in low-budget screen versions of early modern drama. The only comprehensive analysis of early modern drama on screen to date, this groundbreaking study also includes an extensive annotated filmography listing forty-eight surviving adaptations.

The first substantial overview of the British film industry with emphasis on its genres, stars, and socioeconomic context, British National Cinema by Sarah Street is an important title in Routledge's new National Cinemas series. British National Cinema synthesizes years of scholarship on British film while incorporating the author' fresh perspective and research. Street divides the study of British cinema into four sections: the relation between the film industry and government; specific film genres; movie stars; and experimental cinema. In addition, this beautifully illustrated volume includes over thirty stills from every sphere of British cinema. British National Cinema will be of great interest to film students and theorists as well as the general reader interested in the fascinating scope of British film.

Rowland Wymer gives detailed, original critical readings of Derek Jarman's eleven feature-length films, and argues that he occupies a major and influential place in European and world cinema.

This book is a study of the contemporary audiences for quality period films, and their responses to these films, with reference to the critical debate which constructs many of these films as 'heritage films'.

A collection of essays and reports examining key issues in conservation and management of archaeological sites. It is divided into parts that focuses on historical methods, concepts, and issues; conserving the archaeological resource; physical conservation of archaeological sites; the cultural values of archaeological sites; and site management.

Like music, art is a universal language. Although looking at works of art is a pleasurable enough experience, to appreciate them fully requires certain skills and knowledge." --Carol Strickland, from the introduction to The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern * This heavily illustrated crash course in art history is revised and updated. This second edition of Carol Strickland's The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern offers an illustrated tutorial of prehistoric to post-modern art from cave paintings to video art installations to digital and Internet media. * Featuring succinct page-length essays, instructive sidebars, and more than 300 photographs, The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern takes art history out of the realm of dreary textbooks, demystifies jargon and theory, and makes art accessible-even at a cursory reading. * From Stonehenge to the Guggenheim and from Holbein to Warhol, more than 25,000 years of art is distilled into five sections covering a little more than 200 pages.

Studying Film is an all-encompassing guide to cinema and film which explores the key concepts, terms and events that have shaped film study and criticism, all of which is illustrated by reference to classic and contemporary movies from around the world, from The Great Train Robbery to Pulp Fiction via Un Chien Andalou and Cinema Paradiso. This accessible introduction to the study of film aims to stimulate students' enjoyment and understanding of a wide range of different types of film, and to give them an awareness of the nature of cinema as a medium, as an art form, and as a social and economic institution. Contemporary film is seen in context by tracing its development from 1895 to the present, exploring film production in a variety of countries in a range of styles, and placing film next to other media.

In the first book-length consideration of the topic for sixty years, Kevin Donnelly examines the importance of music in British film, concentrating both on musical scores, such as William Walton's score for Henry V (1944) and Malcolm Arnold's music for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and on the phenomenon of the British film musical.

Drawing on previously untapped archival materials including letters, interviews, and more, Bernard F. Dick traces the history of Columbia Pictures, from its beginnings as the CBC Film Sales Company, through the regimes of Harry Cohn and his successors, and ending with a vivid portrait of today's corporate Hollywood. The book offers unique perspectives on the careers of Rita Hayworth and Judy Holliday, a discussion of Columbia's unique brands of screwball comedy and film noir, and analyses of such classics as The Awful Truth, Born Yesterday, and From Here to Eternity. Following the author's highly readable studio chronicle are fourteen original essays by leading film scholars that follow Columbia's emergence from Poverty Row status to world class, and the stars, films, genres, writers, producers, and directors responsible for its transformation. A new essay on Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood rounds out the collection and brings this seminal studio history into the 21st century. Amply illustrated with film stills and photos of stars and studio heads, Columbia Pictures is the first book to integrate history with criticism of a single studio, and is ideal for film lovers and scholars alike.