British Cinema and a Divided Nation

by John White

Overview

British Cinema and a Divided Nation examines representations of the nation found within contemporary British cinema, against a backdrop of rising political tensions and deepening social divisions following the ‘Brexit’ referendum of June 2016. Exploring ways in which the contest of ideologies within media representations has played out post-2016, the book identifies divisions within society that have been given narrative shape and cultural form within recent British films. With case studies of major films such as Mary Queen of Scots, Peterloo, Darkest Hour, Sorry We Missed You and Downton Abbey, this book questions whether we are seeing the negotiation of a new relationship with the wider world, or simply a re-iteration of a long-standing British, or English, understanding of national identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474481038
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	07/17/2023
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

John White teaches film studies at Anglia Ruskin Universityin Cambridge. He is co-editor of Fifty Key British Films (Routledge, 2008), Fifty Key American Films (Routledge, 2009) and The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films (Routledge, 2014). He recently contributed chapters to books on Budd Boetticher and Delmer Daves in the Edinburgh UniversityPress ReFocus series, and is the author of Westerns (Routledge, 2011) and European Art Cinema (Routledge, 2017).

Table of Contents

List of Figures

1. Introduction: popular culture and a shared national perspective

PART I: Reinterpreting pre-twentieth century British history

2. What chance sisterhood under patriarchy?: Mary Queen of Scots (Josie Rourke, 2018).

3. What would it be to ‘turn the world upside down': Fanny Lye Deliver'd (Thomas Clay, 2019).

4. Politics in ‘the corridors of power’ then (and now): The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018).

5. Class as the crucial division in UK society: Peterloo (Mike Leigh, 2018).

PART II: Rehearsing twentieth century British history.

6. One-nation Conservatism 1920s/2020s: Downton Abbey (Michael Engler, 2019).

7. Defending this ‘island nation’: Darkest Hour (Joe Wright, 2017) and Churchill (Jonathan Teplitzky, 2017).

8. Identity politics: Where Hands Touch (Amma Asante, 2018) and A United Kingdom (Asante, 2016).

9. Colonialism and the reshaping of history: Viceroy's House (Gurinder Chadha, 2017).

PART III: Re-presenting Britain in the twenty-first century.

10. Educated elites and plebeians: The Sense of an Ending (Ritesh Batra, 2017) and Daphne (Peter Mackie Burns, 2017).

11. Migration in an age of ideological confrontation: God's Own Country (Francis Lee, 2017).

12. Rural poverty: Dark River (Clio Barnard, 2017) and The Levelling (Hope Dickson Leach, 2016).

13. Urban poverty: Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach, 2019).

14. Conclusion: liberal consensus politics, economics and class.

Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

This thoughtful and thought-provoking study of contemporary British film situates its case studies firmly within their social, political, historical and cultural contexts, reading them collectively as expressive of a fractured national psyche. Whether mobilising the past or exploring the present, dealing with conflict or community, the films discussed in this book, ranging from wartime biopics to costume drama, art cinema to social realism, are compellingly presented as an especially incisive way of accessing and understanding the state of the nation.

Melanie Williams

John White unfurls an ambitious tapestry of five hundred years of history, politics, economics and culture as related to us by a selection of twenty-first-century British feature films. Moreover, interweaving itself through their tall and terrible tales of wealth, poverty, love and war is a myth which millions of us still believe in today; ‘the United Kingdom’ is a quaint oxymoron for which tens of thousands are still prepared to die. British Cinema and a Divided Nation makes you feel strangely patriotic, that through passion, persistence and protest there is still something worth fighting for. As a result, it is highly recommended.

Counterfire - Brett Gregory