Spinsters, Widows and Chars: The Ageing Woman in British Film

by Claire Mortimer

Overview

Actresses like Maggie Smith, Cicely Courtneidge and Sybil Thorndike have established the enduring appeal of the ageing actress in British film. Historicising and contextualising this archetypal figure, this book establishes a taxonomy of female ageing in British cinema, from the 1930s to the present day.
Arguing that the prevalence of various iterations of the character actress is essential in understanding the nature of British cinema, specifically in how it has developed to define itself against Hollywood, employing archetypes which draw on well-established mythologies regarding ageing femininities. The book centres on the analysis of a broad range of films, such as Blithe Spirit (1945), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1968) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), as well as the work of selected actresses, considering them within the context of the broader historical factors which impacted on ageing femininities, including the Second World War, the post-war settlement, the Welfare State, and the implications for the women’s movement as a whole.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474452830
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	07/17/2023
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Dr Claire Mortimer is Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at Colchester Sixth Form.

Table of Contents

List of figuresAcknowledgements

1. Introduction: Ageing Women and British Cinema

2. Immobile Women? Ageing Women and Wartime Cinema

3. ‘It Ain’t Natural Her Not Having a Husband’: Spinsters and the Post-War Settlement

4. ‘Dangerous and Unwholesome’ - the Spinster Teacher

5. Battle Axes and Chars: Working-Class Matriarchs

6. ‘Not Having It So Good’: Widowhood, Anomalous Ageing and the Welfare State

7. ‘Infertile, Domestically Unnecessary, and Jealous’: Hags, Witches, and the Magic Spinster

8. ‘Senior-Bait Cinema’: Female Ageing in Contemporary British Film

BibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

A fascinating, informative and eminently readable volume […] bringing the spotlight to bear particularly on the range of types of female ageing characters evident in British cinema from the 1930s to the present day. [..] Vividly reminds us that among the preponderance of archetypes, ageing women have limitless stories to share if the industry will only do more to facilitate their telling.

Journal of British Cinema and Television - Deborah Jermyn

Claire Mortimer’s study emphasises the centrality of older women to the stories British cinema has told, despite the social marginalisation frequently visited upon them in real life. Examining familiar films with a fresh lens while also shining a light on lesser-known films, and spanning the 1930s to the present day, this book offers a spirited critical survey of the female figurations of age in British films, encompassing bluestockings and battleaxes, witches and widow-women, charladies and duchesses, spinsters and matriarchs. It also celebrates the powerful performances that brought sometimes stereotypically conceived characters to subversive life on the screen. Essential reading for scholars of both British cinema history and the cultural politics of femininity and ageing.

Melanie Williams

Mortimer surveys the representational avenues available to aging women in British cinema, noting both long-standing archetypes and investigating recent trends. [...] The excellent chapter “Hags, Witches, and the Magic Spinster” particularly shows the centrality of aging women to the boom in supernatural, horror, and occult films in postwar British cinema. Highly recommended.

CHOICE - K. M. Flanagan