Example Film Studies Essay

European film movements are most clearly understood as part of the cinema of periphery in relation to popular Hollywood productions. In consideration of examples from one European country, to what extent is this an accurate view?

This essay will focus on some of the key movements inBritish cinema, looking at how they relate to the world of Hollywood. Firstly,I shall look at how British films have found their way into the American andworld markets via the London-based company Working Title Films, and to whatextent these films are integrated into the Hollywood scene. Secondly, Therewill be an assessment of the tradition of social realism in British cinema,including the New Wave and Brit Grit movements, and their place ininternational cinema. Next, I shall look at the documentary movement in Britishcinema, and its impact on the wider world.

One of the most noticeable movements in Britishcinema in recent years has been the proliferation of the Working Title FilmsCompany. Founded in London by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, Working Title hasenhanced the profile of British cinema to an unprecedented extent. Thescreening of Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994 proved a turning pointin the history of British film, proving vastly popular with American audiences,and subsequent productions from Working Title have helped to cement the placeof the British Blockbuster in Hollywood. In this way, British cinema has beenable to produce films with international mass appeal, and it is probably fairto say that there are more mainstream British films on at the cinema now thanthere were fifteen years ago.

However, it is important to consider that,although there has been an increase in the commercial success of British film,it is still arguably seen as a satellite of Hollywood. For instance, evensuccessful British films are often labelled as art cinema. In an article onShekhar Kapur's Elizabeth, Julian Hill argues that,

Although it does offerentertainment through a fascinating narrative, the film as a whole is presentedin a creative way, owing to the amateurish vision of Kapur. (Hill, 2000)

Indeed, its relationship to Hollywood is entirely colouredby its status as an art film, and by implication, its partly British origins.Bordwell and Thompson argue that any British film of this type would be viewedas art cinema in Hollywood, as art cinema is a term,

used by the US film industry todescribe imported films of interest the upper-middle class, educatedaudiences. (Bordwell and Thompson, 1990)

In this respect, British film is still marginalized inrelation to Hollywood. Commercial success has been forthcoming, but the veryfact that a film is British in origin leads it to be viewed in different termsto those in which a Hollywood movie is viewed. Even the big blockbusters of theFour Weddings ilk are viewed at least partly as foreign curiosities, andcrucially they often try to appeal directly to an American audience, forexample, containing a token American character.

One area in which British cinema has perhapsdemonstrated greater independence from Hollywood is in the field of so-calledsocial realism films. There have been many movements over the different eraswhich fall into this category, from the New Wave cinema of the 1950s and '60s, suchas Room at the Top (1958), to the what have been called Brit Gritfilms, like Nil by Mouth (1997), and this recurring idea of kitchensink realism forms an important part of the British cinema tradition. Indeed,it has been suggested that all of these movements are a tradition in themselves(Thorpe, 1999, cited in Lay, 2002) It is in this area that, for many critics,the real essence of British cinema is found. It has been argued that theaesthetics of British realism are defined in terms of oppositionto Hollywood spectacle. Visual and acting styles were to be restrained, theemphasis was to be on ordinary people in ordinary settings. (Cook, 1996)

In this respect, British cinemais not always a mere satellite of Hollywood, as it also tries to bedeliberately antagonistic towards Hollywood ideals. Unlike many of the WorkingTitle films, with their quasi-American leanings and their use of a highlystylised Britishness, some social realism has sought to challenge thisposition. For example, in Trainspotting the audience is introduced to amuch darker vision of Britain, and one less obviously palatable to Hollywoodaudiences, than that which is seen in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Atfirst glance, one could argue that much British realism is so idiosyncratic asto be marginalized in the wider world, but films like Trainspotting and TheFull Monty show that it is possible to make a film depicting ordinaryBritish life that has mass appeal.

However, although this form ofcinema apparently demonstrates an indifference to Hollywood conventions, ascook notes above, it is actually not indifference but a form of rebellion. Inthis sense, British social realism as a part of international cinema can beseen as still subservient to Hollywood, albeit in a more subtle way than someof the other blockbusters. In order for it to be deliberately antagonistictoward the ideals of Hollywood, it is necessary that those ideals must exist,and in that sense, social realist films are peripheral to Hollywood as they fulfilthe role of a counter-movement.

Alongside realist fiction, amajor area of British cinema is the documentary. Arguably Britain's majorcontribution to world cinema, its heyday was in the 1930s. The documentarymovement was headed by John Grierson, and funded by the film units of theEmpire Marketing Board and the General Post Office. Through landmarkproductions such as Housing Problems (1935), the movement used its statebacking, and freedom from commerce, to highlight many of the social problems ofits day, and has been identified as the first movement to have a lastinginfluence on the art of film (Rotha, 1972). Like the fictional forms of socialrealism, it demonstrated a freedom from, and to some extent an aversion to, theideals of Hollywood. However, unlike other forms of social realism, it is oftencriticized for its lack of aesthetics.

There was no consistent artistictheory underlying the movement; the film art was to be used as a means to apolitical end. (Guynn, 1975)

In this sense, then, not only isthere the consideration of the documentary movement being antagonistic toHollywood, but also the fact that it lacks artistic drive means that it canonly form part of a balanced view of cinema. The art of filmmaking is certainlyable to deliver important views and to comment on the state of the world, butit is ultimately an art, and in this aspect the documentary movement, aswe have seen, was lacking. Therefore, it must necessarily be peripheral sinceit does not engage the full potential of its genre, rather in the way that apolitical pamphlet usually shows less artistic development than a poem or anovel. In the light of this consideration, one could view the documentarymovement and its legacy as a marginal aspect of cinema - an important marginalaspect, even a necessary one, but nevertheless something that exists as auseful sub-genre and therefore is secondary to Hollywood.

In conclusion, it does seem thatBritish cinema is to some extent peripheral to Hollywood. Working Title filmshave in recent years brought British films into the Hollywood mainstream, butmany of the films have contained an Americanised element, or have been seen asart cinema. In this way, even hugely popular British films are in a sensemarginal. Social realism has provided an avenue in which British cinema hasbeen able to shrug off Hollywood ideals in favour of showing ordinary people'slives, and many films of this type have been successful overseas. However, inrebelling against Hollywood in this way, such films can be viewed as peripheralto it in an antagonistic sense. Similarly, the documentary movement rebelledagainst Hollywood to some extent, and the movement's international importanceis undoubted, being described as Britain's major contribution to world cinema.However, its lack of an artistic aesthetic makes it necessarily marginal in theworld of cinema. Film is, at bottom, an art form, and any movement thatneglects the artistic element in favour of a political message can only ever bea marginal - if important - part of the whole.

British cinema then, when viewedin an international context, is always peripheral to Hollywood. It is doubtlessan important part of world cinema, and has made invaluable contributions toboth the art of film and to the tradition of reportage through film, but thedominance of Hollywood in the international scene means that any movement thatis outside it is, as a matter of course, a comparatively minor player in worldcinema.