Description
Book SynopsisExamines English films and television dramas as they relate to English culture in the 20th century. This book traces themes such as the influence of US crime drama on English film, and film adaptations of literary works as they appear in screen work from the 1930s. It also analyzes the documentary "Listen to Britain".
Trade Review. . . ambitious and expansive . . . .
-- Lucy Scholes * TLS - Times Literary Supplement *
A substantive, seductive, charming piece of work, this book is a paradigm of good sense and clarity—neither pedantic nor trendy. . . . Highly recommended. November 2010
* Choice *
I recommend this book to those who take pleasure in cinema; I prescribe it to those who need to learn how to write about the aesthetics of cinema, not the ideology of culture.Issue 30 - 2011
* Screening the Past *
Table of ContentsContents
Preface
Introduction: By Way of Hanif Kureishi and Stephen Frears
1. Wartime Pageantry
The Archers on Pilgrimage
Screen Processions and Village Pageants
The Documentary Pageant: Jennings's Listen to Britain
2. American Gangsters, English Crime Films, and Dennis Potter
George Orwell versus James Hadley Chase
Contending with America
In Search of an English Crime Film
The Singing Detective as Summa Criminologica
3. Two Texts to Screen
How to Adapt Dickens, and How Not to Do It
Ishiguro and Merchant-Ivory, Upstairs and Downstairs
4. The Strange Potencies of Music
Rawsthorne and Rachmaninoff
Rolling Out the Barrel, Looking Up and Laughing
Distant Voices and Lip-Synched Lives
Conclusion: By Way of Tony Harrison and Alan Bennett
Notes
Index
