Film Studies 120. In the 1960s, British studios began to enjoy major success in the international...

Great DirectorsFilm Studies 120

The 1960s Boom

In the 1960s, British studios began to enjoy major success in the international market with a string of films that displayed a more liberal attitude to sex:

▪ For example, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup (1966) broke taboos around the portrayal of sex and nudity on screen.

The 1960s Boom

CLIP:Michelangelo Antonioni

Blowup (1966)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlb5HdDNQoM&feature=related

The 1960s Boom

At the same time, the James Bond series with Sean Connery in the leading role became a phenomenal success:

The first film, Dr. No (1962), became a national success, and the second, From Russia with Love (1963), a hit worldwide.

By the time of the third film, Goldfinger (1964), the series had become a global phenomenon, reaching its commercial peak with Thunderball the following year.

The 1960s Boom

CLIP:Guy Hamilton

Goldfinger (1964)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdQoSK9wibU

The 1960s Boom

American directors were regularly working in London throughout the 1960s, but several became permanent residents in the UK.

Stanley Kubrick settled in England in the early 60s and would remain there for the rest of his career.

Dr. Strangelove was filmed at Shepperton Studios, in London

Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999)

Stanley Kubrick was an American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor, who lived in England during the last 40 years of his career.

Kubrick was known for the variety of genres he worked in, his technical perfectionism and his reclusiveness about his professional and personal life.


Kubrick worked beyond the confines of the Hollywood Studios system, maintaining almost complete artistic control over his films.

Kubrick is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished, innovative and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema:

He directed a number of highly acclaimed and often controversial films, characterized by a meticulous attention to detail.


Kubrick: the Photographer Kubrick became a

photographer for Look in 1946.

Self-portrait (1950) from the Look Magazine Photograph Collection, The Library of Congress.

Self-portrait, “Stan Kubrick”–

style, 1950.

Stanley Kubrick: The Documentarist

In 1951, Kubrick's friend Alex Singer persuaded him to start making short documentaries for The March of Time, a provider of newsreels to movie theatres. Kubrick agreed, and shot the independently financed Day of the Fight (1951): The film notably employed a tracking shot, which would

become one of Kubrick's signature camera movements.

A Tracking Shot (or dolly shot) is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. The tracking shot can include smooth movements forward, backward, along the side of the subject, or on a curve.

Stanley Kubrick:The Documentarist

Inspired by this early success, Kubrick quit his job at Look magazine and began working on his second short documentary, Flying Padre (1951), funded by RKO.

The Seafarers (1953), Kubrick's third documentary and first color film, was a 30-minute promotional film for the Seafarers' International Union.

Day of the Fight, Flying Padre and The Seafarers constitute Kubrick's only surviving work in the documentary genre.

Stanley Kubrick:The Documentarist

CLIP:

Stanley KubrickFlying Padre

(1951)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqWEd9w6qKQ&feature=related

Stanley Kubrick:The 1950s

Kubrick moved to narrative feature films with Fear and Desire (1953), the story of a team of soldiers caught behind enemy lines in a fictional war. In later life, Kubrick was embarrassed by the film, which he dismissed as an amateur effort.

Kubrick’s next film, Killer's Kiss (1954), is a short feature film about a young heavyweight boxer at the end of his career.

Both Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss were privately funded by Kubrick's family and friends and met with limited commercial and critical success.


Kubrick’s next film, The Killing (1956), is a story about a meticulously planned race track robbery gone wrong after the mobsters get away with the money.

The Killing was Kubrick's first full-length feature film, shot with a professional cast and crew. It had a nonlinear storyline (imitated nearly 40 years later by director Quentin Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs).


Tarantino has acknowledged Kubrick's The Killing as a major influence.

The Killing followed the conventions of film noir, both in its plotting and cinematography style. Today, many critics regard this film as one of the best of the noir genre.

While it was not a financial success, it received good reviews.

Kubrick vs. Tarantino

Kubrick Tarantino


Kubrick's next film Paths of Glory (1957) was set during World War I and based on H. Cobb's 1935 antiwar novel of the same name.

Cast as Colonel Dax, Kirk Douglas was instrumental in securing financing for the production.

The film was critically acclaimed, establishing Kubrick as a major up-and-coming young filmmaker. Steven Spielberg has named this one of his favorite Kubrick films.

Stanley Kubrick:Paths of Glory (1957)


Kubrick's next film Spartacus (1960) was based upon the true story of a doomed uprising of Roman slaves.

Spartacus was a difficult production: Kubrick and Douglas reportedly had a stormy

working relationship. The friendship the two men had formed on Paths of Glory was destroyed by the experience of making the film. Years later, Douglas referred to Kubrick as "a talented shit."


Spartacus was a critical and commercial success and established Kubrick as a major director: Its embattled production convinced Kubrick to

find ways of working with Hollywood financing while remaining independent of its production system => Spartacus is the only Kubrick’s film in which he had no hand in the screenplay, no final cut, no producing credit, nor any say in the casting (it was largely Kirk Douglas' project).

Spartacus would go on to win 4 Oscars.

Stanley Kubrick:Spartacus (1960)


In 1962, Kubrick moved to England to film Lolita. The original motivation was to film the film in a country with laxer censorship laws.

Kubrick remained in England to film Dr. Strangelove (1964) => Peter Sellers was not permitted to leave England at the time as he was involved in divorce proceedings.

It was after filming Lolita and Dr. Strangelove that Kubrick decided to settle in England permanently.


Lolita was Kubrick's first film to generate major controversy.

Based on the book by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita dealt with an affair between a middle-aged man named Humbert Humbert and his twelve-year-old stepdaughter. Lolita was already notorious as an "obscene"

novel when Kubrick embarked on the project.


Prior to Lolita’s release, Kubrick realized that to get a Production Code seal, the screenplay would have to not be overly provocative, treading lightly with its theme.

As a result, the novel's more perverse aspects were toned down in the final cut, leaving much to the viewer's imagination.

Kubrick would later say that had he known the severity of the censorship he would face, he probably would not have made the film.


Lolita received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Sue Lyon, who played the title role, won a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer.

Film critic Gene Youngblood holds that stylistically Lolita is a transitional film for Kubrick, "marking the turning point from a naturalistic cinema...to the surrealism of the later films."

Stanley Kubrick:Lolita (1962)


Kubrick's next film, Dr. Strangelove (1964), became a cult film and is now considered a classic.

Based upon the novel Red Alert by ex flight lieutenant Peter George, the screenplay was co-written by Kubrick and George.

Red Alert is a cautionary tale of accidental atomic war. However, Kubrick found the conditions leading to nuclear war so absurd that he transformed the story into a sinister macabre comedy.


The film prefigured the antiwar sentiments of the later 1960s that would become explosive only a few years after its release.

Peter Sellers, who had played a small part in Lolita, was hired to play four roles in Dr. Strangelove. He eventually played three, due to an injured

leg and his difficulty in mastering a Texas accent.

Stanley Kubrick:Dr. Strangelove (1964)


Kubrick spent five years developing his next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

The film was conceived as a Cinerama spectacle and was photographed in Super Panavision 70.

Kubrick co-wrote the screenplay with science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke, expanding on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel.”


The $10,000,000 (U.S.) film was a massive production for its time: The groundbreaking visual effects were overseen by

Kubrick and were engineered by a team that included Douglas Trumbull, who would become famous for his work on the film Blade Runner.

Although it eventually became an enormous success, the film was not an immediate hit: Initial critical reaction was extremely hostile, with

critics attacking the film's lack of dialogue, slow pacing, and complex storyline.


The 1960s counterculture audience loved the movie's "Star Gate" psychedelic sequence.

Despite nominations in the directing, writing, and producing categories, the only Academy Award Kubrick ever received was for supervising the special effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Today, 2001: A Space Odyssey is considered the greatest sci-fi film ever made, and it is a staple on Top 10 lists of all-time.


Artistically, 2001 was a radical departure from Kubrick's previous films. It contains only 45 minutes of spoken

dialogue, over a running time of two hours and twenty minutes.

Some argue that Kubrick is portraying a future humanity largely dissociated from its environment. The film's ambiguous, perplexing ending continues to fascinate contemporary audiences and critics.


2001: A Space Odyssey is perhaps Kubrick's most famous and influential film: Steven Spielberg called it his generation's

big bang.

It was a precursor to the explosion of the science fiction film market nine years later, which began with the release of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Stanley Kubrick: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

The 1970s

In the 1970s, the film industry in both the United Kingdom and the United States entered into recession. American studios cut back on domestic production, and in many cases withdrew from financing British films altogether.

Large-scale productions were still being mounted, but they were more sporadic and sometimes seemed old-fashioned compared with the competition from America. Among the more successful were adaptations of the

Agatha Christie stories’ Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978).

The 1970s

The 1970s

A major influence on British comedy films in the 1970s was the Monty Python group, from television.

Their two most successful films were Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), the latter a major commercial success.

The 1970s

The 1970s

More relaxed censorship in the 1970s also brought several controversial films such as Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971).

We’ll talk about this movie next week.

The 1970s

The late-1970s at least saw a revival of the James Bond series with The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).

Some American productions did return to the major British studios in the late-1970s, including Star Wars (1977) at Elstree Studios, Superman (1978) at Pinewood, and Alien (1979) at Shepperton.

The 1980s

The decade began with the worst recession the British film industry had ever seen.

In 1980 only 31 British films were made (down 50% on the previous year) and production was down again the following year, to 24 films.

The 1980s

In 1983, Gandhi won an Academy Award for best picture, prompting a cycle of bigger budget period films:

David Lean's final film A Passage to India (1984) A Room with a View (1986)

However, further attempts to make 'big' productions for the US market ended in failure.

By this stage the rest of the new talent had moved on to Hollywood.

The 1980s

The Monty Pythons' influence was still apparent in British comedy films of the 1980s, the most notable examples being: Terry Gilliam's fantasy films Time Bandits

(1981) and Brazil (1985)

John Cleese's A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

The 1990s

In the early-1990s, Kenneth Branagh’s The Madness of King George (1994) proved there was still a market for the traditional British costume drama, and a large number of other period films followed:

Sense and Sensibility (1995) Restoration (1995) Emma (1996) Mrs. Brown (1997) The Wings of the Dove (1997) Shakespeare in Love (1998) Topsy-Turvy (1999)

The 1990s

Several of these period films were funded by Miramax Films, who also took over Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996) when the production ran into difficulties during filming.

Although technically an American production, the success of this film, including its 9 Academy Award wins would bring further prestige to British filmmakers.

The 1990s

The surprise success of Richard Curtis’s Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), which grossed $244 million worldwide and introduced Hugh Grant to global fame, led to renewed interest and investment in British films, and set a pattern for British-set romantic comedies, including:

Peter Howitt’s Sliding Doors (1998) Roger Michell’s Notting Hill (1999)

The 1990s

In 1997, The Full Monty unexpectedly became a runaway success and broke British box office records.

Produced for under $4 millions and grossing $257 millions internationally, studios were encouraged to start smaller subsidiaries dedicated to looking for other low budget productions capable of producing similar returns.

The 1990s After a six-year break, the James Bond films

returned to production with GoldenEye (1995). American productions also began to return to

British studios in the mid-1990s, including:

Interview with the Vampire (1994) Mission: Impossible (1996) The Fifth Element (1997) Saving Private Ryan (1998) Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) The Mummy (1999)

The 1990s

In the 1990s, Mike Leigh emerged as a significant figure in British cinema with a series of films financed by Channel 4 about working and middle class life in modern England, including:

Life Is Sweet (1991) Naked (1993) Secrets and Lies (199.), which won the

Palme d'Or at Cannes.

The 1990s

Other new talents to emerge during the 1990s included the writer-director-producer team of John Hodge, Danny Boyle and Andrew Macdonald responsible for: Shallow Grave (1994) Trainspotting (1996)

British cinema since 2000

In the 2000s, many British films have found a wide international audience.

Some of the independent production companies, such as Working Title, have secured financing and distribution deals with major American studios.

Working Title scored three major international successes, all starring Hugh Grant: Bridget Jones's Diary (2001 - $254 m) Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004 - $228 m) Richard Curtis, Love Actually (2003 - $239 m)


In the early-2000s, a series of critically-acclaimed films brought prestige to the British film industry:

Gosford Park (2001) Pride and Prejudice (2005) The Constant Gardener (2005) The Queen (2006) The Last King of Scotland (2006)


The 2000s also saw a major new film series in Harry Potter films, beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001).

David Heyman's company Heyday Films has already produced seven sequels.


In 2000, Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit and the Creature Comforts series, produced his first feature length film, Chicken Run.

Co-directed with Peter Lord, the film was a major success worldwide. Park's follow up, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was another worldwide hit, The film grossed $56 million at the US box office and £32 million in the UK. It also won the 2005 Academy Award for best animated feature.


CHICKEN RUN WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT


The turn of the new century saw a revival of the British horror film. Lead by Danny Boyle's acclaimed hit 28 Days Later (2002), other examples included: Neil Marshall, Dog Soldiers (2002) Edgar Wright, Shaun of the Dead (2004) Neil Marshall, The Descent (2005)

Danny Boyle 28 Days Later (2002)


In 2004, Mike Leigh directed Vera Drake, an account of a housewife who leads a double life as an abortionist in 1950s London.

The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and three BAFTAs.

Mike LeighVera Drake (2004)


In the 2000s, Stephen Frears directed a trilogy of films about British life: Dirty Pretty Things (2002) => about illegal

migrant workers in London's black economy.

Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005) => dealing with the Windmill Theatre in World War II.

The Queen (2006) => based on the events surrounding the death of Princess Diana.

Ken Loach, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)

Ken Loach

In 2006, Ken Loach won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with his account of the struggle for Irish Independence in The Wind That Shakes the Barley.


Woody Allen became a convert to British filmmaking, choosing to shoot his 2005 film Match Point entirely in London, with a largely British cast and financing from BBC Films.

Other foreign directors choosing to shoot British films in Britain included Alfonso Cuarón with Children of Men (2006) and Jane Campion with Bright Star (2009).


James bond English actor Daniel

Craig became the new James Bond with Casino Royale (2006).

The film was nominated for nine BAFTA awards, the highest recognition for a Bond film.


In 2008, British releases included the documentary Man On Wire and a new comedy-drama from Mike Leigh Happy Go Lucky.

However the year was dominated by a single film: Slumdog Millionaire, an Indian story that was filmed entirely in Mumbai with a mostly Indian cast, though with a British director (Danny Boyle), producer (Christian Colson), screenwriter (Simon Beaufoy) and star (Dev Patel).


Slumdog Millionaire has received worldwide critical acclaim:

It has won four Golden Globes, seven BAFTA Awards and eight Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Film.

This was the first entirely-British financed film since Hamlet in 1948 to win the Best Picture Oscar.


Despite increasing competition from film studios in Australia and Eastern Europe (especially the Czech Republic), British studios such as Pinewood, Shepperton and Leavesden remained successful in hosting major foreign productions including:

Finding Neverland, V for Vendetta, Closer, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Golden Compass, Sweeney Todd, Mamma Mia!, The Wolf Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Nine.


The film industry remains an important earner for the British economy. According to a UK Film Council press release of 15 January 2007, £840.1 million was spent on making films in the UK during 2006.

British Cinema

The British film industry has produced some of the greatest directors of all time: Alfred Hitchcock David Lean Stanley Kubrick Ridley Scott Danny Boyle

STANLEY KUBRICK

“In the whole history of movies, there has been nothing like Kubrick's vision. It was a vision of hope and wonder, of grace and of mystery, of humor and contradictions. It was a gift to us, and now it's a legacy.”

Steven Spielberg, 2006

STANLEY KUBRICK: INTERVIEWS

Stanley KubrickInterview - Parts 1 & 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzO_sLnfrg8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mQl3Y8_PyE&NR=1


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL2MBYKTeA0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ72w4VgSUg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzO_sLnfrg8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mQl3Y8_PyE&NR=1





STANLEY KUBRICK: INTERVIEWS


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgjbD9MLXu4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhcEbXowroA&feature=related

Stanley KubrickInterview – Parts 7, 8 & 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIxY2CHxDug&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhRibG7yyAs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80lyG8h5IQc&feature=related











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