Overview
- Excavates many neglected and forgotten films that have not previously been regarded as central to the imagined canon of British war films, and shows why they are important
- Connects British representations of war to points of view and experiences from elsewhere in the world, and stresses how the fortunes of the British film industry have been especially tied to the United States
- Works out of an interdisciplinary framework that ties cultural studies and the study of moving images in/as history to key writings in the historiography of British cinema
Part of the book series: Britain and the World (BAW)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book explores alternatives to realist, triumphalist, and heroic representations of war in British film and television. Focusing on the period between the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the Falkland War but offering connections to the moment of Brexit, it argues that the “lost continent” of existential, satirical, simulated, and abstractly traumatic war stories is as central to understanding Britain’s martial history as the mainstream inheritance. The book features case studies that stress the contribution of exiled or expatriate directors and outsider sensibilities, with particular emphasis on Peter Watkins, Joseph Losey, and Richard Lester. At the same time, it demonstrates concerns and stylistic emphases that continue to the present in television series and films by directors such as Lone Scherfig and Christopher Nolan. Encompassing everything from features to government information films, the book explores related trends in the British film industry, popular culture, and film criticism, while offering a sense of how these contexts contribute to historical memory.
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Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Kevin M. Flanagan is Term Assistant Professor of English at George Mason University, USA. He is the editor of Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England’s Last Mannerist (2009) and has published essays in Screen, Framework, Critical Quarterly, and the Journal of British Cinema and Television, as well as in many edited collections and reference works.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: War Representation in British Cinema and Television
Book Subtitle: From Suez to Thatcher, and Beyond
Authors: Kevin M. Flanagan
Series Title: Britain and the World
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30203-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-30202-3Published: 07 November 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-30205-4Published: 07 November 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-30203-0Published: 25 October 2019
Series ISSN: 2947-7182
Series E-ISSN: 2947-7190
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 225
Number of Illustrations: 6 b/w illustrations, 8 illustrations in colour
Topics: British Cinema and TV, British Culture, History of World War II and the Holocaust, History of Britain and Ireland