Heritage Film Audiences

This book is a study of the contemporary audiences for quality period films, and their responses to these films, with reference to the critical debate which constructs many of these films as 'heritage films'.

Essay from the year 2019 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, Nottingham Trent University, course: British Cinema, language: English, abstract: The term “heritage film” is not easily recognised, even among fans of historical films and costume dramas. That is because it does not describe a genre of films as such, but rather a critical concept that is associated with “a powerful undercurrent of nostalgia for the past conveyed by historical dramas, romantic costume films and literary adaptions”. Costume dramas were neither new nor confined to the UK, as films such as “Gone with the Wind” (1939, US) and “My Fair Lady” (1964, US) prove, however it was the British film studies that defined the term “heritage film” in the early 1980s in light of the National Heritage Act. The original cycle refers to films, almost all of them adapted from literature, from the 1980s and 1990s that depict pre-Wold-War-II England in a nostalgic fashion. The basic ideas and concepts of the plot and the setting tend to be very similar. Nostalgia, the image of the upper-middle class and rural white Englishness are used to define a supposed English national identity. Because of these features, the heritage films were quickly related to Thatcherism and the very conservative Thatcherite values. In this essay, I am going to look at three films that are considered “heritage”, two of them coming from the first stages of the heritage film in the 1980s and the third one coming from the late 1990s when the heritage film had already undergone a major shift due to changes in politics and it being criticised. In comparing the three films firstly to the Thatcherite values and secondly to each other, I will look at the conservative undertones and the shift they underwent.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, Film, History and Memory broadens the focus from 'history', the study of past events, to 'memory', the processes – individual, generational, collective or state-driven – by which meanings are attached to the past.

This book explores composed scores and pre-existing music in French cinema from 1985 to 2015 so as to identify critical musical moments. It shows how heritage films construct space through music, generating what Powrie calls “third space music,” while also working to contain the strong women characters found in French heritage films through the use of leitmotifs and musical cues. He analyses fiction films in which the protagonists perform at the piano, showing how musical performance supports the performance of gender. Building on aspects of musical performance, and in particular the use of songs performed in films, Powrie uses a database of 300 films since 2010 to theorize the intervention of music at critical moments as a “crystal-song”. Applying Roland Barthes’s concept of the “punctum” and Gille Deleuze’s concept of the “crystal-image,” Powrie establishes the importance of the crystal-song, which reconfigures time as a crystallization of past, present and future.

A stimulating overview of the intellectual arguments and critical debates involved in the study of British and Irish cinemas British and Irish film studies have expanded in scope and depth in recent years, prompting a growing number of critical debates on how these cinemas are analysed, contextualized, and understood. A Companion to British and Irish Cinema addresses arguments surrounding film historiography, methods of textual analysis, critical judgments, and the social and economic contexts that are central to the study of these cinemas. Twenty-nine essays from many of the most prominent writers in the field examine how British and Irish cinema have been discussed, the concepts and methods used to interpret and understand British and Irish films, and the defining issues and debates at the heart of British and Irish cinema studies. Offering a broad scope of commentary, the Companion explores historical, cultural and aesthetic questions that encompass over a century of British and Irish film studies—from the early years of the silent era to the present-day. Divided into five sections, the Companion discusses the social and cultural forces shaping British and Irish cinema during different periods, the contexts in which films are produced, distributed and exhibited, the genres and styles that have been adopted by British and Irish films, issues of representation and identity, and debates on concepts of national cinema at a time when ideas of what constitutes both ‘British’ and ‘Irish’ cinema are under question. A Companion to British and Irish Cinema is a valuable and timely resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of film, media, and cultural studies, and for those seeking contemporary commentary on the cinemas of Britain and Ireland.

Focused on a body of films bound together through a cinematic aesthetic of slowness, this book is a pioneering effort to situate, theorise and map out slow cinema within contemporary global film production and across world cinema history.

The British heritage film : nation and representation -- Production cycles and cultural significance : a European heritage film? -- Narrative aesthetics and gentered histories : renewing the heritage film -- Afterword: tradition and change.

The international success of Downton Abbey has led to a revived interest in period dramas, with older programs like The Forsyte Saga being rediscovered by a new generation of fans whose tastes also include grittier fare like Ripper Street. Though often criticized as a form of escapist, conservative nostalgia, these shows can also provide a lens to examine the class and gender politics of both the past and present. In Upstairs and Downstairs: British Costume Drama Television from The Forsyte Saga to Downton Abbey, James Leggott and Julie Anne Taddeo provide a collection of essays that analyze key developments in the history of period dramas from the late 1960s to the present day. Contributors explore such issues as how the genre fulfills and disrupts notions of “quality television,” the process of adaptation, the relationship between UK and U.S. television, and the connection between the period drama and wider developments in TV and popular culture. Additional essays examine how fans shape the content and reception of these dramas and how the genre has articulated or generated debates about gender, sexuality, and class. In addition to Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs, other programs discussed in this collection include Call the Midwife, Danger UXB, Mr. Selfridge, Parade’s End, Piece of Cake, and Poldark. Tracing the lineage of costume drama from landmark productions of the late 1960s and 1970s to some of the most talked-about productions of recent years, Upstairs and Downstairs will be of value to students, teachers, and researchers in the areas of film, television, Victorian studies, literature, gender studies, and British history and culture.