British Cinema

This week Paul introduce British cinema to us. 'A matter of life and death' directed by Powell and Pressburger in 1946. It is a very famous British film that is reflective  World war II influence English and American people life and relationship. June is an American radio operator, Peter try to contact with June because he is a pilot and his airplane will be plane crash. The film storytelling about these two people love story. Director made main actress so beautiful because the shot is blur, June looks like a very elegant woman. Peter is royal air force pilot, he is a tough man so the shot need to sharp style. There are many contrast in the film, sharp shot and soft shot, America and British, colorful and B/W and so on. I like a scene is talk about Dr Frank come to the true world and stop the time, he catch tear of June by rose. It is a hard after effect in that time. Paul told us color film need to cost too much money at that time. The film is very old film as a result it has many special effects looks cheated.

Paul also introduce some Nottingham famous writer Alan Sillitoe. He wrote the famous novel 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' which was adapted into films. It is talk about a story happened in the Raleigh bicycle factory. 

I learned British film has it own style from this time, it is totally different to American film and other countries. For instance, 'This is England', 'Trainspotting', and 'Hooligan' are very typical English film. However, many people said 'Harry Porter' and Star War are also English film. It is not a precise point of view because these films are both present by Warner brothers . Thus it is not real British film.

In my documentary, it has lots of British element, e.g. ton-up boy, leather jacket, cafe racer...

Reference:

IMDb. (1946). A Matter of Life and Death. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038733/?ref_=ttmd_ph_tt1. Last accessed 09 Feb 2016.

IMDb. (1960). Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054269/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1. Last accessed 09 Feb 2016.