The Cinema of Britain and Ireland.

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Author: Marcou, David

The Cinema of Britain and Ireland
 Edited By Brian McFarlane
 Wallflower Press, New York, 286 pages, softcover $25.

THE BACKGROUNDS of the contributors to this essay collection attest to its value â€" with many of them academics, others professionals in related fields. They cover a lot of ground here.

The 24 major films critiqued â€" ranging from Anthony Asquith/A.V. Bramble's Shooting Stars (1928) to Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen (2002) â€" were not all boxoffice or critical hits, yet all have much to recommend them, including skilled writing, directing, acting and camerawork, plus some strong tie-ins to history.

Knights of the Round Table, a 1954 U.S./UK production directed by Richard Thorpe, is perhaps the first of the great epics retracing key elements of the Arthurian legend. It may seem to be a strange choice for this collection. The film was financed by a major Hollywood studio, directed by an American and featured Hollywood stars Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner. It is only one example, though, of how the infrastructure of American cinema has consistently drawn on British creativity.

American producers are admittedly maligned here for their big budgets, their inability to do cross-cultural films well and their penchant for being No. 1. Yet America's film industry has also inspired many British artists to experiment internationally and succeed. British stars like Michael Caine, Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Peter O'Toole and Hugh Grant have done well through American connections, winning not only British awards, but also Academy Awards and honors at Cannes and elsewhere.

This book effectively surveys a range of British and Irish original films, including Victor Saville's paradigmatic The Good Companions (1933); Robert J. Flaherty's documentary Man of Aran (1934); Robert Hamer's iconoclastic Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945); Ronald Neame's patriotic Tunes of Glory (1960); Terence Davies' poetic Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988); Neil Jordan's Oedipal The Miracle (1991); Sally Potter's sexually experimental Orlando (1993); and David Caffrey's breakout Divorcing jack (1998).

Contributor Dave Rolinson indicates that an Englishman is one of the very best filmmakers these days, writing of Loach's Sweet Sixteen (2002): "The vibrant and powerful (Sweet Sixteen) proves that, four decades after his [filmmaking debut], Ken Loach's work remains passionately contemporary, sending out 'a report from the front line' of modern Britain." Drugs and murder thrive, but Loach's Spartan humanism has evolved since he began emphasizing Scottish themes in the '90s. His interest in Northern Ireland, too, influenced BBCTV hits like Ballykissangel, set in Ireland. Over time, entrepreneurs like the late J. Arthur Rank and bodies such as the British Film Institute, not to mention production companies that mount the films, have benefited Britain's film industry. Roy Baker writes: "Cinema is an art, but it is not like picking up a pencil and writing a poem. The inspiration required to guide the pencil and the camera is comparable, but cinema needs the apparatus of an industry to enable it to function." If not the industry, Britain has the art.

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By David Marcou