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Authorship, form and narrative in the television plays of Alan Clarke, 1967-89
Full text linkThis thesis places the themes and approaches of the British director Alan Clarke within various contexts: the institutional contexts in which he worked, critical and theoretical debates on television form, and the methodological problems which are inherent in attributing authorship to a director working within the highly collaborative medium of television. This thesis constitutes the first full-length critical study of a director working within British television drama.Chapter 1 covers Clarke's background, his early theatre work, and several early television plays from his first, Shelter (1967) through to case studies of the drama-documentary To Encourage the Others (1972) and the fantasy Penda's Fen (1974). I demonstrate that his work in this period is more distinctive than its institutional and technological restrictions might suggest. My methodology features a fluid interplay between Television and Film Studies approaches, combining studies of his filmed work with analysis of his television plays in multi-camera studios and on Outside Broadcast, thereby considering vital issues of aesthetics. Chapter 2 explores various plays from the 1970s, sparse studies of institutionalisation like Sovereign's Company (1970) and Scum (1977, 1979). The banning of Scum was a turning point in his career; Chapter 2 contextualises this within academic writing on ideologically progressive form. Chapter 3 covers his work in his auteur period, the 1980s, by discussing the stylistic and narrative strategies of crucial productions like Made in Britain (1983) and his politically and aesthetically radical pieces on Northern Ireland and terrorism, Psy-Warriors (1981), Contact (1985) and Elephant (1989).Throughout this thesis, my interest in histories and aesthetics is predicated upon an ideological analysis, as I explore Clarke's work in terms of the politics of form, demonstrating his experimentation with narrative, his concern with discourse, and his questioning of the interaction between form and content
Prisoners of gender: the representation of women in the 1950s films of J. Lee Thompson
Full text linkLindsay Anderson : Sequence and the Rise of auteurism in 1950s Britain
No full textThis article deals with the establishment of auteurist criticism in early 1950s Britain, particularly emphasizing the role played by Oxford university film journal Sequence and the writings of future film director Lindsay Anderson
Authorship, form and narrative in the television plays of Alan Clarke, 1967-89
Full text linkThis thesis places the themes and approaches of the British director Alan Clarke within various contexts: the institutional contexts in which he worked, critical and theoretical debates on television form, and the methodological problems which are inherent in attributing authorship to a director working within the highly collaborative medium of television. This thesis constitutes the first full-length critical study of a director working within British television drama.Chapter 1 covers Clarke's background, his early theatre work, and several early television plays from his first, Shelter (1967) through to case studies of the drama-documentary To Encourage the Others (1972) and the fantasy Penda's Fen (1974). I demonstrate that his work in this period is more distinctive than its institutional and technological restrictions might suggest. My methodology features a fluid interplay between Television and Film Studies approaches, combining studies of his filmed work with analysis of his television plays in multi-camera studios and on Outside Broadcast, thereby considering vital issues of aesthetics. Chapter 2 explores various plays from the 1970s, sparse studies of institutionalisation like Sovereign's Company (1970) and Scum (1977, 1979). The banning of Scum was a turning point in his career; Chapter 2 contextualises this within academic writing on ideologically progressive form. Chapter 3 covers his work in his auteur period, the 1980s, by discussing the stylistic and narrative strategies of crucial productions like Made in Britain (1983) and his politically and aesthetically radical pieces on Northern Ireland and terrorism, Psy-Warriors (1981), Contact (1985) and Elephant (1989).Throughout this thesis, my interest in histories and aesthetics is predicated upon an ideological analysis, as I explore Clarke's work in terms of the politics of form, demonstrating his experimentation with narrative, his concern with discourse, and his questioning of the interaction between form and content
Divergent femininities in British film, 1945-59
Full text linkBritish cinema of the post-war period has often been characterised as anodyne in terms of gender relations, with the exciting 'wicked ladies' of the war years erased in favour of more conservative versions of femininity. Recent writing (Geraghty, 2000, Harper and Porter, 2003) has brought challenges to bear on this paradigm and opened up a critical space for a more nuanced analysis of gender. This thesis considers representations of divergent femininities in post-WWII British films, that is, female characters who function as liminal figures and who queer boundaries between normative and divergent femininity. I explore how divergent femininities are constructed and the extent to which gender conservatism can be challenged in films from the period. A number of well-known (cross-genre) films, such as Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) and Mandy (1952), are analysed, augmented by other films that have received little critical attention, for example, The Perfect Woman (1949), Dear Murderer (1947) and Young Wives' Tale (1951). This study employs detailed textual and semiotic analyses (film, reviews, publicity material, critical writings) to produce a historicised feminist reading of 1950s films and femininity and, by combining attention to visual style with an analysis of contextual material, complements existing scholarship which emphasises film production and reception.This thesis explores the extent to which female desire for autonomy, excitement and social mobility could be expressed in 1950s films, and how women questioned their 'proper place' in the gendered social economy. Women's function as housewives is problematised in ways that enter into contemporaneous debates about modernity and consumerism. The heterosexual nuclear family survives as the preferred familial model but the difficulty of mothering is dramatised in ways that challenge hegemonic maternity. Heteroromance and marriage remain the central goal for all women and censorship largely curtails the depiction of female sexuality outside this paradigm. A space however is opened up for women to voice desire for something in addition to the role of wife and mother and in this respect these liminal figures represent a cultural contestation of normative femininity. They shore up - whilst simultaneously challenging - certain ideals of femininity and in doing so speak of the consolidation and transformation of gender relations in post-war British society, suggesting a more dynamic model than has been acknowledged
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