A History of British Film - Part 4

A History of British Film Since 1984

1.       

·                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              1980’s to 90’s – independent art cinema grew increasingly in popularity (directors such as Derek Jarman produced innovative works)

·         The costume drama/heritage film rose to, ‘great prominence during the 1980’s’ (a room with a view etc.) – Four weddings and a funeral

·         Gainsborough melodramas have been around since early 40’s.

·         British social realist cinema seem to withstand Thatcherism (harsh economy) – Riff Raff (1992)

·         Two different directions in 1996 – Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austin novel about Love and Trainspotting (Irvine Welsh’s novel) – helped ‘enhance its international profile (Britpop)

·         Moved away recently from ‘portraying Victorian and Edwardian aristocracy at home and abroad’ – started to reflect, ‘elements of contemporary society’.

·         Trying to capture youth market more.

·         Comedy has always been a favourite genre but not as much as recent times – Notting Hill, Bridget Jones Diary and Love Actually all made great success in Britain and across the world.

2.       

·         Dredd 3D – Crime, Action and Sci-Fi. It is a film set in the future, with a lot of action but not a huge amount of substance in terms of storyline. This film was very unsuccessful at the box office, making only 13 million from a 50 million budget.

·         Never let me go – Drama, Romance and Sci-Fi. Similar in terms of the fact that it is set in the future but much more heart breaking than the aforementioned. It is a romance story, so completely different to Dredd 3D. This film, however, was not very successful at the Box Office, taking only 1.5 million in UK box office. (15million budget)

·         Many of their earlier films, such as trainspotting, Shallow grave and Twin Towns are far more violent and involve Drugs etc. and are certainly aimed at a different audience than the likes of Dredd and Never Let me go. There original films produced more at the Box office (trainspotting made over 16 million from a relatively small starting budget of 3 million).

·         They seem to have become slowly more commercial over the years. However, they are still producing films like ‘Sunshine on Leith’, which is certainly more of an independent style movie.

3.       

·         Looking at some of Momentum Pictures recent distributions, they have released films, such as ‘Insidious Chapter 2’, ‘Dark Skies’ and The Women in Black’. These are all horror films. The reason as to why I think they have distributed many Horror films is because the ‘Horror’ market is very big, especially in the UK.

·         Despite, the Distribution of many horror films, Momentum Pictures are extremely diverse and have distributed films, like ‘The Kings speech’ and ‘Welcome to the Punch’ and this is why they are one of the leading forces in  the UK film distribution market.

·         They have distributed films that fall into many categories, such as Sci-fi (Enders game), Crime (the Raid), and Horror (The women in Black).