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These small British atmospheric films are an aquired taste.

posted 16 years ago by stw789987
9 replies | jump to latest

There's a certain kind of film the British like to make:

Heavy on atmosphere,
set design,
period style,
or heavy on style indicators of class even if not a period piece.
Slow. Heavy on characterization but minimal backstory available.
Claustrophobic,
Intense attraction that can't be acted on, or is otherwise dooomed.
Light on plot. Here, even a caper movie is about character rather than plot.
Not a lot of dialog but intense attention to the dialog that's there.
Sense of brooding philosophy behind the film that's never allowed in the foreground.

American's usually hate these films and they tend to show up in art houses. Demi got this one to a few more screens. Even art houses audiences in the US tend to be lukewarm about them.

Seems like I've seen this kind of film from Britain for a generation of film makers lunching in Charlotte st. It's late and I'm having trouble coming up with examples. Only one that comes to mind right now that really fits is also an exception since it's a version of the Pinter play that everyone knew first on stage--Betrayal.

What others can you think of?

[–] trpdean 16 years ago

Yes, I can think of other examples - but I like them!

How about Remains of the Day? Strapless? We Think the World of You? Notes on a Scandal? Damage? Wings of the Dove? Dance with a Stranger? Plenty? The Ploughman's Lunch? Scandal? Shadowlands? Wetherby? The Servant? The Hireling? A Month by the Lake? The TV series "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and "Smiley's People"? The Go-Between? Maurice? Defence of the Realm? 84 Charing Cross Road? The Return of the Soldier? The Shooting Party?

However, so many of these have been adaptations of novels or plays that I'm not sure if the muse of Charlotte Street has been needed - quite a few are David Hare plays or screenplays.

[–] stw789987 16 years ago

Great list.

Your list makes me reconsider my definition too since I usually don't include period piece films that include big house settings, like The Shooting Party, or Wings of the Dove which offers not only British big house but Venice too. The big house films often get understood as being in the Merchant & Ivory category that Americans tend to lap up. But taking another look, you're right that those films fit the definition perfectly and usually disappoint the Merchant and Ivory fan because they don't offer what, say, Room with a View offers.

(Probably shouldn't be so hard on Merchant Ivory films; just using an example of British films that are intended to work on Americans' anglophilia in a Masterpiece Theatre kind of way.)

Damage is also a perfect example of the genre.

It's funny that Dave Hare on the stage is quite full of ideas and talk (channeling G.B.Shaw a little) but in film, David Hare plays do become this kind of British film.

[–] trpdean 16 years ago

I don't really think the American audience matters much to British filmmakers.

Remember that Merchant-Ivory is not a British partnership - Merchant was Indian and Ivory is American, and the frequent screenwriter is a German woman (Ruth Prader) married to an Indian.

And also, the subject, the novels adapted - are simply an extension of what the BBC had been doing (without thought of American audiences) in the 1960s and 1970s - with Cousin Bette, The Forsyte Saga, Love for Lydia, Upstairs Downstairs, The First Churchills, Vanity Fair, Great Expectations, Pere Goriot, The Golden Bowl, etc.

What strikes me about British film-making in the last 30 years, is that almost every drama set in the period 1940 to the present, is pessimistic about life, and assumes we sympathize with characters who speak badly to others, aren't very likeable, and revel in hurting (verbally or physically) those the world at large respects. It's quite odd really.

A good example is "Wish You Were Here" - a truly hideous girl who insults and hurts all around her - despicable creature we're meant to admire. A good TV example is the series about the pilots in the Battle of Britain (one dislikes strongly each and every one of them - they do awful things to others and to
each other - yet somehow the series expects us to want to care about them).

Murderers, bank robbers, anyone put into prison is meant to be liked - one sees this in Scandal, in Dance With a Stranger, in The Krays, in the Great Bank Robbery villains - and of course in Flawless. If you rob, if you kill, if you bomb - if you are imprisoned, British films will LOVE YOU!

Cheat on the lottery? ("Hearing Ned Devine") Make and market narcotics (Saving Grace)? Strip naked? (Calendar Girls or The Full Monty) - the film will adore you - and mock those who feel this is wrong.

Wear a suit? British films despise you - loathe you.

It's rather stupid and predictable.

[–] stw789987 16 years ago

For the small atmospheric British film we're talking about I agree that the British film maker is not much concerned about the American audience.

But in general British film makers see the American audience as a huge moneymaker and do well in that market. Hollywood is so layered with British directing, writing, producing talent that sometimes it looks like the American film industry is an American/British joint venture.

Branagh's Much Ado was a watershed in marketing to the American audience in that it succeeding in marketing high-brow content to a pretty broad American audience.

For a low-brow content example, Richard Curtiss is an example of someone who's been able to successfully and widely market recognizably British films with British subjects to American audiences: Love Acutally, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral. I guess we can include Bridget Jones Diary too but I don't know how successful it was financially.

Curtiss's comedies aren't in this category of the small atmospheric British film we're talking about--but they may share the feature you mention of having less than admirable characters that we're supposed to admire.

[–] trpdean 16 years ago

I don't like Curtiss' comedies generally (except for Four Weddings) and yes, i do agree that the American audience is VERY much a factor in his creations - e.g., why have the awful actress Andie McDowell be the love interest in Four Weddings? It made no sense to me - wasn't adequately explained why she was in Britain. I thought she really hurt the film - why not have someone such as Catherine McCormack or Elizabeth Hurley or Patsy Kensit play that role? It would have suited the film so much better. (And I despised the Julia Roberts character in Notting Hill - just loathed the character, thought little of Grant for liking her. I liked Laura Linney and her character - but didn't know why they really were in London in Love Actually).

I loved British films UNTIL the 1980s - when they really turned a kind of knee-jerk anti-law, anti-"respectable". There's not much to admire or pity about Profumo (Scandal) - nor about the Krays, nor about the last woman executed (Dance with a Stranger) - but British film must make films about them.

Conversely, we KNOW the British cannot make a heroic film about dominant historic figures such as Nelson, Marlborough, Canning, Salisbury, Drake, Gladstone, Wolfe, William & Mary, Clive, Gray, Raffles, Wellington, Chatham, Peel, Hawkins, Amherst, Castlereagh, Montgomery, Disraeli, Auchinleck, Alexander, Slim, Allenby, Asquith, Russell, Balfour, Pitt the Younger - it's a real limitation in films - and the Bitish are alone in being so chagrined (the French, the Americans, the Russians, the Germans, the Italians, the Spaniards, the Chinese happily make films about their heroic past). It wasn't always this way - I think of That Hamilton Woman or Seven Seas to Calais - but in historic films, it's been true since the 1960s really - from The Charge of the Light Brigade and How I Won the War and The Wrong Box.

[–] alikanas 16 years ago

We're far too cynical a nation to make those sort of films - we leave hero worshipping to the Americans, then they go and elect George Dubya!

[–] trpdean 15 years ago

No, the British leave them to all the rest of the world.

It's a sign of their lack of confidence now - it's a shame.

But I don't think the American openness to creating films about the brave or virtuous really played a part in electing a leader like George W. Bush - as much as we may admire him.

[–] goldenskies 16 years ago

I saw this on a plane, I really like these British atmospheric movies, can't "not" watch them.

[–] paisley1 16 years ago

I must say that while I do not take "offense" to the stereotyping that takes place regarding the American viewing public because it is often more the rule than the exception; however, I do take "note" of the reasoning behind it as my love of British films and television series is overwhelming so I imagine this puts me in the class of being more the exception to the rule of what an American enjoys watching on the big screen or even small square box.

Many people I know locally from my area fit the rule almost completely, which leaves me with a since of sadness or perhaps it is more liken to the feeling of being surrounded by neanderthals much of the time. If it were not for my online friends from across the world I expect I might come close to madness. It's nice to find others who enjoy foreign films in general, let alone locate those that would actually take in a British film on a major movie night over an American one filled with glitz, glamor, and all of Hollywood's shine.

There is certainly something to be said for the lot that takes preference over films that have a tendency to walk softly yet carry a big stick.

My mind wandered back to when I first watched the foreign film One Kiss More with an extremely young Gerard Butler after finding this thread. A friend found it for me so we sat with other friends to watch the show on a slow night at my house when I actually felt up to company. Unfortunately, most of my local friends save a few found the movie to be entirely too slow and a bit contrite. In a word, many found the movie much as they did Dear Frankie, and many of those listed on this thread that I've watched over the years - boring. It still boggles my mind to think that even some of the more educated and enlightened of those I have nearby are not nearly as much so as those I seek comfort in conversing with online with regards to such things and so much more. Since I missed much of the movie to chatter of those who felt the film was slow in movement and boring, I asked to keep the movie for a few days so I could watch it again in the comfort of silence. I will grant that it's a slower than usual film; however, it has a fullness of emotion that runs far beyond the confines or the very need to overload dialogue to bring the point of the film to fruition. I find that I loved this film, as I do so many others, more the second and even third or fourth time around - with this film I can particularly relate to the ending with both a sense of respect and one of understanding.

One has to have seen the movie or know of it to realize why I say what I am about to say. In America, it is as if everyone is afraid to bring death into their personal space. Many keep a quiet distance from dying friends or family. Most will find issue with anyone who knows and accepts they are sick and dying yet wishes to take care of the arrangements rather than leave these things to close family or friends to handle. Death is something one fights to stave off and in Hollywood, it's more popular when it occurs in a bright ball of fire rather than have it run a course with dignity, understanding, and an air of respect. It's nothing to fear. We all die someday. Why should anyone fear their time or worse, leave such details of one's death in the hands of others where it will become a solemn affair not at all like the life any said person led before death?

As someone that will face death likely sooner rather than later due to health problems beyond a cure in modern medicine, I only hope I can continue to hold onto the level of grace and fullness as Sarah from One Kiss More. It is my hope I can let my own circle of friends know I do not wish them to think of me in a state of, "deadness, but rather at a better party. Don't be sad; I'm not."

It is my wish that I have the opportunity to tell those I leave behind, like Sarah - to paraphrase Dylan Thomas... "Don't sleepwalk through life. Grab it. Seize the day... and most of all, do not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light."

- Just so you know, not all Americans are mindless voids when it comes to the enjoyment or desire to fall into the plot and storyline of foreign films, including British ones. One more thing, I wasn't one of the idiots that voted for Bush either time... The man is in a position of authority and he's an idiot, both of which makes him dangerous. I heard once there was nothing more dangerous than a fool with a cause. I believe Bush/Cheney and McCain/Palin fit that bill completely. Hopefully with some luck and perhaps a rude awakening that comes from life lessons, the rest of my fellow citizens will see the error of their votes these last two election years so that this year we can change the course of this country by taking it off the tracks of the oncoming locomotive before we crash and burn as a nation and a people.

"My stories propel mundane lives into magical worlds where all is possible." -Paisley