Subject Librarian
Lucinda M. Hall
Contact:
Evans Map Room, Baker-Berry Library
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 646-0962
Website Skype Contact: d1128r8@kiewit.dartmouth.edu
Other library resource(s)
British cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Before the 1960s, much historical and critical writing on British cinema was generated outside of the academy—for instance, a multivolume, largely economic history of the silent period, subsequently republished in the 1990s, was commissioned by the British Film Institute and sought extant personnel as consultants. With the introduction of film courses to British universities came an unfortunate prejudice against the homegrown product, largely inherited from European commentators.
The British film catalogue by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G7 G5 2001ISBN: 9781579581718Publication Date: 3rd ed.Each film is listed chronologically with a unique identifier. The index lists all of the films alphabetically with their unique numbers. Each entry usually includes the main cast with a genre type and a very short sentence about plot.
Volume 1 includes fiction films from 1895 through 1994.
Volume 2 includes non-fiction films from 1888 through 1994.
United Kingdom from Media History Digital Library by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe United Kingdom was involved in film production from the earliest days of cinema technology, though it reached what some consider to be its artistic peak in the 1940s with directors like David Lean and filmmaking team Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, among others. The materials in this collection cover this history and more, stretching from 1889 to 1961. Throughout the UK film industry’s development, it faced tough competition from other markets, particularly the US. It sought to address this competition in various ways, including a quota for local production that led to a boom in low-quality films in the mid-30s. During World War II and after, the industry revived itself with a surge in movie-going and those critically-acclaimed 1940s films and filmmakers. ...
Keeping up with the journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for a national or regional cinema? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.
Introduction to British cinema
The British inventor William Friese-Greene patented a filmmaking process in 1890, giving Britain some claim to pioneer status in early cinema. Entrepreneur Robert W. Paul, along with Birt Acres, produced the first British film, Incident at Clovelly Cottage, in February 1895, and in 1896 manufactured the first film projector to be placed on the open market. Cinema quickly became part and parcel of a thriving music-hall tradition, with thousands of short films produced between 1896 and 1906 by, among others, Cecil Hepworth, William Haggar, Louis Le Prince, Frank Mottershaw, George A Smith, and James Williamson (the latter two belonging to the world-renowned Brighton School). Actualities, trick films, ride films, comedy, and short fictional drama were the key genres, and scenes from the far-flung reaches of the British Empire were a popular attraction. In 1912 the British Board of Film Censors was established; and by 1915, 3,500 film theatres had been built. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Britain, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 13 May. 2021
In the Library's collection
These guide pages cover English, Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh films. You can use the various subject headings to find resources in the online catalog. The call number ranges are also included. Contact me if you are not finding what you want.
- motion pictures great britainBooks are scattered throughout several call number ranges - check the online catalog.
- motion pictures britishThis subject heading is for films produced by British companies and shown outside Great Britain.
Introductory reading(s)
British cinema: a very short introduction by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780199688333Cinema has had a hugely influential role on global culture in the 20th century at multiple levels: social, political, and educational. The part of British cinema in this has been controversial - often derided as a whole, but also vigorously celebrated, especially in terms of specific films and film-makers. In this Very Short Introduction, Charles Barr considers films and filmmakers, and studios and sponsorship, against the wider view of changing artistic, socio-political, and industrial climates over the decades of the 20th Century. ...
British national cinema by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G7 S75 1997ISBN: 9780415067362The first substantial overview of the British film industry with emphasis on its genres, stars, and socioeconomic context, British National Cinema by Sarah Street is an important title in Routledge's new National Cinemas series. British National Cinema synthesizes years of scholarship on British film while incorporating the author' fresh perspective and research. ...
Contemporary British cinema: from heritage to horror by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G7 L44 2008ISBN: 9781905674718This volume offers a detailed and comprehensive analysis of British film culture from 1997 to the present. Using a wide range of films from the Blair era and beyond as case studies--from from Notting Hill (1999) and Billy Elliot (2000) to 28 Days Later (2002) and The Queen (2006)--it examines the ways in which recent British filmmaking might be regarded as distinctive, relevant and successful.
Fifty key British films by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G7 F53 2008ISBN: 9780415433303In Fifty Key British Films, Britain's best known films such as Clockwork Orange, The Full Monty and Goldfinger are scrutinised for their outstanding ability to articulate the issues of the time.
Selected book title(s)
Britpop cinema: from Trainspotting to This is England by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5.G7 G555 2019ISBN: 9781783209873The Britpop movement of the mid-1990s defined a generation, and the films were just as exciting as the music. Beginning with Shallow Grave, hitting its stride with Trainspotting, and going global with The Full Monty, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Shaun of the Dead, and This Is England, Britpop cinema pushed boundaries, paid Hollywood no heed, and placed the United Kingdom all too briefly at the center of the movie universe. Featuring exclusive interviews with key players such as Simon Pegg, Irvine Welsh, Michael Winterbottom and Edgar Wright, Britpop Cinema combines eyewitness accounts, close analysis, and social history to celebrate a golden age for UK film.
The cinema of Britain and Ireland by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G7 C56 2005ISBN: 9781904764380A fresh, concise, but wide-ranging introduction and overview to British and Irish cinema, this volume contains 24 essays, each on a separate seminal film from the region. Films ranging from 1928 to 2002 are featured from directors such as John Boorman, Nicolas Roeg, Sally Potter and Jack Clayton. As well as discussions of genre and influences, The Cinema of Britain and Ireland includes in-depth studies of films such as Room at the Top (1958), The Italian Job (1969), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), Orlando (1992), and Sweet Sixteen (2002).
Film, drama and the break-up of Britain by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G7 B52 2007ISBN: 9781841501505When the sun set on the British Empire, the resultant fragmentation of British identity emerged most tellingly in artistic works: cinematic works such as Howards End depicted a richly historical land steeped in tradition and tragedy, while the more modern Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels revealed a brutal yet sharply humorous portrayal of contemporary English life. That relationship between nationalism, national identity, and postcolonialism remains central to many British dramatists' works, and in Film, Drama and the Break Up of Britain, Steve Blandford explores how the 'break up' of Britain has influenced contemporary British drama. ...
Jane Austen and co.: remaking the past in contemporary culture by Call Number: Baker-Berry PR 4038 .F55 J33 2003ISBN: 9780791456163Examines recent Austen remakes as well as other "post-heritage" films and television shows to show how the past is reshaped for a contemporary market.
This is England: British film and the People's War, 1939-1945 by Call Number: Baker-Berry D 743.23 .R38 2001ISBN: 9780838638620This study analyzes British wartime cinema, offering extended examination of a wide selection of feature films and documentaries made in Britain between 1939 and 1946, and using textual analyses of these films to explore the historical, social, and cultural context of social class in Britian within the overall situation of total war and its concomitant propaganda imperative of The People' s War. ...
Transatlantic crossings: British feature films in the United States by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G7 S76 2002ISBN: 9780826413963Transatlantic Crossings is the first major study of the distribution and exhibition of British films in the USA. Charting the cross-cultural reception of many British films, Sarah Street draws on a wide range of sources including studio records, film posters, press books and statistics. While the relative strength of Hollywood made it difficult for films that crossed the Atlantic, Street's research demonstrates that some strategies were more successful than others. She considers which British films made an impact and analyzes conditions that facilitated a positive reception from critics, censors, exhibitors and audiences. ...
Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)
Articles and other writings about British film can be found in many publications. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about these national cinemas.
Screen studies collection by Call Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected movie title(s)
Across the universe by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #6216ISBN: 9781424861002Jude is a dock worker from Liverpool who travels to the United States in the 1960s to find his estranged father. There, he falls in love with sheltered American teenager Lucy. When her brother, Max, is drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, they become involved in peace activism.
The adventures of Robin Hood by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #1485ISBN: 9780790745411Recounts the life and adventures of Robin Hood, who, with his band of followers, lived as an outlaw in Sherwood Forest dedicated to fight against tyranny.
Bunny Lake is missing by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #2781ISBN: 9781404971462Ann Lake goes to pick up her daughter, Bunny, at a London preschool but is told that they have no child registered by that name. The police can find no evidence that Bunny ever existed and wonder if the child was only a fantasy of Ann's.
Different for girls by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #302ISBN: 9781572525467When Paul last saw his old school friend, he remembered a boy named Karl. Fifteen years later, he unexpectedly runs into him again, but now she is Kim, a post-operative transsexual. Worlds apart in their attitudes toward life, they no longer appear to have anything in common. However, the physical attraction they feel now is ironically as strong as their childhood friendship. Taking the best from their differing lifestyles, somewhere along the way they fall in love.- Electric Edwardians: the films of Mitchell & Kenyon byCall Number: Jones Media DVD #4895In the earliest years of the twentieth century, enterprising traveling showmen in the north of England hired pioneer filmmakers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon to shoot footage of local people going about their everyday activities. These films would be shown later at nearby fairgrounds, town halls and neighborhood theaters. Workers, school children, sports fans and seaside vacationers all flocked to see themselves miraculously captured on screen! The astonishing discovery of the original Mitchell & Kenyon negatives in Blackburn, England -- in a basement about to be demolished -- has been described as film's equivalent of Tutankhamen's tomb. Preserved and restored by the bfi National Film and Television Archive in collaboration with the University of Sheffield National Fairground Archive and featuring a hauntingly beautiful score by In The Nursery, this treasure trove of extraordinary footage provides an unparalleled record of everyday life in the years before World War I. ...
The mother by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #2697ISBN: 9781404952591A newly widowed woman moves to London to be near her family. She soon feels like she is just an invisible old lady until a young man comes into her life. She finds things in herself that she thought were lost forever, but at what cost?
Mr. Turner by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #18836Explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea, where he dies.
Mrs. Henderson presents by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #3384ISBN: 9781594441233Recently widowed and well-to-do Laura Henderson needs a diversion to see her through war torn London. On a whim she buys the derelict Windmill theatre in the West End and persuades impresario Vivian Van Damm to run it. The two don't seem to get along at all. Although their idea of a non-stop revue is at first a success, other theatres begin to copy the idea and disaster looms. Laura suggests they put nudes in the show, but Van Damm points out that the Lord Chamberlain, who licenses live shows in Britain, is likely to have something to say about this. Luckily for Laura, she is friends with him.
Priest by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #116ISBN: 9780788816352A young Roman Catholic priest in a Liverpool parish must learn to deal with the issues of homosexuality and incest, as well as conflicts between his vows and his conscience.
This is England by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #6228ISBN: 9781594449086School is out for the summer and twelve-year-old Shaun is about to find a dangerous new group of friends. Having lost his father in the Fakland War, life has been lonely in this grim coastal town in northern England. But when Shaun meets the local skinheads, their companionship, and even their violence, appeal to Shaun's hurt and rage. Combo is an older volatile skinhead whom Shaun finds to be like a big brother and under his leadership, the gang and young Shawn will arrive at an irreversible act of violence.
Internet resource(s)
- BFI ScreenonlineBFI Screenonline is an online encyclopaedia and is the single most extensive publicly available resource devoted to British film and television.
- BFI Statistical YearbookThe Statistical Yearbook presents in one place all the available statistics on UK film and the UK film industry.
- The British Film InstituteThe British Film Institute's mission is to develop greater understanding and appreciation of film, television and the moving image. It develops educational and cultural programs throughout the UK. It's site also includes statistics and research articles on different aspects of British film-making.
- Britmovie... always attempting to be a platform for those across the globe seeking information, discussion and assistance on British film throughout its turbulent history.
