Atonement, 2007. Dir Joe Wright

Atonement, 2007. Dir Joe Wright

Still under construction. Critical review to follow later but the links will be useful.

Introduction

This has been the most vaunted British film of 2007 and was chosen to open the 2007 Venice film festival which is an accolade in itself. Based upon the novel of the same name by Ian McEwan the film is a literary adaptation which works within the heritage format as it can be seen as a costume drama and a reflection upon a particular historical period but not based upon events, rather historical events act as a backdrop for the drama. It may well be possible to offer a reading of this film as one which partially deals with a crisis in national identity. The 'Dunkirk spirit' has become a metaphor for the creation of national unity and determination to succeed in the face of victory. The film itself comes from Working Title Productions which indicates that the film is not going to have a seriously critical social ar political edge. 

Perhaps it is no coincidence that another cinematic repreat of an historically great moment and an equivalent potential turning point the Spanish Armada is coming up in the form of Kapur's Elizabeth the Golden Age a mainstay period of reconstituting national identity. This does seem a rather overweighty response to the perceived threat of the mythical 'Polish Plumber' from Britian's cinematic establishment. I'd have thought something from Edgar Wright combining a sort of slapstick 'Carry On: Sticking it up Your Pipes' launched at the ICA would be a more appropriate response to BNP paranoia but there you go...

By the middle of December following an early autumn release the film had been nominated for seven Golden Globe awards and on the shortlist for another 8 prizes. The nominations have been forwarded by the London film Critics circle. 

What are the Golden Globes?

The Golden Globes, handed out each year by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is one of the main events in the film awards season in the run-up to the Oscars. Unlike the Oscars, the Globes ceremony has one set of categories for dramas and a separate set for comedies and musicals.

Marketing

Venice, London and Redcar is an unusual mix of cities and towns to visit to promote a feature film. But Wright is passionate about his need to fullfil his promise to the people of Redcar, to return once the film was completed. (Northern Film and Media). 

 

Webliography

Working Title Site on Atonement 

BBC entertainment news on Atonement award nominations

BBC on Atonement leading the field in the Golden Globes awards 

London Film Critics Circle site

New Statesman on Atonement

Guardian on Atonement

: 03 Jan 2008 08:37 |  Tags: Atonement British Cinema Contemporary British Cinema Costume Drama Film Criticism Film Review Heritage Cinema Jo Wright |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Heritage Film in British Cinema Part 1

The British Heritage Film: Part 1

Introduction

It is argued by several leading critics that the idea of the ‘heritage film’ has been identified by critics themselves and that the tendency to create and market these films targets and reinforces a from of right-wing nostalgia. It does this by creating a mythical past using very select and romanticised mise en scene of costume, architecture and transport for example. Thus these films function as an escape from the political and social issues of the present

What is meant by ‘Heritage Film and Heritage?

The 1980s saw the growth of a cultural phenomenon which has often been described as the heritage industry. The description can be applied to a range of creative and cultural industries which provide a powerful link between tourism, the past and the film and television industries. Here Andrew Higson who did much to develop this as a critical category in relation to British cinema explains how he and others identified this shift in cultural consciousness as they saw it.

The past is differentiated from history which as a discipline has a range of methods attached to an academic discipline based upon the priciple of gathering evidence of events, opinions etc from a previous period. The past is understood as a more mythological construction which is much more culturally subjective.

The English costume dramas of the last two decades seem from one point of view a vital part of this industry. For this reason, I and others have labelled them heritage films, though that is not a term that their producers or indeed many of their audiences would be familiar with or even approve of… (Higson, 2003 : p1).

As will be seen below the genre of the ‘heritage film’ has provided Britain with some of its greatest commercial successes of the 1990s as well as the 1980s. This is now being repeated in the new millennium. Some have dismissed these films as very conservative. They can certainly be viewed as extremely nostalgic and very selective in their presentation of the past. But they could be viewed in a more complex way.

It is argued by some critics that the cinematic treatment which was given to the books they are named after was far less critical of the status quo than the original books were. Here it is possible to point to the novels of E. M. Forster which were far more attuned to the social tensions that were arising in Edwardian Britain than the filmic treatment.

Certainly Edwardian Britain wasn’t as rosy as some would like to paint it. Britain’s place in the world was being challenged industrially by both Germany and the USA. In terms of foreign policy even during the Boer war taking place at the beginning of the century Germany had been supportive of the Boer rebels. Tensions continued to build up with the ‘Anglo-German Naval race’ which started in earnest after 1907.

On the home front the Liberal government was faced with a serious constitutional crisis over the passing of Lloyd George’s famous budget. The rise of suffragism part of far greater social movement for votes for women and an ever increasing polarisation in Ireland between nationalists and unionists were all significant political and social features of the period which is better seen as one of transition with all the uncertainties which that term implies. Certainly it was not all halcyon days.

Alternative takes on Heritage

Stuart Hall has made a useful analysis of the notion of ‘heritage’ arguing that it functions to exclude social and cultural issues of the present by creating mythical visions of the past.

As a country, since World War Two Britain has undergone a significant re-composition of its population. Huge demographic changes were brought about by the massive growth of immigration fuelled by the long post-war industrial boom which saw Britain create a period of full employment and better working and social conditions under a welfare state.

Hall agrees that the Heritage film is a form of construction by the critical community which has spread much further than the corridors of the academic world.

It has come to signal not just a particular group, or cluster of interrelated groups, of films, but a particular attitude to those films, and indeed to the audiences presumed to frequent them. Heritage cinema is very largely a critical construct but its currency in academic debates …has subsequently been extended into journalistic and even popular usage. (My emphasis: Hall, Sheldon. 2001: p 191)

Howard’s End: The first of the 1990s heritage films

Some of the critiques depend upon whether a narrow or a wide definition of heritage is used. Merchant-Ivory produced and directed Howard’s End (1991) was the first ‘heritage film’ of the decade. The treatment of Forster’s original text relies on a country house aesthetic with the camera feasting upon the haute bourgeois interiors. This palpable pleasure in parading the visual splendour of the past undermines the social criticism of Forster’s novel. argues Gibson (2000: 116). Looking at some of the romanticised images Gibson certainly has a point.

Higson (2003) in his case study on Howard’s End also expresses a concern that this film is a particularly good example of films which choose a deliberately liberal canonical text upholding in a reasonable ‘authentic’ way the liberal notions expressed within the book. Nevertheless director and producer undermine that liberalism by constructing a stylistic mode which, by focusing on the mise en scene, allows a conservative sensibility to become prioritised.

It is important to bear in mind Stuart Hall’s comments cited above. Although the texts can be read by critics as a reactionary construction of British heritage in fact the arguments are not based upon actual audience research. It is not unreasonable to assume in the tradition of deconstruction which argues that meaning of a text is not fixed that the American audiences for Howard’s End made very different readings of the film. It should not be forgotten that many of the English viewers of the film were far more likely than American audiences to have some familiarity with the British history of the period. Much deeper social and political readings of the off-screen concerns of the film by members of the audience were very likely.

Criticism without audience analysis: How useful is it?

The above points highlight the weakness of constructing criticism of texts with having a research relationship. Higson and other critics were making a critical ‘leap of faith’ by creating their perfectly reasonable interpretations based upon the prevalence of the right-wing mood of the nation at the time. The film of Howard’s End was made at the end of the Thatcher period. However there is no clear evidence how British audiences understood and experienced this film; what Hall described as attitude towards these films.

Hall however does make an important point about the lack of representation of many features of contemporary British society which is a part of the country’s heritage in the fullest sense of the term. Hall here was discussing the lack of representation of Afro-Caribbeans and the contribution of the Slave trade in all manner of ways to Britain today. This is a part of British ‘heritage’ which demands ‘recognition’. In this sense much of the heritage industry is very isolated from social and cultural reality.

The doyen of English Heritage was enaged enough to represent an evil episode in British history. Follow this link for Simon Schama on the historical episode being represented. When will British cinema can stop making romanticist cinema for an American market which appears to view Britain as quaint and face up to the bad bits of history as well as the proud bits. Turner was more honest about 150 years ago it seems. Art isn’t just ‘beautiful’!

Links

Channel 4 Review

Link to official site with a trailer available

Link here for the Guardian review by Derek Malcolm

: 21 Dec 2006 18:29 |  Tags: A Level Film Studies A Level Media Studies Alan Rickman Andrew Higson British Cinema British Cinema From 1990 Contemporary British Cinema Costume Drama European Cinema Helena Bonham Carter Heritage Cinema History Of European Cinema Howards End Kinoeye Merchant Ivory Pride And Prejudice Sense And Sensiblity |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem