Even the most cursory glance at the A-level film specification reveals a shocking lack of diversity, which has become even more embarrassing as the Black Lives Matter movement has gathered pace in the wake of the unlawful killing of George Floyd. The (informal) word from EDUQAS is that a new list of set texts is on the way which will seek to address this lack … Continue reading BHM: Suggestions for a more diverse AL curriculum (part 1)
Both Shane Meadows’ This is England and Lynne Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin centre around the difficulties associated with teenage boys approaching adulthood, however whereas This Is England revolves around Shaun as the central protagonist, …Kevin pursues an alternative perspective, using the title character as a focal point to explore the identity of his mother, Eva. Although the spectator will automatically form their … Continue reading A-Level exam answer: How useful has an ideological critical approach been in understanding key characters in This Is England and We Need To Talk About Kevin?
Please note the following is taken from my dissertation (dated 2006) on the television play and its role in the development of the British film industry. Ken Loach and Mike Leigh represent two of Britain’s most dedicated and long-standing filmmakers. Numerous other directors of their generation, coming from similar roots in television drama, have left Britain for Hollywood – Alan Parker has had … Continue reading The Careers of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach
The British film industry of the 1980s and 1990s was dominated by the ‘heritage’ film, to an extent where such films often overshadowed examples of different types of filmmaking. The 1980s in particular where characterised by the success of such films as Chariots of Fire (1981) and A Room With a View (1985), and this was a pattern which continued into the 1990s, with … Continue reading Breaking free from heritage: ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ and ‘Trainspotting’
The 1980s and 1990s were a time of rapid social change; as class barriers shifted, attitudes evolved – towards class, but also towards the different nationalities that make up Britain. Devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly in the late 1990s was an important step in undermining what Peter J. Taylor called ‘the English presumption’ – the automatic equation of ‘British’ … Continue reading ‘Britishness’ and British Film in the 1980s and ‘90s
Throughout her directorial career, Lynne Ramsay has consistently sought to consider themes of violence and death. But whereas her earlier films (1999’s ‘Ratcatcher’; 2002’s Morvern Callar) explore the lives of people dealing with loss, her recent work is more concerned with those who inflict violence. Both ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ (2011) and ‘You Were Never Really Here’ (2017) explore the motivations and psychology … Continue reading Lynne Ramsay’s American Killers: ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ and ‘You Were Never Really Here’
Film Studies with Miss Home 