British Cinema 'The Whole Story' | FILM COURSE: A new four part film course at Linden Hall Studio

BRITISH CINEMA: THE WHOLE STORY (PART ONE)

1. Beginnings of a Pioneering Cinema: William Friese-Greene’s Magic Box

2. Alfred Hitchcock & Anthony Asquith. Alex Korda & J. Arthur Rank.

3. 1940s Golden Age: David Lean, Carol Reed, Powell & Pressburger

4. Ealing Studio’s Comedies & Dramas: It Always Rains on..Pimlico

British cinema is a matter of life and death. The oldest surviving film was shot in 1888 but then British cinema was Rescued by Rover in 1905—and literally rescued by the young Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Asquith. We will view extracts from: The Lodger (1926), Shooting Stars (1928), Piccadilly (1928), A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929) and the first ‘talkie’, Blackmail (1929).

Alexander Korda built the first British Studio to rival Hollywood in the 1930s, where he introduced Michael Powell to Emeric Pressburger. Their film editor was David Lean. Korda then begged Carol Reed to direct The Third Man on location in Vienna and the rest is history—the history of a golden age of a British Cinema of Great Expectations: The Fallen Idol, The Red Shoes, Kind Hearts and Coronets.

This course is only the beginning of a remarkable story. Stay tuned in Spring for the Sixties Sequel. We are living the dream of British cinema and thank the cinema gods that Mike Leigh has made his first film in six years. British Cinema Lives Forever at Linden Hall.

Footnote: William Friese-Greene (1855 – 1921) was a prolific English inventor and professional photographer. He was known as a pioneer in the field of motion pictures,

having devised a series of cameras between 1888–1891 and shot moving pictures with them in London. He went on to patent an early two-colour filming process in 1905. Wealth came with inventions in printing, including phototypesetting and a method of printing without ink, and from a chain of photographic studios. However, Friese-Greene spent all his money on inventing, went bankrupt three times, was jailed once, and died in poverty.

What will we cover?

The oldest surviving film was shot in the UK in 1888. Later, this silent era produced Piccadilly (1928 E.A. Dupont) and Blackmail (1929). Britain had pioneered cinema but soon Hollywood dominated, until British film production reached an all-time high in 1936, which led to a ‘golden era’ in the 1940s. The war years (1939 —45) inspired a period when Britain broke free from Hollywood and discovered its own identity, narrative, genre and its own group of great directors—who emerged firing on all cylinders: Carol Reed, Michael Powell, David Lean.

Additional

This course will take you on a journey through the development of British Cinema from its earliest films through to some of its most recent. We will explore some of the most significant periods of British filmmaking creativity and commercial enterprise and consider some of the famous names associated with it. This is, through image and sound, the whole story of British Cinema.

The course will chart, chronologically, the history of British Cinema from its origins up to the present day. Along the way we will look at the shifting context for film production in Britain and consider the socio-political background to some of the best-known films from each decade. We will explore the careers of many of the great names of British filmmaking and consider their contributions to filmmaking both in Britain and beyond.