The British Tradition Table of Contents 1 What is docudrama 2 The British tradition in docudrama 3 The British docudrama tradition in the 60s 4 Recent British docudramas British Cinema ID: 270930
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Slide1
Docudrama
The British TraditionSlide2
Table of Contents
1) What is ‘docudrama’?
2) The British tradition in docudrama
3) The British docudrama tradition in the 60s
4) Recent British docudramasSlide3
British Cinema
There is a certain ‘incompatibility between the words “British” and “cinema”’
François Truffaut
For Truffaut and many of us GB as an un-cinematic nation
Realist film = British national cinemaSlide4
What is docudrama?
A film that re-creates and dramatizes real events, real situation or occurrences in history, often recent history, by blending facts and fiction.
Movies that purport to be factual a re-creation of newsworthy people or occurrences.
Popular staples in TV in the 60s and 70s.Slide5
What is docudrama?
More accurate interpretations of reality than other fiction films
‘Non-fiction drama’ (oxymoron) indicates that the docudrama borders on the fields of invention and reality, and of imagination and fact.Slide6
The British Tradition
The documentary movement in the 30s led by John Grierson and the war-time documentaries of Humphrey Jennings, Alberto Cavalcanti, Harry Watts, Basil Wright, etc.
→
Inspirations for the post-war docudrama filmmakersSlide7
The British Tradition
Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950), painter, poet, filmmaker, journalist and historian
Maker of experimental and creative documentariesSlide8
The British Tradition
His tightly scripted documentaries blend real footage with reconstructed and restaged scenes.
This process often blurs the line between documentary and fictionSlide9
The British Tradition
Fires Were Started
(1943) about a fire unit working through the blitz
Shot during the days of the blitz combining the newsreel footage with restaged scenes. Slide10
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
The
Dramatised
Documentary Group in BBC
⇨
‘story documentary’
‘[we wanted] to stretch reality’ – Ken LoachSlide11
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
Peter Watkins (1935-)
Established an innovative style combining a drama acted out by ‘real people’ with newsreel techniquesSlide12
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
Culloden
(1964)
A modern TV crew (anachronistic) follows the build-up, the fighting and the bloody aftermath of the 1764 battle of Culloden.Slide13
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
Bold montage, revealing close-ups and hand-held camera deconstruct the myth of the battle and the conventions of costume drama Slide14
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
The War Game
(1965)
Does not
re
construct but
pre
construct
the nuclear fallout in southern England.
Juxtaposes interviews, graphics, raw data with staged horrific imagesSlide15
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
What Watkins refers as ‘you are there’ style.
Banned till 1985 but won the special award in Venice and the Oscar for the Best DocumentarySlide16
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
‘The film is in the guise of a documentary and the action sequences are broken by the commentaries of doctors, psychiatrists, churchmen and strategists. While the presentation seems authoritative, the film is straight propaganda for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.’
Evening Standard
, 8 Feb. 1966Slide17
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
Ken Loach (1935 - )
Maker of TV drama turned filmmaker
Realist filmmaker
par excellence
Makes a drama like a documentarySlide18
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
Cathy Come Home
(1968)
Made for the Wednesday Play
Drama completely made on location and harnessed to documentary techniquesSlide19
The British Tradition (in the 60s)
Unknown actors achieve uncanny naturalism through improvisation.
The outcome is a drama film as close to documentary as it can be.Slide20
The British Tradition (contemporary)
Paul
Greengrass
(1935 - )
Worked as a director in ITV for
World in Action (investigative documentaries)Co-author of
Spycatcher
with Peter Wright (former MI5)Slide21
The British Tradition (contemporary)
Greengrass moved to TV drama creating
The One That Got Away
(1996)
about SAS in the Gulf War and The Fix (1997) about the fictional story of corruption in football.The Murder of Stephen Lawrence
(1999) the story of a black youth, whose murder was not properly investigated by the police.
Bloody Sunday
(2002) about the 1972 massacre of Catholics in Northern Ireland by the British security force.Slide22
The British Tradition (contemporary)
United 93
(2006) - the highjack of the United Airlines Flight 93
The filmmakers claim that it was produced with ‘full’ support of the families of passengers.Slide23
The British Tradition (contemporary)
Kevin Macdonald (1967 - ) - grandson of
Emeric
Pressburger
and brother of Andrew Macdonald (producer of Trainspotting)
Documentary filmmaker -
One Day in September
(1999)Slide24
The British Tradition (contemporary)
Touching the Void
(2003) - Joe
Simson
and Simon Yates attempted to climb the Peruvian mountain
Siula Grande in 1985. They reached the summit but during the descent Simpson fell and broke his leg – and Yates had to make the agonizing decision to cut the rope.