[For a fuller view see Andrew Higson's essay in The 1970s' - to which I am much indebted - on Reserve, or Alexander Walker's National Heroes]
| 1970 | The Railway Children, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Cromwell, Ryan's Daughter, Loot |
| 1971 | Dad's Army, Up Pompeii, On the Buses, And Now For Something Completely Different, The Vampire Lovers, The Go-Between, Straw Dogs, The Music Lovers, Get Carter, Please Sir |
| 1972 | Steptoe and Son, Frenzy, A Clockwork Orange, Mary Queen of Scots Young Winston |
| 1973 | That'll Be the Day, Love Thy Neighbour, Day of the Jackal, Man at the Top, O Lucky Man |
| 1974 | Stardust, The Whicker Man, The Odessa File, Zardoz |
| 1975 | Lisztomania, Tommy, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Royal Flash Barry Lyndon |
| 1976 | The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Sweeney, The Likely Lads, Bugsy Malone, Luther |
| 1977 | Joseph Andrews, A Bridge Too Far, The Cassandra Crossing Jabberwocky |
| 1978 | The Thirty-Nine Steps, Superman [registered as a British film], Jubilee Death on the Nile, The Boys From Brazil, Midnight Express, Carry on Emmanuelle [last of the "Carry On" films!} |
| 1979 | Quadrophenia, Porridge, The Life of Brian, Alien [made in Britain] |
| 1980 | Breaking Glass, The Tempest, The Long Good Friday |
| 1981 | Chariots of Fire, Gregory's Girl, Time Bandits, For Your Eyes Only |
(ii) Overview:
After the brief renaissance of the 1960s, when it seemed as though there was a viable revival of British film, the 1970s may seem a rather dismal and fallow period for British film-making and, therefore, the filmic "projection of Britain". Looking through the list of British films (or, rather, films released in Britain) it becomes increasingly difficult to identify home-grown movies and, within those we can identify, films which will stand the test of time (or any sort of critical scrutiny!). Conventional wisdom has it that the British film industry entered a state of terminal decline after 1969, despite the brief spasms of life represented by Chariots of Fire, the works from the Merchant/Ivory team (Room With a View and Howards End), Shirley Valentine, and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. From 1969, with the parlous state of financing of the British film industry, the impact of American finance and the dominance of Hollywood, added to the impact of television and VCRs, "British Film" has seemed almost a contradiction in terms. Whereas Hollywood, in the 1960s, had felt comfortable with investing in Britain and British themes, the 1970s saw a withdrawal of American interest (and money) in Britain and this, combined with the decline of cinema-going in the period, looked likely kill British cinema off for good.
The history of British film since 1969 is, however, more complicated than this conventional account might suggest. The success of Chariots of Fire in 1981 showed that 'British' themes and subject matter could be successful at the Box Office, and not just in Britain. Chariots of Fire proved a landmark in the history of British film, and more recently films such as Three Weddings and a Funeral, Henry V, Howards End and Shadowlands have shown that British film still has some life left in it. A more interesting question, however, is to consider the implications of this "revival" for the projection and construction of images of Englishness, to consider what versions of Britain and Britishness are projected in these more recent films, designed and made for an international market.
Confining discussion to the 1970s (although this longer term view is helpful), in retrospect the picture is not as bleak as it might appear. Certainly one can detect the influence of television behind many of the British films listed above: successful television series, especially situation comedies (e.g. Dad's Army, The Likely Lads, Porridge), were translated into films, not equally as successfully. Also, as the above list also indicates, many British films were dependent upon American money and American stars, and hence had to be "internationalised" in order to recoup production costs (The Cassandra Crossing or Death on the Nile, for example). Film traditions which had seemed original in the late 1950s and 60s were still churned out, but became increasingly tired, tiresome and formulaic: the 'Carry On' tradition ended with Carry On Emmanuelle, confirming the degeneration into smuttiness, and James Bond became less innovative and increasingly self-deprecating and tongue in cheek. However, there were high points: the emergence of new and imaginative directors such as Ken Russell, David Puttnam, Derek Jarman and the Monty Python team (Handmaid Films), or directors who had made their name in television (Ken Loach); critically acclaimed films such as Loot, Luther, and The Long Good Friday; and films which attempted to be original, even if they quickly became cause Celebes (e.g. Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange or Jubilee). this has to be set against American films such as Earthquake, The Towering Inferno and Airport 75 which, despite the good influence of Stephen Speilberg and Jaws, demonstrated that American cinema in the 1970s could equally well be described as mediocre, unimaginative and formulaic.
(iii) Economic and Social Contexts and British Cinema
It is possible to detect a number of determining trends which emerged in the 1970s which left indelible marks on the development of British cinema. Firstly, the effects of the conglomerization and rationalization of the cinema production and distribution industry, nationally and internationally. Secondly, changes in the nature of cinema-going and in the emergence of a predominantly young (rather than family) cinema audience. Production and distribution companies such as Rank and EMI acquired wider multi-leisure and entertainment interests, which enabled the ready conversion of cinemas into Bingo halls and, internationally, the domination of American finance in dictating the subject matter and success of movies. Related moves saw the production of film packages with tie-ins to records, books and other merchandise (e.g., That'll be the Day; the changes in cinemas as leisure complexes (particularly the emergence of multi-screen cinemas); the closer financial relationship between film and television companies; the rise of the Hollywood 'Blockbuster' movie and the need for British films to compete on equal terms with films such as Jaws and Superman; the emergence of an audience for minority 'art' films; and finally, the plethora of 'sex and violence' spectacle movies which could, through breaking new boundaries of accepted taste, attract an audience (The Devils, Life of Brian, Straw Dogs, and Bad Timing were all examples of films which, having gained a degree of notoriety and instigated "moral panics", were successful financially).
(iv) The Projection of Britishness
Inevitably the 'Britain' that was projected by British films in the 1970s was constrained by the effects of the factors identified above. Even in 1981 David Puttnam was repeatedly told that Chariots of Fire was not viable because it was "too British for the international market". Aside from the cosy (and often lavatorial) view of Britain projected by the 'Carry On' films, or the 'Gothic England' projected by early 1970s Hammer Horror films, the projection of Britishness was governed largely by the need to project a view of England that was internationally recognisable. To quote from Andrew Higson:
"Numerous costume dramas and period films display beautifully a timeless and pastoral England, as in the opening sequences of Death on the Nile. Even in the midst of Jubilee's apocalyptic vision of the last of England there is a nostalgic vision of a stately rural England and a reassuring Shakespearean culture.) In The Thirty-Nine Steps (1978) it is the old country itself which is under threat from foreign powers, and which is saved by the daring of Richard Hannay. Even the Bond films, for all their fascination with modern technology and a modern attitude to sexual relations, are bound to tradition. The villains represent a modernity taken to extremes, which must therefore must be held in check. And Bond himself represents a the perfect indestructibility of a traditional national identity, a class style and a gender role. but all is not what it seems, as is clear from The Go-Between (1971), which reveals some of the tensions at the heart of this Englishness, which it locates in an Edwardian country house setting (inevitably, it is sexuality which disturbs the class heritage)."
All is indeed not what it seems! Straw Dogs had, for example, demonstrated the psychotic quality which lurks beneath the order and calm of English rural tranquillity, and films such as Get Carter, Frenzy, The Sweeney and The Long Good Friday had attempted to deal with the "realities" of a new and increasingly violent crime-ridden mass society. It is significant, however, that the packaging of Englishness evident in films such as Death on the Nile or Mary, Queen of Scots has, if anything, intensified in the 1980s and 90s, to a vision of England made up of Elgar, Helen Bonham-Carter, Edwardian period pieces, good looking English public schoolboys, upper middle class comedies of manners, the Oxford of Shadowlands or the spectacle of historical pomp and pageantry in films such as Henry V.