British Cinema and Middlebrow Culture in the Interwar Years

Neuausgabe 2009
ISBN: 978-0-85989-797-6
Verlag: UNIV OF EXETER

Buch, Englisch, 250 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 567 g

Reihe: Exeter Studies in Film History

British Cinema and Middlebrow Culture in the Interwar Years offers an understanding of British Cinema between 1928 and 1939 through an analysis of the relationship between the British film industry and other ‘culture industries’ such as the radio, music recording, publishing and early television.

This relationship has been seen as a weakness of the British film-making tradition, but Lawrence Napper stages a re-appraisal of that tradition, arguing that it is part of a specific strategy of differentiation from Hollywood cinema, designed to appeal to the ‘middlebrow’ aesthetic of the most rapidly expanding audience of the period—the lower middle class.

Lawrence Napper argues that the ‘middlebrow’ reputation for aesthetic conservatism masks an audience and popular culture marked by dynamism. ‘Middlebrow’ texts addressed a British audience on the move, physically (into the new suburbs), socially (as upwardly mobile consumers), economically (employed in new and developing industries, and involved in new modes of living), and culturally (embracing new forms of mass cultural consumption, such as the cinema, the wireless and the best-selling novel). The ability of these audiences to adapt cultures of the past to the media of modern life (through stage or screen adaptations) ensured their negative reputation amongst Modernist commentators and intellectual elites.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Napper, Lawrence

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Medien-, Informations und Kommunikationswirtschaft Filmindustrie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Medien-, Informations und Kommunikationswirtschaft Musikindustrie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musikindustrie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Medien-, Informations und Kommunikationswirtschaft Verlagswesen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften Fernsehen & Rundfunk
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Radio
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Medien-, Informations und Kommunikationswirtschaft Radio- und Fernsehindustrie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction: The 'Middlebrow' Concept of the National: Music Hath Charms 1935

1. A Law for British Film: The Cinematography Films Act 1927

2. British Cinema, The Publishing Industry and the Mass Market: The Constant Nymph 1924-1928

3. The 'Middlebrow' Debate and Film: The Good Companions 1929-1933

4. New and Old Cultures: The Lambeth Walk 1937-1939

Conclusion: The Viability of National Cinema

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Lawrence Napper is a lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Greenwich; he was Senior Researcher on the British Cinema History Research Project for four years at UEA, and has appeared on BBC4’s ‘The Cinema Show’. Publications include Silent Cinema: film from 1914 to 1929 (forthcoming) and chapters in various books published by Routledge, Manchester UP, BFI Publishing.