Forever frustrating
Feeling slightly under the weather on Sunday, I curled up on the sofa and put on British Film Forever as a slice of easy, undemanding eyewash, thinking, "A few choice clips of some costume dramas - what could be less taxing?" What I hadn't taken into account, of course, was the amount of shouting at the screen involved. I've just finished reading Matthew Sweet's history of the British film industry, Shepperton Babylon, and despite its unecessarily salacious title, it's a committed, intelligent and affectionate read from a man who clearly adores his subject - and talking to ancient protagonists, many of whom have died since Sweet interviewed them. If only a hundredth of the spirit of this superb book had surfaced in British Film Forever (which, as we have established, Sweet writes the links for). Instead, it reduces everything to a joke. On A Room With A View: "Cecil looks like Danile Day-Lewis. Well, he is Daniel Day-Lewis." (Has a more crass comment ever been made on a BBC2 history programme, which, at the end of the day, this is?) Later, we heard talk of "dosh" being made. There was a gag about costume dramas being aimed at American tourists "too fat to get on planes". And the civilians are taking over, with Lily Savage providing most of the comment about Maurice, and Jeremy Vine, Daisy Goodwin filling a lot of gaps where filmmakers might have gone. Even David Oyelowo, star of Spooks, who is an actor and has been in a couple of films and therefore qualified to be here, says the following line, "Chariots Of Fire, I think, is one of the best British films ever made." And that's it. Cut to clip. Let's examine this: we find out that a bloke who we've seen on telly thinks that a film is one of the best British ones ever made. That's the full extent of the insight. The insight is not into the film, it's into Davide Oyelowo. Equally, James Purefoy, another actor, says that Laurence Of Arabia, for him, is "the triumph of all British film." So what? I mean, really, so what? They've got Steven Spielberg saying it changed his life and convinced him to go to Hollywood - that's an insight worth sharing. It's all so bloody matey and chopped into soundbites. We also find out, from critic Liz Crowther, that Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh were "the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie" of their day. How much more do we have to reduce history to Heat magazine level before it's ready to show on television?
There were some choice clips, but it didn't make me feel better. I feel certain I'll be on the next one, and the one after that. I hope to God they don't make me sound as shallow and ephemeral as everybody else by chopping out soundbites from my (as I remember them) long-winded speeches about The Four Feathers, 28 Days Later and Norman Wisdom. It's a worry.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 10:53 AM
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15 Comments:
I am so angry with this series. Why must everything be dumbed down?
Whoever it is who reads Heat magazine is not going to be remotely interested in it, so why try and catch that audience? Why can't a subject be treated in a serious, non-ironic fashion for once?
What could have been a fine series about British film is ruined by the narration and the silly talking heads.
At least some of the films that have got an airing have been worth it, like The Whisperers.
The only place to see subjects taken seriously on TV these days is BBC4. If they axe it, I'm leaving the country.
Very much looking forward to tomorrow's history of the motorway.
When you wrote about this series before, I commented that I would still keep watching despite the flaws, but I must confess that I have given up. It is so infuriating because this is the sort of programme that the BBC can do extemely well, so Lord knows what they are playing at here. The worse thing is that if we all keep turning it off, they will feel justified in saying that there is no interest and won't attempt to make these programmes.
Totally agree about the excellent BBC4, Five-Centres. But its very existence seems to allow BBC2 to go downmarket.
As for Debs' valid point about turning off and thus giving them the excuse to not make any more of these kinds of documentaries, the viewing figures for the first three weeks go like this: 2.1 million, 1.6 million, 1.3 million. People are turning off. I wonder if this week's will see the trend continue? The "overnights" are not in yet. I'll post them up when they appear.
Around 94/95 BBC TWO broadcast another (5 part) History of British Film (this time chronologically)presented by Richard Lester. But just about the sixties.
It was very fine indeed.
It neatly used the actual locations of the films (25 years later) for Lester to do the links and mostly featured directors, actors from the time.
the one thing good about this series is the films they are showing along side it, I got a chance to see the wonderful A Cock and Bull Story for the first time Last night and thought it was marvelous and very funny
I wish I'd seen that one, Jem. I was out for most of 1994 and 1994.
I agree with Steve that the chance for BBC to show some interesting British films is not a bad thing. Alex Cox had a brilliantly sustained pop at the series in the Guardian last week, but also criticised the Beeb for their film choices, saying they were too obvious and too obscure at the same time. But I liked his general bile, and his theory that British Film Forever presents a Blairite view of the past was interesting.
... 1994 and 1995, obviously.
I'd love to disagree but of course I can't. The whole tone of the programme is wrong, going for the easy laugh and taking the piss rather giving us in-depth facts about the films. It could have been so much better.
I read the Alex Cox piece and agreed with him up to a point but as he said himself the BBC probably only had the rights to certain films, so I think it is a bit unfair to have a go at them. And I've never thought of the BBC as quango!
Anyway time to go, Carry On Constable just starting.
Ian
I've been following your comments on this for the last few weeks and I agree with everything. I, however, gave up after last weeks debacle and, given your latest post, am glad I did.
I'm also a massive fan of BBC4 but feel that while its catering for (what seems to be) the couple of thousand intelligent viewers who want something more satisfying, BBC2 will continue to put out this crap.
And how can Jessica Hynes have agreed to read these lines? And why did Matthew Sweet write them that way? I've read Shepperton Babylon too and you'd hardly believe it was by the same man!
But why am I surprised? The BBC seems happy to go down this route. I just hope BBC4 doesn't get the chop that is threatened...
I must admit i think it's all a missed opportunity I was hoping for some rarely shown films and docs. I understand that the beebs list is finite, but genre films for 40's and 50's would have been good as would have been some experimental film making, if not the last 100 years is just John Mills and Michael caine driving in a mini on the way to guy richies house. It's been on eof thsoe series where if you know anything aboiut the subject you are driven up the wall and if you don't it offer very little enlightenment
It was great to see the clips from Korda's unfinished I, Claudius but it didn't really have much to say about the production and then moved on to trivializing everything else.
And I'm still confused about what makes a British film. How can Shakespeare in Love - made my American production companies - be labelled a British film? Or Sense and Sensibility?
They really should have let the bods who made last year's The Story of Light Entertainment make the series. A real missed opportunity.
What was great about The Story Of Light Entertainment was its emphasis on producers and other less than glamorous middle-managers who made these programmes happen. Much more insightful than a load of light entertainers. An approach that might have skewed British Film Forever in a better direction. Less actors, more producers and studio types. These are the very people who make Matthew Sweet's Shepperton Babylon such a valuable document. (I really recommend it.)
I'm by no means a film buff but I generally drift to BBC2 on a Saturday night and end up watching stuff like this. I turned this one off after a few minutes of the first episode and I haven't gone back. Even the title is shit.
I hope you didn't start any sentences with something like "Norman Wisdom was funny..." or "Norman Wisdom's films were in black-and-white..." Anyway, they've probably got Lee Evans saying, "Mr Grimsdale!"
That other 5-part British Film series Jem referred to above is called 'Hollywood UK'.
http://www.uk.imdb.com/title/tt0475046/
And yes, he's right, it was very fine indeed. It knocks spots off British Film Forever.
Hollywood UK was repeated by BBC4 in 2005. It's well worth trying to track it down. You'd enjoy it, Andrew. A lot.
I've been dipping in to British Film Forever, but like most people am finding it disappointing. Best for me was the episode about social realism, but only because I'm a big fan of this genre.
Agree completely. Whoever produced this programme clearly thought that the subject matter wasn't interesting enough in itself and had to be disguised as something it wasn't - a star-studded romp. It's like that "look, here comes the spoon" game you play when feeding a bored baby.
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