“That Long Shot of Our Town From That Hill”, or About the Authority of the Look in British Social Realism Films of the 1960s and 1980s
Abstract
In 1984 Andrew Higson published an article concerning space, landscape and spectacle in British ‘Kitchen Sink’ cinema of the 1960s. Discussing the matter of authority of the look in the context of class, Higson singled out one very expressive and emblematic shot, insistently recurring in almost all these New Wave films: That Long Shot of Our Town from that Hill. This kind of shot - showing characters looking at their town from the nearby hill - seems to be rather controversial in class terms as it problematizes the question of who is looking at whom and, therefore, who is creating the image of the characters and their world. Does the authority of the look belong to the working class characters, or to the middle class filmmakers (and, most likely, viewers)? Kosińska questions Higson’s views by offering her own standpoint and analysing parallel Long Shots of Our Town from that Hill as expressed in 1980s films by Mike Leigh and Alan Clarke.
Supporting Agencies
Keywords:
kitchen sink cinema, Mike Leigh, Alan Clarke, British cinemaReferences
Higson, Andrew. Space, Place, Spectacle: Landscape and Townscape in the ‘Kitchen Sink’ Film. In Dissolving Views. Key Writings on British Cinema, edited by Andrew Higson. Cassell: London, 1996
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474290661.ch-009
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Hill, John. Sex, Class and Realism. London: BFI Publishing, 1986
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Kirk, John. Urban Narratives. Contesting place and space in some British cinema from the 1980s. In: British Cinema. Vol. I, edited by Robert Murphy, 361-381. London: Routledge, 2014
Google Scholar
Lovell, Terry. Landscapes and Stories in 1960s British Realism. In Dissolving Views. Key Writings on British Cinema, edited by Andrew Higson. Cassell: London, 1996.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474290661.ch-010
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Authors
Karolina Kosińskakwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
Absolwentka kulturoznawstwa (specjalność filmoznawcza) w Instytucie Sztuk Audiowizualnych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Pracę magisterską dotyczącą form buntu w kinie brytyjskim obroniła pod kierunkiem prof. dr. hab. Tadeusza Lubelskiego w 2002 roku. Pracę doktorską na temat postaci androgynicznej w brytyjskim filmie i kulturze popularnej obroniła w 2008 roku (promotor: prof. dr hab. Andrzej Pitrus) również w ISzA UJ. Od 2003 roku redaktorka „Kwartalnika Filmowego”.
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