The Empire Is Not Shaking at Its Foundations: Neo-Heritage in British Cinema and Television of the 21st Century
Patrycja Włodek
kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.plUniversity of the National Education Commission, Krakow (Poland)
Abstract
The author analyses the return of imperial sentiments in British films and TV series of the 21st century, placing them in the tradition of heritage cinema. However, while film-makers from the 1980s and 1990s associated with this trend, for example James Ivory, set the action in the time of the Empire, and did so with a distance, with a certain melancholy and irony, contemporary strategies are changing. Visually and thematically (life of the upper classes) films such as The Time of Darkness and TV series, such as The Crown, are a continuation of the heritage cinema. However, the assessment of the presented world is reoriented. Hence the concept of neo-heritage, whose creators elevate the fictitious (Downton Abbey) and historical (Queen Victoria, Elizabeth II) representatives of ruling classes, manipulating the story and narrative so as to gain for them not only the sympathy of viewers, but also a sense of unique role and social mission fulfilled by these social layers.
Keywords:
neo-heritage, James Ivory, Downton Abbey, British empireReferences
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Authors
Patrycja Włodekkwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of the National Education Commission, Krakow Poland
Doktor nauk o sztuce, absolwentka socjologii i filmoznawstwa na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim, adiunkt na Uniwersytecie Pedagogicznym im. KEN w Krakowie. Autorka książki „Świat był przemoczoną pustką”. Czarny kryminał Raymonda Chandlera w literaturze i filmie (2015) oraz tekstów o tematyce filmowej i serialowej publikowanych w tomach zbiorowych i czasopismach naukowych. Współredaktorka (wraz z A. Helman) tomu zbiorowego Od de Laclosa do Collarda. Adaptacje literatury francuskiej (2016). W kręgu jej zainteresowań znajdują się zagadnienia z zakresu historii kina, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem kinematografii amerykańskiej i neoseriali.
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