What is British Cinema?

British cinema is the most respected industry in the world and has the impact on modern cinema. This industry is characterized by its constant debate about its distinctiveness which includes cultural and economic issues and the influence of American and European cinemas. The golden age of British cinema started in 1940 from the studios of Rank and Korda. This industry had given many actors, directors and many motion pictures (Curran and Porter, 1993). This paper covers certain aspects of British cinema industry and discusses two movies of the Drama genre released in 2009 and 2010.

Both the movie is based on young generation that shows full of inspiration and enthusiasm for a particular dance form. The movies have been targeted to the youth and did good business. The movies also provided a good presentation of the present day’s culture in terms of settings, food, and clothing of characters, family types, issues faced by children in home and schools and others. These teenagers presented in this movie represent a different class of children altogether that have so much passion for their favorite art forms.

In the recent past there have been lost of development in various forms of arts from music to dancing. Number of British, American, and Australian, Italian and many other singers and musicians are rocking the world with their music and the increased fan followings for these artists have increased. Teenagers are particularly inspired by them. The glamour of these arm forms attract millions to watch and perform. Discussion British cinema had faced the times of recession and boom. There are many factors which can be used to know the growth of this film industry.
The growth can also be known by the number of movies produced. This cinema industry was boomed first time in 1910 but they again seen recession in 1920 just due to the competition with the US. The protective measures, which lead to the recovery and for the high production, Cinematograph Films Act 1927 has been launched in 1936 Curran and Porter, 1993. As British cinema was just got recovered from the first waves of recession, it was hit by other recession waves in mid of 1970. This continued till 1980’s. Due to renewal of private and public investment, British cinema again got recovered in 1990’s.
There were some movies produced during recession like Chariots of Fire (1981), which was the successful movie. Like this movie they have released many other movies and they were successful too. British industries have also launched the better technologies to edit the movie and now the movies are releasing in better picture quality. The movies have got worldwide success and these movies earn much higher as they have good picture quality, sound and the storyline like historical, cultural and artistic dimensions. These movies are also well known due to the educational behavior as these movies have some moral into it (Murphy, 2009).
Many movies were produced in 2000’s but there were some movies which were highly appreciated by the viewers. Two of the movies are Fish Tank (2009) and Nowhere Boy (2009), which are from the same genre (drama) but the movies are based on the lives of teenage. Movie 1: Fish Tank (2009) Fish Tank is the movie which is based on the life of a teenage girl who got influenced by the street dancers and describes their dancing as being horrible. In this movie, Mia who is just 15 years old girl and living with her mother and sister on Essex Council Estate.
She never go out of her estate as she was secured in her house because as she move out, the authorities starts troubling her and that’s why she had left her schooling. She just drinks cider most of the times, in her house. She only came out of her house when she does the street dancing otherwise she remain in her lonely flat and practice inside the house only. Once when she was roaming around in her estate, she saw a horse which was trying to get free but the horse was unable to get free. She found it painful and brought the hammer to help the horse but she faced the anger of its three owners.
Two of the owners have grabbed her to stop her but she get away from them after struggling with them. She got free just because of the dog of Mr. Billy, the third owner of the horse and explained everything to Mia. He told her that the horse is not thin but it is ill and it is in its last stage. After this meet they both have became friends. Connor, Mia’s mother’s boyfriend, while preparing the tea in the kitchen, interacted with Mia regarding the music video that Mia was watching. Connor works as the security guard in the hardware store and wanted to be a father figure for the two children.
Connor always carries Mia to her room and also removes shoes and put blanket on her. Mia’s mother, Joanne, was enthusiastic as when she asked for the trip, both of the girls got ready to attend her mother and Tyler had shown much interest. When they were on trip, Connor asked about the animal and played the songs of California Dreaming. Mia always tried to impress Connor as when he was catching fish she helped him and also when her mother got hurt in the river, Connor avoided Joanne to give a piggy-back ride to Mia.
Mia was slowly attracting towards Connor and she was having some thought in her mind related to Connor. She reacts angrily with the Connor and due to which Connor came to know that she is the witness of the intercourse between him and Mia’s mother. Connor borrowed the camera and gave that to Mia as she wants to go for the auditions of the local dance. In between that time Mia came across the social worker who was introduced by her mother to restart her schooling which she had left. But Mia refused to go and had a drink from kitchen and went out of house.
She had seen the video on street dancing on YouTube and took the help of Billy to search the car parts to buy the alcohol for her self. After she sent her video, she received the call for the audition. When they were celebrating by having the drink, Connor asked Mia to show her dance steps. She performed on California dreaming and was asked by Connor to sit along with him. As Joanne went upstairs, Connor and Mia had sex and then he was embarrassed by the thing he had done with Mia. So he told her not to reveal the secret to Joanne.
The very next day she came to know from her mother and Tyler that Connor had left and Mia knows the place where she can find Connor. Mia found him in his house in Tilbury and talked with him so he told her that he is unable to go back again to her mother which directly indicates that he doesn’t even want to meet Mia again. She didn’t made any issue of the age difference but Connor given her money before the goodbye kissing and left her to the station to get herself back home. She wasn’t ready to back her home but she again reached to the Connor’s home from the back window and entered into it as she found it empty.
In Connor’s house, she came to know that Connor is married and also he’s having the daughter named, Keira and she had a call of nature over there on the floor. Mia then came out of the house and made a move but she have seen Keira playing on her scooter, also she convinced Keira to set off across the field along with her that she’ll give her an ice-cream as told by the Keira’s mother to Mia. Keira started kicking Mia as they were running through the field and approaching towards river. As Keira became upset, then she started troubling Mia, and as Mia got frustrated, she pushed her and Keira fallen down into the river.
Then Mia saved Keira with the help of the Branch of the tree otherwise Keira might have drawn completely. After saving Keira, they both returned back towards the home as the Keira was wet and feeling cold too. Then in between their way to home, Connor arrived and slapped Mia and pushes back her. He then took Keira and drive back towards the home. Many days have been passed and then Mia came to the audition for which she had been called and seen the exotic dancer performing. Her turn came and she came on stage and music started.
Then she had seen the fellow semi-nude auditionees and she walked off from the stage and went out to find Billy. She came to know that the horse which she cared for was dead and started weeping. Then Billy came and tried to stop her weeping and ask her to accompany him as he was leaving for Cardiff. Mia got ready and packed her bags and after having a dance with her mother and sister on the song “Life is a Bitch and then you die”, she went off. While she was leaving her mother didn’t reacted as she said good bye and then she sat with Billy and drive away for the new life.
The movie is full of drama and sequence of events that keeps the interest of audiences. Mia in the Fish Tank is struggling with her own emotions, desires and issues of morality. The climax of the movie is a mixer of the feelings where in one hand she leaves the audition that was for erotic dancer, her favourite horse dies and she decides to move ahead to explore better opportunity and before that she enjoys with her family. Movie 2 Another movie which was also based on the same genre was “Nowhere Boy”. In this movie a teenage boy, Johnson, got success just because of his aunt and uncle.
His aunt, Mimi, who is loving, inspirational and reserved kind of woman while her husband, George, is companion for the lively and intelligent boy. John was overwhelmed, when her uncle died due to cancer. During the funeral, John met his cousin Stan who showed him the place where his mother lives and was shocked that the house is nearby to his aunt’s and there he met Julia. Julia was fun loving girl whereas her aunt was strict. Julia’s clothes and her hair have the matching which work as the attraction for John towards Julia. The relationship became deeper between Julia and John which was unfair to Mimi.
Julia teaches John to play Banjo and also introduced him to “Rock n Roll”. Mimi unknowingly bought a guitar for John and due to which he failed to improve in the school and was suspended. Then he moved along with Julia to her home where he met with Bobby. In that night he heard Julia and Bobby’s conversation with which he recognized that Julia is soft hearted and next day she again moved back to her aunt’s house. Then he met with the young guitarist who just looks like a twelve years old kid but he can play the guitar better than any other band.
They started the rehearsals together and the band also started creating buzz. Soon he started getting fame and he enjoyed that. Then on Julia’s birthday, he met her after a long time p and found out the truth that why he got irritated in his life. And after that his life started moving smoothly and he got success to every point. The movie shows the struggle of the teenager to deal with the past and move ahead with life. The events and the presentation of events have been very impressive in entire movie.
In both the movies, the main aspect was to show the life of the teenage girl and a boy that how the society deals with. In Fish Tank, Mia was the girl who got admired by the street dancers who were performing and in Nowhere Boy also, John got admired from the guitarist who can be able to play much better than the band. And in both the movies, director had shown clearly that the future is influenced by the past. So Mia got tensed in the movie Fish Tank as she heard that Connor had left them and in Nowhere Boy, John was also got irritated due to his past.
These movies was generally built for the young generation people as they already have pressure of studies and their hobbies and what they want to be in their life. Society also provide pressure to them which result in making pressure in the mind of the child and due to this many children left studying and they got distracted from their hobbies too. Reference British Film Industry available at http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/in_depth/entertainment/2003/british_film_industry/default. stm Curran and Porter, 1993 British Cinema History, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson 9-23
Murphy, R. ed. , 2009 The British Cinema Book, London: BFI, 1-64, 65-142 Fish Tank official website http://www. michaelfassbender. org/episodesfte. html http://www. hollywoodreporter. com/hr/film-reviews/fish-tank-film-review-1003973214. story Image Fish Tank from http://www. movieroar. com/images/fish-tankpster1. jpg Nowhere Boy Movie Review http://www. futuremovies. co. uk/review. asp? ID=1110 No Where Boy movie details available at http://www. nowhereboy. co. uk/ http://www. hollywoodreporter. com/hr/film-reviews/nowhere-boy-film-review-1004031851. story