Heritage film

Heritage film is a term used to refer to a genre of British historical films which are argued to depict pre-World War II Britain in a nostalgic and sentimental fashion.[1][2] The term was coined by 20th-century writers on the British left, and although originally used in a critical manner has now broadened out to a more neutral descriptor. It has also been used to describe historical films with high-quality production values produced in Europe and beyond.[1]

Many heritage films were adapted from British classic literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries.[3] Heritage films have been argued to have a particular aesthetic approach (the "heritage" or "museum" aesthetic), marked by scrupulous attention to historical detail and the prominent depiction of the English countryside.[4][5][6] The genre began during the second half of the 20th century, coinciding with the British heritage industry's rise to prominence since the 1970s.[7] Critics have argued that the emergence of the heritage film was influenced by successive Conservative Party ministries under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which promoted a notion of the UK's cultural heritage which was politically conservative, pro–free enterprise and biased towards upper class values.[8][9]

At a time of British industrial decline, stagnant economic growth, political polarisation and social unrest, heritage films were appealing to many because they projected a nostalgic image of Britain as a prosperous, powerful and socially cohesive nation.[10][11] Many heritage films were set in the British Empire, particularly in India.[12][13] While these films have been described as glorifying and romanticising the past, they have also been argued to contain critiques of British society.[12] Other critics point out that the representations, themes and perspectives presented in heritage films are varied, not homogeneous, and many of them are romance narratives, suggesting that the pleasures they offer to audiences are more diverse and less necessarily conservative than those assumed by their original critics.[1]

Critical debate

The heritage film has been criticised from a socialist perspective for its romanticised portrayal of the past, its emphasis on the bourgeoisie or aristocracy rather than working class, and its fascination with luxurious settings, clothing, and lifestyles.[14] Its critics argued that the films reduced the past to a lavish consumer experience, presenting it as spectacle rather than offering audiences historical or critical understanding. This argument was strongly coloured by the wider, politicised and polarised, debates around British film, culture and society taking place in the Thatcher era, including similar critiques of the heritage industry itself, vehement opposition to Thatcherism among many British filmmakers and other prominent cultural figures, and counter-attacks on "anti-Thatcher" films (almost always, by contrast, set in present-day Britain) by Thatcher’s supporters in the British media.[15]

A further important strand in the critical debate around heritage films argues – from a feminist and pro-LGBT position – that, in contrast with their conservative reputation, many of the films are strongly progressive in their gender and sexual politics.[16][4][5] Many of the best-loved heritage films focus on strong and complex female characters (more than many other popular film genres), and some focus directly on the personal struggles, social position, rights of women and LGBT individuals in ways that remain relevant and deeply moving to their contemporary audiences.[17] In short, although the heritage film became popular by providing an escape from the present – particularly in the divided social and political climate of 1980s Britain – the full picture of the films' appeal, politics, and personal value for their audiences is more complex.[15]

Not all British films made since 1980 and set in the historic past are heritage films.[18] The heritage film can be distinguished from period films that take a more self-conscious, less naturalistic, even anachronistic approach to screening narratives set in the past (the "post-heritage film"); and from those set in more recent decades (usually 1940s onwards) that focus on characters from ordinary or working class social backgrounds, biographical subjects (biopics) and/or popular culture (the "retro film" or "alternative heritage film").

Cinema

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Kuhn, Annette; Westwell, Guy (2012). "Heritage film". A Dictionary of Film Studies. OUP Oxford. p. 203. ISBN 978-0199587261. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
  2. ^ Voigts-Virchow 2004, pp. 9-34.
  3. ^ Higson 2003, p. 92.
  4. ^ a b Dyer 1995, pp. 204-205.
  5. ^ a b Monk 2011a, p. 2.
  6. ^ Voigts-Virchow 2004, pp. 125-134.
  7. ^ Higson 1993, p. 95.
  8. ^ Powrie 2000, pp. 324–325.
  9. ^ Monk 2002, p. 177.
  10. ^ Higson 2003, p. 12.
  11. ^ Wollen 1991, p. 181.
  12. ^ a b Monk 2002, pp. 144-162.
  13. ^ Singh, Vijaya (January 2008). "The Colonial Discourse of the British Heritage Films of the 1980s". Creative Forum. 21 (1–2).
  14. ^ Vidal 2012, p. 86.
  15. ^ a b Luckett 2000, pp. 96-97.
  16. ^ Monk, Claire (1995). "The British 'heritage film' and its critics". Critical Survey. 7 (2): 116–124. JSTOR 41555905. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  17. ^ Williams 2005, pp. 92-101.
  18. ^ Higson 1993, p. 93.
  19. ^ a b c d e f Monk 2002, p. 179.
  20. ^ Higson 1993, pp. 96-97.
  21. ^ Larson, Stephen (27 March 2018). "A Summer Story Blu-ray Review". blu-ray.com. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
  22. ^ Dave 1997, p. 122.
  23. ^ Luckett 2000, pp. 90-91.
  24. ^ Weselinski, Andrzej (2019). "British Heritage Films in the 1980s and 1990s" (PDF). Zeszyty Naukowe Uczelni Vistula. 65 (2): 5–15. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  25. ^ Dole, Carol M. (2007). "Jane Austen and Mud: Pride & Prejudice (2005), British Realism, and the Heritage Film". Persuasions On-Line. 27 (2). Jane Austen Society of North America. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  26. ^ Chambers, Kerry (30 May 2020). "Heritage Cinema: A Genre Analysis Comparing Jane Eyre (2011) and Pride & Prejudice (2005)". Lounging on my Lily Pad. Archived from the original on 17 May 2022. Retrieved 10 January 2024.

Bibliography

  • Dave, Paul (July 1997). "The Bourgeois Paradigm and Heritage Cinema" (PDF). New Left Review (224): 111–126. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
  • Dyer, Richard (1995). "Heritage Cinema in Europe". In Vincendeau, Ginette (ed.). Encyclopedia of European Cinema. Cassell. ISBN 978-0304341641.
  • Higson, Andrew (2003). English Heritage, English Cinema: Costume Drama Since 1980. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199259021.
  • Higson, Andrew (1993). "Re-Presenting the National Past: Nostalgia and Pastiche in the Heritage Film". In Friedman, Lester (ed.). Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism. UCL Press. ISBN 978-1857280722.
  • Monk, Claire (2002). "The British Heritage-Film Debate Revisited". In Monk, Claire; Sargeant, Amy (eds.). British Historical Cinema: The History, Heritage and Costume Film. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0415238106.
  • Monk, Claire (2011a). "The Heritage Film Debate: From Textual Critique to Audience". Heritage Film Audiences: Period Film and Contemporary Audiences in the UK. pp. 10–24. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638246.003.0001. ISBN 9780748638246.
  • Luckett, Moya (2000). "Image and Nation in 1990s British Cinema". In Murphy, Robert (ed.). British Cinema in the 90s. British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0851707624.
  • Powrie, Phil (2000). "On the Threshold between Past and Present: Alternative Heritage". In Ashby, Justine; Higson, Andrew (eds.). British Cinema, Past and Present. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415220613.
  • Vidal, Belén (2012). Heritage Film: Nation, Genre and Representation. London and New York: Wallflower Press. ISBN 978-0-231-16203-6.
  • Voigts-Virchow, Eckart, ed. (2004). Janespotting and Beyond: British Heritage Retrovisions Since the Mid-1990s. Gunter Narr Verlag. ISBN 978-3823360964.
  • Williams, Michael (2005). "Room with a Gay View? Sexuality, Spectatorship, and A Room With a View". In Furby, Jacqueline; Randell, Karen (eds.). Screen Methods: Comparative Readings in Film Studies. Wallflower Press. ISBN 978-1904764342.
  • Wollen, Tana (1991). "Over Our Shoulders: Nostalgic Screen Fictions for the 1980s". In Corner, John; Harvey, Sylvia (eds.). Enterprise and Heritage: Crosscurrents of National Culture. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0415047029.

Further reading

  • Vincendeau, Ginette, ed. (2001). "Rooms Without a View". Film/Literature/Heritage. British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0851708416.
    • Cairns, Craig. Rooms Without a View. pp. 3-6.
    • Monk, Claire. Sexuality and Heritage. pp. 6-11.
  • Eley, Geoff (3 May 2019). "History, Heritage and the National Past in British Cinema of the 1980s and 1990s". In Hill, John (ed.). A Companion to British and Irish Cinema. doi:10.1002/9781118482889. ISBN 9781118477519. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
  • Gibson, Pamela Church (2002). "From Dancing Queen to Plaster Virgin: Elizabeth and the End of English Heritage?". Journal of Popular British Cinema. 5: 133–142. ISSN 1461-104X.
  • Hewison, Robert (1987). The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline. Methuen London. ISBN 978-0413161109.
  • Higson, Andrew (2011). Film England: Culturally English Filmmaking Since the 1990s. New York and London: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-454-3.
  • Kilpi, Harri (22 February 2002). British Historical Film: Its History and Generic Classification (Speech). Renvall Institute, Helsinki University.
  • Krämer, Lucia (2005). "Oscar Wilde as an Object of the English Heritage Industry". Irish Studies Review. 13 (3): 359–367. doi:10.1080/09670880500172015. S2CID 143954074.
  • Monk, Claire (2011b). "Heritage Film Audiences 2.0: Period Film Audiences and Online Fan Cultures". Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies. 8 (2): 431–477.
  • Pidduck, Julianne (2004). Contemporary Costume Film: Space, Place and the Past. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1844570249.
  • Wortel, Elise (2011). "From History to Haecceity: Spatial Reframings of the Past in Post-heritage Cinema". Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. doi:10.33178/alpha.2.05. hdl:10468/689.
  • Wright, Patrick (1985). On Living in an Old Country: The National Past in Contemporary Britain. University of Michigan. ISBN 978-0860911272.
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