This book examines twenty major British films from a 70-year time span, offering a lively account of what has made them valuable and provocative over many viewings. It aims both to communicate a critical enthusiasm and to stimulate readers, large numbers of whom will know and value these films, many of them classics of their kind. The author's personal engagement with such titles as The Lady Vanishes, Brief Encounter and Four Weddings and a Funeral will be likely to call up the readers' own responses.
Each film focuses on a particular strength significant in the history of British cinema. This may, for instance, reflect its strong ties with literature, or represent a high spot in British comedy or some other genre in which it has excelled, or it could be a matter of rescuing a 'B' film from obscurity and critical condescension, or of celebrating a star performance.
There will inevitably be something strongly personal about any such choice, and any defence of that choice. These are films that have stayed in the mind, when hundreds of others are forgotten. They speak of a rich national cinema too often undervalued as a poor relation of Hollywood. This book, then, has an element of celebration, but it also examines these twenty films rigorously both in their contexts and as individual texts. The book will be useful to anyone studying these films but above all it is to be accessible to a much wider audience with an interest in and affection for British film.
Industry Reviews
'Viewing our films with affection from a distance of 12000 miles, Brian McFarlane is one of the best friends British cinema has ever had. An Autobiography of British Cinema, an assembly of his enthusiastic interviews with British filmmakers, is valuable, informative and enjoyable. The Encylopedia of British Film is indispensable and without equal. Now in Twenty British films: A guided tour, a highly personal but carefully argued choice of 'twenty films to cherish' McFarlane takes us into the heart of a lifelong obsession that became an academic pursuit without losing any of its passion.'
Philip French
'McFarlane is good on clothes in general: he describes a group of hikers in Genevieve as sporting "excruciating 1950s leisure wear", and homes in on the "cheap flowered stretch pants" that help establish Brenda Blethyn's ever-flummoxed character in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies.
Pithy observations of this kind add considerably to the appeal of McFarlane's Twenty British Films, an entertaining compendium that shows its author at his most relaxed.
Over a long academic career, McFarlane has published many books on British film (and on Australian film as well). This latest venture, though, is something different: a series of chatty but informative essays aimed at the general public, arranged in chronological order and covering everything from obscure B-movies to popular favourites such as The Lady Vanishes and Brief Encounter.'
Jake Wilson is the author of Mad Dog Morgan (Currency Press), Sydney Morning Herald 9/12/15
'Australian writer Brian McFarlane continues to champion the cause of British film with this more personal undertaking, his stated intention being "to write a book about films I admire, indeed love, rather than an academic text". This is a book to be read.'
Allen Eyles, The Veteran Magazine
'Twenty British Films might be an 'unusual' book, but it also a highly enjoyable and very good one, written by someone who is an evangelist for British cinema. I can heartily recommend it for both academic and general readers who share that same enthusiasm.'
James Chapman (University of Leicester), Journal of British Cinema and Television Vol 13, Issue 4
'The discussion around each film is thoughtful and enlightening. The discussions have been structured in such a manner that the readers are introduced to the author's 'essence of pleasure' regarding each film and are then led to formulate and reconsider their own sources of pleasure.'
Rahul Kumar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television -- .
