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This book explores alternatives to realist, triumphalist, and heroic representations of war in British film and television. Focusing on the period between the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the Falkland War but offering connections to the moment of Brexit, it argues that the "lost continent" of existential, satirical, simulated, and abstractly traumatic war stories is as central to understanding Britain's martial history as the mainstream inheritance. The book features case studies that stress the contribution of exiled or expatriate directors and outsider sensibilities, with particular emphasis on Peter Watkins, Joseph Losey, and Richard Lester. At the same time, it demonstrates concerns and stylistic emphases that continue to the present in television series and films by directors such as Lone Scherfig and Christopher Nolan. Encompassing everything from features to government information films, the book explores related trends in the British film industry, popular culture, and film criticism, while offering a sense of how these contexts contribute to historical memory.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction: Towards an Alternative Tradition of War Representation.- Chapter 2. "For Christ's Sake, We're Surrounded!": Tragedy, Bleakness, Cynicism and Existentialism in British War Cinema, 1957-1977.- Chapter 3. Comic Alternatives to the "Pleasure Culture of War".- Chapter 4. On Screen and at Arm's Length: Social Class and the Simulation of Combat.- Chapter 5. The Bomb and After: Fantasies of Apocalypse and Decline.- Chapter 6. Conclusion: The Legacies of the 1960s and 1970s War Representation, From Thatcher to Brexit.
About the author
Kevin M. Flanagan is Term Assistant Professor of English at George Mason University, USA. He is the editor of Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist (2009) and has published essays in Screen, Framework, Critical Quarterly, and the Journal of British Cinema and Television, as well as in many edited collections and reference works.
