Richard Hewett
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784992989
- eISBN:
- 9781526128362
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784992989.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
Why study television acting? While works focusing on cinema performance have increased in recent years, small screen drama has been largely neglected – despite the fact that developments in acting ...
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Why study television acting? While works focusing on cinema performance have increased in recent years, small screen drama has been largely neglected – despite the fact that developments in acting style provide as valuable an index of the times and places in which they were created as any other aspect of production. The Changing Spaces of Television Acting addresses this lack by providing an overview of historical changes in performance style from the live era to the present day. Utilised as case studies are programmes from three diverse eras of television production: The Quatermass Experiment (BBC, 1953), which was transmitted live; Doctor Who (BBC, 1963-89), pre-recorded ‘as live’ on videotape; and Survivors (BBC, 1975-77), which swiftly adopted an Outside Broadcast ‘rehearse/record’ model. Each was also re-made in the 2000s, allowing for both a chronological study and a ‘then-and-now’ comparison of television acting. Archive research into production and reception is combined with textual analysis and interviews with actors and production personnel to examine the effects of the shift from multi-camera studio production to single camera film location work. The result is the first book to investigate not only changes in acting style for television drama, but also the underlying factors which influenced them, from production process and technology to direction, actor training and experience. Only by fully comprehending the conditions under which performances are produced can we understand and appreciate the resulting acting style; The Changing Spaces of Television Acting is the first book to comprehensively address this neglected area of research.Less
Why study television acting? While works focusing on cinema performance have increased in recent years, small screen drama has been largely neglected – despite the fact that developments in acting style provide as valuable an index of the times and places in which they were created as any other aspect of production. The Changing Spaces of Television Acting addresses this lack by providing an overview of historical changes in performance style from the live era to the present day. Utilised as case studies are programmes from three diverse eras of television production: The Quatermass Experiment (BBC, 1953), which was transmitted live; Doctor Who (BBC, 1963-89), pre-recorded ‘as live’ on videotape; and Survivors (BBC, 1975-77), which swiftly adopted an Outside Broadcast ‘rehearse/record’ model. Each was also re-made in the 2000s, allowing for both a chronological study and a ‘then-and-now’ comparison of television acting. Archive research into production and reception is combined with textual analysis and interviews with actors and production personnel to examine the effects of the shift from multi-camera studio production to single camera film location work. The result is the first book to investigate not only changes in acting style for television drama, but also the underlying factors which influenced them, from production process and technology to direction, actor training and experience. Only by fully comprehending the conditions under which performances are produced can we understand and appreciate the resulting acting style; The Changing Spaces of Television Acting is the first book to comprehensively address this neglected area of research.
Felicity Chaplin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526109538
- eISBN:
- 9781526128263
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526109538.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
While there have been significant contributions on la Parisienne in the fields of art history, fashion theory and culture, and cultural history, little is written on her appearance and function in ...
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While there have been significant contributions on la Parisienne in the fields of art history, fashion theory and culture, and cultural history, little is written on her appearance and function in cinema. This book is an attempt to address this gap in scholarship by examining the figure of la Parisienne in cinema.
The approach of this book is threefold: textual (the films), contextual (the history of the representations of the Parisienne type), and intertextual (the relationship between the films and other texts such as novels and paintings, extending to the star persona of the actress). However the overarching methodology of this book is iconographical, tracing the historical prefigurations of la Parisienne in the art, literature, and mass culture of nineteenth-century France.
The findings of this book are both general (la Parisienne as a cultural type) and specific (la Parisienne as a she appears in different films). La Parisienne can be defined as a figure of French modernity, understood both in its technological and cultural sense, and is recognisable in terms of six interconnected categories: art, cosmopolitanism, fashion, danger, prostitution, and stardom.
These categories reveal the way the Parisienne type is constantly evolving while at the same time possessing a set of recognisable motifs. By connecting the films discussed in this book to a cultural tradition to which they may not at first appear to belong, this book not only enriches our understanding of these films, it also offers new analytical and interpretative perspectives.Less
While there have been significant contributions on la Parisienne in the fields of art history, fashion theory and culture, and cultural history, little is written on her appearance and function in cinema. This book is an attempt to address this gap in scholarship by examining the figure of la Parisienne in cinema.
The approach of this book is threefold: textual (the films), contextual (the history of the representations of the Parisienne type), and intertextual (the relationship between the films and other texts such as novels and paintings, extending to the star persona of the actress). However the overarching methodology of this book is iconographical, tracing the historical prefigurations of la Parisienne in the art, literature, and mass culture of nineteenth-century France.
The findings of this book are both general (la Parisienne as a cultural type) and specific (la Parisienne as a she appears in different films). La Parisienne can be defined as a figure of French modernity, understood both in its technological and cultural sense, and is recognisable in terms of six interconnected categories: art, cosmopolitanism, fashion, danger, prostitution, and stardom.
These categories reveal the way the Parisienne type is constantly evolving while at the same time possessing a set of recognisable motifs. By connecting the films discussed in this book to a cultural tradition to which they may not at first appear to belong, this book not only enriches our understanding of these films, it also offers new analytical and interpretative perspectives.
Joseph Oldham
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784994150
- eISBN:
- 9781526128379
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784994150.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
Paranoid Visions provides an extensive historical account of the spy and conspiracy genres in British television drama, tracing a lineage from 1960s Cold War series, through 1980s paranoid conspiracy ...
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Paranoid Visions provides an extensive historical account of the spy and conspiracy genres in British television drama, tracing a lineage from 1960s Cold War series, through 1980s paranoid conspiracy dramas, to contemporary ‘war on terror’ thrillers. It argues that the on-screen depictions of intelligence services can interpreted as metaphors for the production cultures that created the programmes, meditating on the roles and responsibilities of public institutions whose trade is information and ideas. It incorporates close analyses of classic series including Callan, The Sandbaggers, Edge of Darkness, A Very British Coup, Spooks and the BBC adaptation of John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, supported by new archival research. The account is positioned against aesthetic, institutional and technological shifts in British television drama as it transitioned from its traditional public service principles to the more commercial priorities of the multi-channel era, in particular examining the growth of long-form serial narratives in ‘quality’ television. It is also mapped closely to the real history of British intelligence through consideration of how such programmes responded to key scandals and exposés and counterblast campaigns of transparency and openness. Finally, it also situates these dramas against key issues in the history of British culture and national identity, including discourses of class politics, Cold War culture, the heritage industry, terrorism past and present, the decline of the social-democratic consensus, the growth of personal computing and the ascendance of the free market economy.Less
Paranoid Visions provides an extensive historical account of the spy and conspiracy genres in British television drama, tracing a lineage from 1960s Cold War series, through 1980s paranoid conspiracy dramas, to contemporary ‘war on terror’ thrillers. It argues that the on-screen depictions of intelligence services can interpreted as metaphors for the production cultures that created the programmes, meditating on the roles and responsibilities of public institutions whose trade is information and ideas. It incorporates close analyses of classic series including Callan, The Sandbaggers, Edge of Darkness, A Very British Coup, Spooks and the BBC adaptation of John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, supported by new archival research. The account is positioned against aesthetic, institutional and technological shifts in British television drama as it transitioned from its traditional public service principles to the more commercial priorities of the multi-channel era, in particular examining the growth of long-form serial narratives in ‘quality’ television. It is also mapped closely to the real history of British intelligence through consideration of how such programmes responded to key scandals and exposés and counterblast campaigns of transparency and openness. Finally, it also situates these dramas against key issues in the history of British culture and national identity, including discourses of class politics, Cold War culture, the heritage industry, terrorism past and present, the decline of the social-democratic consensus, the growth of personal computing and the ascendance of the free market economy.
Alan Clarke
André Téchiné
Anthony Asquith
The BBC and National Identity in Britain, 1922-53
The BBC's Irish troubles
Beyond Representation
British films of the 1970s
The British monarchy on screen
The British New Wave
