British New Wave
Encyclopedia
- For the British response to new wave musicNew Wave musicNew Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
, see Second British InvasionSecond British InvasionThe term Second British Invasion refers to British music acts that became popular in the United States during the 1980s primarily due to the cable music channel MTV...
The British New Wave is the name given to a trend in filmmaking among directors in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The label is a translation of Nouvelle Vague
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
, the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, and Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
among others.
There is considerable overlap between the New Wave and the so-called "Angry Young Men
Angry young men
The "angry young men" were a group of mostly working and middle class British playwrights and novelists who became prominent in the 1950s. The group's leading members included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis.The phrase was originally coined by the Royal Court Theatre's press officer to promote John...
", those artistes in British theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
such as playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
John Osborne
John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
and director Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
, who challenged the social status quo. Their work drew attention to the reality of life for the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
es, especially in the North of England, often characterized as "It's grim up north". This particular type of drama, centred around class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
and the nitty-gritty of day-to-day life, was also known as the kitchen sink drama.
Stylistic characteristics
The British New Wave was characterised by many of the same stylistic and thematic conventions as the French New Wave. Usually in black-and-white, these films had a spontaneous quality, often shot in a pseudo-documentaryDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
(or cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.There are subtle yet...
) style on real locations and with real people rather than extras, apparently capturing life as it happens.
Influence of writers and short film makers
Like the French New Wave, where many of the filmmakers began as film critics and journalists, in Britain critical writing about the state of British cinema began in the 1950s and foreshadowed some of what was to come. Among this group of critic/documentary film makers was Lindsay AndersonLindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
who was a prominent critic writing for the influential Sequence
Sequence (journal)
Sequence was a short-lived but influential British film journal founded in 1947 by Lindsay Anderson, Gavin Lambert and Karel Reisz.Anderson had returned to Oxford after his time with the army Intelligence Corps in Delhi, Lambert was a schoolfriend of Anderson from Cheltenham College who had dropped...
magazine (1947–52), which he co-founded with Gavin Lambert
Gavin Lambert
Gavin Lambert was a British-born screenwriter, novelist and biographer who lived for part of his life in Hollywood...
and Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
(later a prominent director); writing for the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
's journal Sight and Sound and the left-wing political weekly the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
. In one of his early and most well-known polemical pieces, Stand Up, Stand Up, he outlined his theories of what British cinema should become.
Following a series of screenings which he organised at the National Film Theatre of independently produced short films including his own Every Day Except Christmas
Every Day Except Christmas
Every Day Except Christmas is a 37-minute documentary film filmed in 1957 at the Covent Garden fruit, vegetable and flower market, then located in the Covent Garden area of East central London...
(about the Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
fruit and vegetable market), Karel Reisz's Momma Don't Allow
Momma Don't Allow
Momma Don't Allow is a short British documentary film about a north London jazz club made in 1955. It was co-directed by Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson and filmed by Walter Lassally. It was produced by the British Film Institute Experimental Film Fund. It was first shown as part of the first Free...
and others, he developed a philosophy of cinema which found expression in what became known as the Free Cinema Movement in Britain by the late 1950s. This was the belief that the cinema must break away from its class-bound attitudes and that the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
es ought to be seen on Britain's screens.
Along with Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
, and others he secured funding from a variety of sources (including Ford of Britain
Ford of Britain
Ford of Britain is a British wholly owned subsidiary of Ford of Europe, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. Its business started in 1909 and has its registered office in Brentwood, Essex...
) and they each made a series of socially challenging short documentaries on a variety of subjects.
These films, made in the tradition of British documentaries in the 1930s by such men as John Grierson
John Grierson
John Grierson was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. According to popular myth, in 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" to describe a non-fiction film.-Early life:Grierson was born in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland...
, foreshadowed much of the social realism of British cinema which emerged in the 1960s with Anderson's own film This Sporting Life
This Sporting Life
This Sporting Life is a 1963 British film based on a novel of the same name by David Storey which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. It tells the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield, a mining area of Yorkshire, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting...
, Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (film)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 British film. It is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe. Sillitoe wrote the screenplay adaptation and the film was directed by Karel Reisz.-Synopsis:...
, and Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (film)
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a 1962 film, based on the short story of the same name.The screenplay, like the short story, was written by Alan Sillitoe....
.
By 1964, the cycle was essentially over. Tony Richardson's Tom Jones
Tom Jones (film)
Tom Jones is a 1963 British adventure comedy film, an adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling , starring Albert Finney as the titular hero. It was one of the most critically acclaimed and popular comedies of its time, winning four Academy Awards...
, Richard Lester
Richard Lester
Richard Lester is an American film director based in Britain. Lester is notable for his work with The Beatles in the 1960s and his work on the Superman film series in the 1980s.-Early years and television:...
's A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
and the early James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
films ushered in a new era for British cinema, focusing less on realism and social issues, and more on light comedy and escapism.
Notable directors
- Lindsay AndersonLindsay AndersonLindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
- John BoormanJohn BoormanJohn Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
- Jack ClaytonJack ClaytonJack Clayton was a British film director who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen.-Career:A native of East Sussex, Clayton started his career as a child actor on the 1929 film Dark Red Roses...
- Basil DeardenBasil DeardenBasil Dearden was an English film director.-Life and career:Dearden was born at Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. He graduated from theatre direction to film, working as an assistant to Basil Dean...
- Clive DonnerClive DonnerClive Stanley Donner was a British film director who was a defining part of the British New Wave, directing films such as The Caretaker, Nothing But the Best, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and What's New Pussycat?...
- Bryan ForbesBryan ForbesBryan Forbes, CBE is an English film director, actor and writer.-Career:Bryan Forbes was born John Theobald Clarke on 22 July 1926 in Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, West Ham, Essex , and grew up at 43 Cranmer Road, Forest Gate, West Ham, Essex .Forbes trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of...
- Richard LesterRichard LesterRichard Lester is an American film director based in Britain. Lester is notable for his work with The Beatles in the 1960s and his work on the Superman film series in the 1980s.-Early years and television:...
- Ken LoachKen LoachKenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...
- Joseph LoseyJoseph LoseyJoseph Walton Losey was an American theater and film director. After studying in Germany with Bertolt Brecht, Losey returned to the United States, eventually making his way to Hollywood...
- Karel ReiszKarel ReiszKarel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
- Nicholas Roeg
- Tony RichardsonTony RichardsonCecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
- Ken RussellKen RussellHenry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
- John SchlesingerJohn SchlesingerJohn Richard Schlesinger, CBE was an English film and stage director and actor.-Early life:Schlesinger was born in London into a middle-class Jewish family, the son of Winifred Henrietta and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician...
- Peter WatkinsPeter WatkinsPeter Watkins is an English film and television director. He was born in Norbiton, Surrey, lived in Sweden, Canada and Lithuania for many years, and now lives in France. He is one of the pioneers of docudrama. His movies, pacifist and radical, strongly review the limit of classic documentary and...
- Peter YatesPeter YatesPeter James Yates was an English director and producer. He was born in Aldershot, Hampshire.The son of an army officer, he attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked for some years as an actor, director and stage manager...
Notable actors
- Alan BatesAlan BatesSir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
- Dirk BogardeDirk BogardeSir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
- Julie ChristieJulie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
- Oliver ReedOliver ReedOliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
- Tom CourtenayTom CourtenaySir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...
- Albert FinneyAlbert FinneyAlbert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
- Richard HarrisRichard HarrisRichard St John Harris was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer....
- Laurence HarveyLaurence HarveyLaurence Harvey was a Lithuanian-born actor who achieved fame in British and American films.- Early life :Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. However, his legal name was Zvi Mosheh Skikne. He was the youngest of three boys born to Ber "Boris" and...
- Rita TushinghamRita Tushingham-Career:Born in Liverpool, Tushingham began her career as a stage actress at the Liverpool Playhouse. Her screen debut was in A Taste of Honey...
- Richard BurtonRichard BurtonRichard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
- Malcolm McDowellMalcolm McDowellMalcolm McDowell is an English actor with a career spanning over forty years.McDowell is principally known for his roles in the controversial films If...., O Lucky Man!, A Clockwork Orange and Caligula...
Notable films
- Room at the Top (19591959 in filmThe year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.-Events:* The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bull Fighters....
) - Look Back in AngerLook Back in Anger (film)Look Back in Anger is a 1959 British film starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom and Mary Ure and directed by Tony Richardson.It is based on John Osborne's play of the same name about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and...
(19591959 in filmThe year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.-Events:* The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bull Fighters....
) - Saturday Night and Sunday MorningSaturday Night and Sunday Morning (film)Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 British film. It is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe. Sillitoe wrote the screenplay adaptation and the film was directed by Karel Reisz.-Synopsis:...
(19601960 in filmThe year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I...
) - Hell Is a CityHell Is a CityHell Is a City is a 1960 film based on the novel by Maurice Procter. It was made by British studio Hammer Film Productions filmed in Manchester it was also written and directed by Val Guest...
(19601960 in filmThe year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I...
) - The EntertainerThe Entertainer (film)The Entertainer is a 1960 film adaptation of the stage play of the same name by John Osborne, which told the story of a failing third-rate music hall stage performer who tried to keep his career going even as his personal life fell apart....
(19601960 in filmThe year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I...
) - A Taste of HoneyA Taste of Honey (film)A Taste of Honey is a 1961 British film adaptation of the play of the same name by Shelagh Delaney. Delaney adapted the screenplay herself, aided by director Tony Richardson, who had previously directed the first production of the play...
(19611961 in filmThe year 1961 in film involved some significant events, with West Side Story winning 10 Academy Awards.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:* Atlantis, the Lost ContinentB...
) - A Kind of LovingA Kind of Loving (film)A Kind of Loving is a 1962 British drama film directed by John Schlesinger, based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Stan Barstow. It stars Alan Bates and June Ritchie as two lovers in 1960s West Yorkshire. The photography was by Denys Coop, and the music by Ron Grainer...
(19621962 in filmThe year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....
)
- The Loneliness of the Long Distance RunnerThe Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (film)The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a 1962 film, based on the short story of the same name.The screenplay, like the short story, was written by Alan Sillitoe....
(19621962 in filmThe year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....
) - Billy LiarBilly Liar (film)Billy Liar is a 1963 film based on the novel by Keith Waterhouse. It was directed by John Schlesinger and stars Tom Courtenay as Billy and Julie Christie as Liz, one of his three girlfriends. Mona Washbourne plays Mrs. Fisher, and Wilfred Pickles played Mr. Fisher...
(19631963 in filmThe year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....
) - This Sporting LifeThis Sporting LifeThis Sporting Life is a 1963 British film based on a novel of the same name by David Storey which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. It tells the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield, a mining area of Yorkshire, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting...
(19631963 in filmThe year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....
) - Tom JonesTom Jones (film)Tom Jones is a 1963 British adventure comedy film, an adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling , starring Albert Finney as the titular hero. It was one of the most critically acclaimed and popular comedies of its time, winning four Academy Awards...
(19631963 in filmThe year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....
) - A Hard Day's NightA Hard Day's Night (film)A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
(19641964 in filmThe year 1964 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 29 - The film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released....
) - The Knack …and How to Get It (19651965 in filmThe year 1965 in film involved some significant events, with The Sound of Music topping the U.S. box office.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
) - KesKes (film)Kes is a 1969 British film from director Ken Loach and producer Tony Garnett. The film is based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave, written by the Barnsley-born author Barry Hines in 1968...
(19691969 in filmThe year 1969 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Last year for prize giving at the Venice Film Festival until it is revived in 1980...
) - "If...." (19681968 in filmThe year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...
)