British Film Directors

A Critical Guide

Robert Shail

Available December 2007

cloth, 0-8093-2832-1, $75.00s
978-0-8093-2832-1
paper, 0-8093-2833- X, $35.00s
978-0-8093-2833-8
224 pages, 6 x 9, illus.
Film

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British national cinema has produced an exceptional track record of innovative, creative and internationally recognized filmmakers, amongst them Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Powell and David Lean. This tradition continues today with the work of directors as diverse as Neil Jordan, Stephen Frears, Mike Leigh, and Ken Loach. This concise, authoritative volume analyzes critically the work of one hundred British directors, from the innovators of the silent period to contemporary auteurs.

An introduction places the individual entries in context and examines the role and status of the director within British film production. Balancing academic rigor with accessibility, British Film Directors provides an indispensable reference source for film students at all levels, as well as for the general cinema enthusiast.

Key features include a complete list of each director’s British feature films, a comprehensive career overview that includes biographical information and an assessment of the director’s current critical standing, and suggested further reading on each filmmaker.

 

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“One of the key virtues of this brilliant book is the fact that it is written to reach both the layperson and the academic equally; the films discussed are also readily available on DVD, making this an ideal teaching tool for the classroom. This highly readable work should, for the time being, be the last word on the subject of British directors . . . a stunning achievement.”—Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood and editor of Film and Television After 9/11

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Robert Shail is a lecturer in film studies at the University of Wales, Lampeter. As well as publishing work on stardom and gender in British films, he was a contributor to The Cinema of Michael Powell and to the British Film Institute’s online guide to British cinema.  He is the general editor of Edinburgh University Press’s International Film Directors series.