HITSVILLE UK

Could someone please lend Russell Lewin a copy of Alexander Walker’s excellent Icons In The Fire? It might give him a better idea of what factors really “nearly destroyed commercial British cinema in the 1980s” ( SFX 250, p116). Spoilers: a few dour and tiny budgeted flicks on the scale of Memoirs Of A Survivor turn out to be minor culprits compared to say, the massive commercial hubris ( and subsequent commercial wipeout) of the British majors.

It’s ironic that the review cites Raiders Of The Lost Ark in the same breath, because that’s all that the powers behind British cinema seemed to want in the 1980s, for the UK to be a kind of Airstrip One for Hollywood. This isn’t just an academic point. You only have to look at the recent hoopla over Britain snaring the Star Wars sequels ( with all their lovely Disney wonga), while the organisations that helped wean British cinema off life- support from the mid- 1990s onwards have been shut down or stripped of funding, to see that history is repeating itself. And, sadly, it’s not as farce.

Emily Redstone, email Thanks for this Emily, but may I disagree? I think that the surest way to destroy native cinema is to make dull, parochial films that people don’t want to see – like Memoirs Of A Survivor. And I’d contend that Brit cinema is in decent shape with a bright future, and not just because of the fantastic news that Star Wars is being shot here. An example: at the end of the ’ 90s there were three UK horror films made each year. Now it’s very nearly ten times that amount.