By Ryan Day
Ottawa audiences have a chance to meet a few British film exports other than James Bond this month.
The Pictures, a joint presentation of the Canadian Film Institute and the British High Commission, is picking up on the recent popularity of British films such as The Full Monty and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
The organizers are out to prove British cinema didn’t begin with Trainspotting in the mid-’90s by showcasing 10 British films, from the ’30s to the ’80s, from April 7 until April 30 at the auditorium of the National Archives.
“These films are all landmarks in the recent history of British film,” says Dave Belgrove of the British High Commission.
“Given the resurgent interest in British cinema, we thought it was important to show some British film history.”
“There are some early examples of important directors,” he says, pointing to Ken Loach’s KES and Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps.
KES was the very first film by Loach, the director of the award-winning Land and Freedom.
Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps is among the 23 films the director made in England in the ‘20s and ‘30s before hitting the big time in America with films like Psycho and Vertigo.
The Pictures will also include Albert Finney’s first screen role with Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, while The Man in the White Suit features a young Alec Guinness who never once tells anyone to use “the force.”
Tom McSorley, director of the film institute, points to the 1960 film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning as a film with immense cultural impact.
“It’s very important in terms of British post-war consciousness,” he says. “It’s right at the edge of a whole change of British society.”
He says the film anticipates the work of directors like Danny Boyle, who in 1996 resurrected interest in British cinema in North America with his smash hit Trainspotting.
“I find it interesting that 35 years later, Trainspotting is arguing many of the same problems.”
McSorley says a lot of thought went into determining the lineup.
“We wanted to get a balance,” says McSorley. “We wanted to have a film from each decade, and mix films that were classic and recognizable with some of the more obscure titles.”
McSorley said they came up with a list of 10 films and then began the hunt for original prints that could be shown in a cinema.
“To get 35-millimetre prints is increasingly difficult,” says McSorley. “You have to go through elaborate rights negotiations, with people who may not even be alive.”
McSorley says that after more than a month of phoning, faxing and e-mailing, he finally secured both the rights and the prints themselves for all 10 films.
“We were incredibly lucky,” says Belgrove. “We got all our first choices.”
McSorley says his task was well worth the effort.
“Many people won’t have seen these movies on the big screen,” he says.
“Get Carter probably hasn’t been projected over here since it was released (in 1971), if it even made it over here then.”
“This is a chance for audiences to experience how the films are meant to be watched.”