A) Read the text for obtaining information.

Room at the Top (1959) is commonly spoken of as a turning point поворотный пункт in British cinema and a forerunner предвестником of the new realism.

The first signs of change are already seen in the Free Cinema movement pioneered by Lindsay Anderson, Tony Richardson and Karel Reiz. They laid emphasis подчёркивают on the individual and his environment and dealt with the pressures давлением, corruptions развращённостью and frustrations чувством разочарования of every­day life.

Room at the Top, directed by Jay Clayton, still clung удерживаутся to some of the old box-office коммерческую values. It was based on a best seller, it relied зависело on stars (Laurence Harney and Simone Signoret). But at its core сущности was a con­cern with human values and an honesty in expressing them which sharply differentiated it from its contemporaries. The attention given to the film by the critics measured its importance. It was the big talking point тема для разговора. The clamour шум of mixed opinion led, in England at any rate во всяком случае, to a great box-office success коммерческому успеху.

The large social and economic changes that had shaken the 1950s echoed отдалось эхом into the 1960s. Pop art flourished. The Beatles sang and were compared with Beethoven. Affluence изобилие was everywhere, but so were poverty and crime.

For the cinema the permissive cult потворствующий pushed back the frontiers границы to territory ever more violent интенсивное and erotic and compelled подчинён a revision пересмотру of cinema censorship . The 1960s carried screen permissiveness вседозволенность about as far as it could go. The new films explored the hew mo­ralities and attitudes of the younger generations, and at the same time alienated охладило numbers of older people whose minds were rusted up заржавели in the past.

In 1967 the Federation of Films Unions produced a report отчёт in which they repeated the charge обвинение that British Production was dominated by the USA, and that 70 percent of screen time in 1967 was occupied by foreign films.

In 1970, because of trade коммерческой uncertainty and the smaller number of films being made, the most promising film projects went "automat­ically" to the major American companies.

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During the time of economic vacuum when so much of promise перспектив in film-making фильмопроизводства had been brought to nothing, British Lion национальная эмблема Великобритании passed into other hands.

(From: Belts E. The Film Business. L., 1973. Abridged.)

b)In this text the author singles out several periods in the development of Brit­ish cinema. What are they? What are the basic characteristics of each period?

c) Can the development of cinematography in this country illustrate the con­nection between film and society?

 

1. Are you familiar with the Soviet films of the 30s, 40s and 50s? What was characteristic of them?

2. Were all these films realistic or did some of them idealize, ro­manticize and glorify reality?

3. In what way can the films reflect the values of the society?

4. Do you think that most of the films carry an ideological mes­sage? Should they serve as an instrument of shaping public opinion?

5. What is characteristic of the latest Russian films? Don't you find them sometimes shocking in their portrayal изображение of reality?