The fifth volume of European Genre Cinema, this time largely devoted to British genre cinema. Cinema that in earlier installments of our series appeared sporadically, most often in the context of British horror cinema - such as the films of the Hammer Films, which are a showcase not only of genre cinema from England, but of the entire, European Euro-genre. This time we turn to film genres, practiced by British filmmakers, not previously discussed in detail - such as British crime and gangster cinema, Heritage Films melodramas, or films about the adventures of Agent 007.
The volume also includes a reflection on the reception of exploitation cinema, mainly European, but not exclusively, in Britain and the censorship perturbations associated with this phenomenon, mainly due to, perhaps, the most restrictive film censorship in the world, the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). Infamous child of BBFC became the Video Nasties list - in the opinion of the censors, the most shocking films (mainly horror films), intended, according to authorities, to warp the psyche of viewers.
In turn, the Video Nasties list included Mondo films, which we also write about in this publication. Films that challenge viewers to this day, but today, in view of the enormity of extreme images flooding the screens among which we live, are already true classics, cinema criticizing cultural globalization.
We can also find in the volume monographs of the masters of European genre cinema: Ken Russell - virtuoso of crazy film biographies and stylish horror cinema, precursor of video-clip poetics. Ruggiero Deodato, whose cannibalistic horror films, considered by Sergio Leone himself - the master of spaghetti-westerns - as true masterpieces. Or the text on Ferdinado di Leo - the master of sophisticated Polizziotti films.
The volume also includes texts devoted to the cinema of our geographic and cultural area, such as the presentation of film essays by Yugoslav master of cinema Duŝan Makavajev, as well as Polish war cinema, made continuously since Poland regained its independence. The volume closes with a proposed monograph on war cinema: European, American and Japanese, setting the trail for the next series we plan to launch, a series of volumes devoted to Asian genre cinema.
Although the fifth volume of European genre cinema constitutes an integral whole, together with the previous parts of the series, it forms a narrative, unique in Polish film studies, devoted to European genre cinema, almost all types and aspects of which have been discussed by scholars and, above all, enthusiasts of genre cinema from the Old Continent. A cinema that is still an inexhaustible source of cinephile delights, discoveries, information but also inspiration for practitioners of the film craft.
About the Editor
Dr. Piotr Kletowski, Professor at the Jagiellonian University, Assistant Professor at the Department of Korea, Institute of the Near and Far East. Cultural expert, film scholar. Researcher of non-obvious cinema.