Icons in the Fire: The Decline and Fall of Almost Everybody in the British Film Industry

Walker, Alexander

ISBN 10: 075286484X / ISBN 13: 9780752864846

Published by Orion, 2005

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Icons in the Fire: The Decline and Fall of Almost Everybody in the British Film Industry
• Publisher: Orion
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 075286484X
• ISBN 13: 9780752864846
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, The Full Monty, Bridget Jones’ Diary—all these box-office hits were made in Britain, and yet none were financed by British money. In this final volume of his trilogy, Alexander Walker gives us the inside story of the British film industry from 1984 to 2000. He tackles questions like why a nation that produces actors of the caliber of Kenneth Branagh, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Emma Thompson, as well as directors like Anthony Minghella, Sam Mendes, and Stephen Frears, cannot sustain a native film industry.

Reviews

This posthumously published work from famed British film reviewer, historian and commentator Walker, the third in a trilogy surveying British film (after National Heroes), is written with a heavy dose of snobbery and more than a touch of contempt for the parties whom Walker blames for setting in motion the end of the burgeoning success and rising cachet of British film. Picking up in 1984, as the industry was taking off on a series of succeses-Ghandi and The Killing Fields among them-and being helped along by government tax breaks, Walker covers the return of British film royalty from Hollywood, the effect of government wrangling over arts funding, and the temperament of the times as they shift from rising optimism in the 80s and 90s to defeat and retreat as the turn of the century approached. Including a cast of hundreds-from directors to producers to stars to politicians-Walker follows the money and the power to create an exhaustive record of his nation's failure to create a viable film industry, despite the vibrant impact of that industry's success stories. 8 color photos.
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