The cultural impact of UK film: questions and evidence

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The cultural impact of UK film questions and
evidence

• UK Film Council, Birkbeck, Royal Holloway,
• Friday 27th November 2009
• Máire Messenger Davies,
• University of Ulster

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Aims of seminar

• Did the report ask the right questions
• How appropriate were the methods used?
• Were the results convincing?
• Were there significant gaps?
• How do our findings compare with those of others?
• How could this research programme be developed in
  the future?

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My brief

• Draw on expertise in methodology, and
• Interest and experience in audience study and
  reception
• To help generate discussion of how the cultural
  impact of British films upon audiences might be
  researched and measured

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Four main issues

• 1. Some general points about methodology and
  measurement
• 2 How do we understand the meaning of
  Britishness?
• 3. How do we consult the audience?
• 4. How do we make the most of existing resources
  and research thats already been done?
• I will also make reference to television

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1. Methodologies and measures

• Intuitive choice of 200 films based on
  critical consensus of what have been the best
  and most influential UK films (p19)
• Random choice of another 200 from the same
  dataset
• Analysis of 30 canonical film texts
• Crucial to the validity of any analysis based on
  quantities (however chosen) is the
  representativeness of the sample to the
  population from which it is drawn.
• So my first question is how did you guarantee
  representativeness in your sample?
• My second question is how do you operationalise
  intuition? Why use specialists?

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Measurement (cont) qualitative or quantitative?

• Two samples were drawn from the data set for
  qualitative analysis
• An intuitive sample of 200 films generally
  regarded by professional observers as significant
  and of lasting value and a random sample of 200
  films to act as a reality check . . .each of the
  films was marked according to whether it
• Predominantly reinforced . . . UK identities . .
  . World War II is far less dominant than is
  generally supposed . . .
• A majority of the 30 case studies achieved high
  scores
• My third question is if quantitative terms are
  going to be used, can the quantities be more
  precisely identified?

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Cultural studies and quantitative analysisFrom
Why counting counts, David Deacon, 2008

• The contemporary field of cultural studies has
  little interest in, or engagement with,
  quantitative analysis. . . yet in a content
  analysis of 130 refereed articles . . . in six
  recent editions of three major cultural studies
  journals . . . 34 of the articles contained some
  quantitative data . . .the numbers quoted were
  never challenged nor interrogated. . . In 2,276
  pages there was only one reference to a
  significance test.
• Loose statements of how many people did or said
  something or how often e.g.
• The majority of quiz shows depend on general
  academic knowledge
• Most of the interviewed club culture
  practitioners . . . seemed acutely aware of . . .
  racialised power differentials in the Citys club
  culture economy
• There is certainly a well-established association
  between middle-class gay men and the
  gentrification of inner city housing stock
• (in Research methods for cultural studies, edited
  Michael Pickering, Edinburgh Edinburgh
  University Press, pp 90-91).
• Question number 4 Does Deacon have a point?

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Measurement, cont measurements of cultural
impact used in the report

• Original impact (box office, awards)
• Extended impact (DVD reissues, restorations)
• Wider impact (citations in other media etc.)
• Censorship and notoriety
• Quotations in other media such as songs, TV etc.
• Zeitgeist moments, e.g. Bend it like Beckham
• Cumulative impact, e.g. changing attitudes
  towards gays
• Question no 5 why not ask the audience?

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2. Defining Britishness British values

• E.g. films which plainly exemplified or
  reinforced British values, such as the 1950s-60s
  Doctor films starring Dirk Bogarde (p.17)
• Small time criminals
• Dreamers and eccentrics
• Victory
• Shaken, stirred and undead
• Youthful ambition
• Backlight on the present
• Sex please
• History from beneath (p. 18)

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2 cont. Defining Britishness?

• The Britishness of The Red Shoes 1948, (this
  image advertises the Foyle Film Festival in
  Derry/Londonderry, Nov 2009)
• No 8 in best 100 British films BFI 1999/2000
• Writer/Producer, Emeric Pressburger Hungarian
• Author of original story - Hans Andersen Danish
• Stars - Anton Walbrook, Austrian,
• Moira Shearer Scottish, but partly brought up
  in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
• Robert Helpmann, Australian
• Leonide Massine, Russian
• Ludmila Tcherina, Russian
• Albert Basserman, German
• Designer Hein Reckroth, German
• Lermontovs character based on either Russian
  Diaghilev or Hungarian Korda
• Partly set, and filmed, in Monte Carlo

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Further British values e.g. The Red Shoes

• Hybridity - foreign contributors and influences
• Excess - the wild obsessive overstated
  impassioned surreal anarchic subversive
  (includes the Carry Ons and Hammer)
• technically experimental, (Dick Lester, Ardman,
  and especially
• Influence of TV, including childrens TV - a
  Crazyspace Vision On, Clangers,
  Rentaghost,The Worst Witch, Teletubbies, In the
  Night Garden etc. gt gt gt Harry Potter (one of the
  most frequently occurring titles in the report)
• Question no 6 where does The Red Shoes fit?
• Question no 7 How can there be more
  consideration of the inter-relationship between
  British film and British TV other media?

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3 How do we consult the audience?

• The report asks Does such ambient Britishness
  signify that international audiences see these
  films as British made films? . . .
• Does this have any cultural impact, reinforcing
  or changing the perception of what Britishness
  is? (p 65)
• Question no. 8 Why not ask them? For instance .
  . .

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Research with cinema/theatre audiences Cultural
mobility

• Questionnaire survey in New York with 1192
  theatregoers (Ride down Mount Morgan) and 951
  cinemagoers (X Men) (50 response rate, c.f. box
  office figures for those days)
• See Messenger Davies, M. Pearson, R. E.
  (2003), 'Stardom and Distinction Patrick Stewart
  as an Agent of Cultural Mobility A Study of
  Theatre and Film Audiences in New York City' in
  Barker, M. Austin, T. (eds) Contemporary
  Hollywood Stardom London Arnold, pp 167-186
• Questionnaire survey and follow-up focus groups
  with 867 theatre goers at West Yorkshire
  Playhouse
• See Pearson R. E. Messenger Davies, M. (2005)
  Class Acts? public and private values and the
  cultural habits of theatre-goers, in
  Livingstone, S. (ed) Audiences and publics when
  cultural engagement matters for the public
  sphere, Bristol Intellect Books, pp 139-161

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4. Making the most of existing resources

• 1. London is full of cinemas at which research
  similar to ours in NYC could be done.
• 2. The Film Council and the BFI has privileged
  access to cinemas round the country where such
  research could be done (also dealing with
  regional and ethnic differences).
• 3. SCHOOLS BFI education has a wealth of
  experience and data on screen education which is
  both a valid (because school samples can be
  scientifically representative) and rich measure
  of cultural impact. e.g. school curricula the
  changes in media studies syllabi over the years
  the films which turn up in media education
  curricula see Making Movies Matter, BFI, 1999
• 4. We are teachers too our students ideas and
  tastes are a data set of cultural impact over
  the years
• Question no 9 How can these resources be
  exploited better, to answer the reports
  questions?

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Defining Britishness on screen (the small
one) http//www.youtube.com/watch?vS4tFzuFGUOI
Britishness http//www.youtube.com/watch?vmhyf
0z9-xQUfeaturerelated
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WEST YORKSHIRE PLAYHOUSE STUDY, 2001 Table 1
Frequency of attendance at the West Yorkshire
Playhouse according to reason given for being at
Johnson Over Jordan