Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism

Book Description

Fires Were Started is a provocative analysis of the responses of British film to the policies and political ideology of the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and it represents an original and stimulating contribution to our knowledge of British cinema. This second edition includes revised and updated contributions from some of the leading scholars of British cinema, including Thomas Elsaesser, Peter Wollen and Manthia Diawara. The book discuss prominent filmmakers such as Peter Greenaway, Derek Jarman, Ken Russell, Nicolas Roeg and Stephen Frears, it also explores some lesser known but equally important territory such as the work of Black British filmmakers, the Leeds Animation Workshop and Channel 4's Film on Four. Films discussed include Distant Voices, Still Lives, My Beautiful Launderette, Chariots of Fire and Drowning by Numbers.

Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism

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Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism

Manufacturer: Univ of Minnesota Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0816620806

Fires Were Started -- (Bfi Film Classics)

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Sage introduction to one of Britain's greatest filmmakers.

Fires Were Started -- (Bfi Film Classics)
Brian Winston
Manufacturer: British Film Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Humphrey Jennings (1907-50) was perhaps the most gifted filmmaker of the British documentary movement. Involved in the Mass Observation project of the 1930s, Jennings' talent lay in picturing ordinary life in ways that were inventive yet authentic. Fires Were Started (1943) is his major achievement. A film about a day's work for a unit of the National Fire Service at the height of the blitz, it blends observation with fictional reconstruction to achieve a particularly poignant kind of propaganda.
Lindsay Anderson expressed the opinion of many commentators and viewers when he wrote in Sight and Sound (in a 1954 article reprinted as an appendix to this volume) that Jennings was "the only real poet the British cinema has yet produced." But how could a documentarist also be a poet?
This is one of the questions addressed by Brian Winston in his highly engaging study of Fires Were Started--a question that is particularly relevant today in the wake of the massive public controversies surrounding "faked" documentaries. For Winston documentary filmmaking is always "creatively treated actuality" and must be taken as such if it's to be properly valued and understood.

Customer Reviews:

Sage introduction to one of Britain's greatest filmmakers........2001-10-17

The most important and influential development in 1930s British cinema was the documentary movement, which was given the name by its chief practitioner, John Grierson, head of the General Post Office Film Unit. These documentaries weren't what we understand by the term today - rather than utilising fly-on-the-wall, observational techniques, these films were reconstructions of actual, 'typical' events, involving prior 'scientific' research and witness accounts, and often using scripted dialogue, sets and some kind of narrative structure.

Most of these films - dull, instructional, governmental works - are of little cinematic interest today. Only one figure emerges with claims to genius - Humphrey Jennings, Cambridge don, poet, painter, pioneering sociologist and organiser of the first British Surrealist exhibition. Jennings began work with Grierson's unit in the mid-30s, but was pre-eminent during the war, with a series of films that transcended their documentary or propaganda origins to magically capture that elusive British spirit. For this, he has been called 'The only real poet the British cinema yet produced'.

Although the most conventional of his films - a feature length drama narrating one day and night in the activities of the London Fire Brigade and the volunteer Auxiliary Fire Service during the Blitz of 1940-41 - 'Fires Were Started' is considered Jennings' masterpiece, and typical of his style. It mixes conventional 'documentary' elements, such as the training routine of the service or the structural workings of the system, with moments of pure epiphany - the flute-playing of a busker as the firemen go to work; a sing-song in the Recreation room before the exigencies of fire-fighting; the recital of poetry by Raleigh and Shakespeare. In this way, recognisable, flawed, 'ordinary' people take on an unsentimental, uncondescending, unforced stature.

Documentary theorist Brian Winston doesn't set out to question Jennings' canonical status, meticulously detailing and analysing the elements of his style instead. He puts the film in its historical context, as well as situating Jennings as both an idiosyncratic individual and as an often unwilling part of Grierson's documentary unit. He emphasises the collaborative input behind Jennings' work, in particular the contribution of editor Stewart McAllister, who achieved many of the films' most startling and evocative effects.

The details of the production are highly revealing of British attitudes at the time regarding censorship, as well as the urgent needs of censorship (e.g. the 'authentic', fruity language of the firemen had to be toned down; the important role of women is minimised; the bureaucratic bumbling of the system is ignored; the realities of the black market, conscientious objecting, shirking and other 'unpatriotic' activities are downplayed).

Most importantly, Winston distinguishes Jennings' form of propaganda, which depends on appeals to shared notions of British identity, rooted in history, culture and experience, to the brainwashing, mind-thumping of, say, Leni Riefenstahl.

He concludes with an impassioned defence of the film's 'documentary value' (and, ironically, this reconstruction has yielded some of the most famous 'real' images of the Blitz we have), in spite of failing to live up to the narrow, 'tendentious' criteria nowadays demanded of the form.

In the end, however, as Lindsay Anderson, Jennings' most famous proselytiser, noted, the magic of his world 'can be analysed only to a certain point, then it must simply be experienced'. If this book provokes enthusiastic interest in the unique joys of Jennings' cinema, than it will have been worth writing.

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Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism. (book reviews): An article from: Cineaste
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Manufacturer: Cineaste Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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ASIN: B00092SFW4
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Cineaste, published by Cineaste Publishers, Inc. on January 1, 1993. The length of the article is 743 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism. (book reviews)
Author: Wheeler Winston Dixon
Publication: Cineaste (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 1993
Publisher: Cineaste Publishers, Inc.
Volume: v20 Issue: n1 Page: p51(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Producing a book on fashion in the 1980s is not merely a question of immortalizing one of the most feverish periods of invention, creativity, and variety in our recent history. It also means providing a window on the increasingly pervasive advance of show-business society, and on the origins of the designer "total living" environment in which we are now permanently submerged. Ralph Lauren pillowcases, anyone? How about a sip of Absolut from my Calvin Klein Home champagne glasses? Excess: Fashion and the Underground in the 80s chronicles the achievements of the fashion establishment in Italy and the rest of the world via its protagonists and trends. It considers the who, what, where, when, and why of an industry that has become an economic phenomenon, with enormous influence on global culture and communication. It catalogues a world in which fashions by Armani, Versace, Valentino, Gianfranco Ferra, Fendi, Missoni, Moschino, Dolce & Gabbana, Fiorucci, Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, Katherine Hamnett, Azzedine Alaea, Calvin Klein, and John Galliano appear in magazines like Vogue, Elle, Donna, Mondo Uomo, Harper's Bazaar, The Face, i-D, Interview, Vanity Fair, GQ, and Visionaire. It features work by 80s hotshot artists like Helmut Newton, Bruce Weber, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Andy Warhol, Jenny Holzer, Robert Mapplethorpe, Barbara Kruger, Gilbert & George, Pierre et Gilles, and Leigh Bowery. Empirically organized as an index, Excess offers an indispensable point of reference for fashionistas, critics, and students. Rather than operating chronologically, it functions thematically, under such categories as Career Women, Sexy Women, American Gigolo, Night Clubbing, Wild Boys, Yuppies, and Graffiti. A special section curated by Peter de Potter is dedicated to the Neo OE0s, featuring fashions by Jeremy Scott, Louis Vuitton, Berhard Willhelm, Balenciaga, Veronique Branquinho, and Bottega Veneta, as seen in the pages of Butt, Dazed & Confused, SleazeNation, Spin, Self Service, and Another Magazine. Additionally included are a series of appendices--equally balanced between mainstream and underground--which catalogue the new professions, new words, and new fashions.

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Spycraft: Faceman, Snoop Class Guide (Spycraft D20)
Alexander Flagg , and Clayton A. Oliver
Manufacturer: Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1887953922

Book Description

Call it a control thing, but until recently–or, more specifically, until the availability of digital raw camera formats–you simply weren’t ready to make the move to digital photography. Raw formats, however, changed all of that by allowing you to retrieve images before any in-camera processing has been performed. Photoshop’s Adobe Camera Raw plug-in makes that process even easier by providing a standardized way of accessing and working with these uncompressed digital negatives in your favorite image-manipulation software. In the first volume devoted exclusively to the topic, best-selling author Bruce Fraser shows you how to take advantage of Adobe Camera Raw to set white balance, optimize contrast and saturation, handle noise, correct tint, and recover lost detail in images before converting them to another format. After learning about the raw formats themselves, you’ll discover hands-on techniques for exposing and shooting for digital raw, using Bridge, Adobe’s new standalone file browser, to preview images and automate tasks, and building a workflow around the digital raw process.

Customer Reviews:

good value.......2007-10-02

The text in the book is very good, I really like it. Unfortunately, pictures are not that great, you cannot see those small differences author tries to show you. I think print quality suffers. But I still strongly advise to get this book if you are in RAW and PhotoShop.

Yawn.......2007-07-07

Personally, I felt this book to be redundant and a wordy tale of how to organize files. I tried to read it but kept dozing off. For me, I just want the writer to get to the point. Anyone well versed in Adobe products will already know most of this information. And let's face it, we all just want to be creative and take pictures. Do we really need to know every--little--minute--detail on how a RAW file is constructed?

For me, I could stand to hear the short version of RAW Files 101. I agree, a little knowledge is great. Also, would like to know how Bridge can be used to process them. But honestly, I was really hoping it would detail the differences of Canon's "Digital Photo Professional" to Adobe's conversion plug in. Nothing.

I'm disappointed...

finally learning.......2007-07-05

I have been shooting camera raw for quite a while. However, I had no background in digital technology or software. As a result, I'd been bringing my images directly into Photoshop, without doing any editing in Bridge. According to this book, there are many reasons to do the opposite. That is, most editing should be done in bridge, which is where Adobe's camera raw is located. I didn't know that until I read this. And, as I've not finished this book yet, I'm sure it's got alot more to teach me.
I would say that if you came to digital photography from film photography, this book has alot to teach you about a printing process very different from darkroom work.

Good book for more experienced.......2007-04-05

I personally found this book to be, in many places, way over my head and in fact preferred the camera raw material in Scott Kelby's book - The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital photographers.

Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Real World).......2007-03-14

Excellent text on the use of photoshop CS2 - the tips really work

Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Real World)

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This book boosted my knowledge and confidence
Somewhat outdated by ACR 4.1 but a worthwhile read on an important subject
Wow, a real book for professionals... FINALLY
Superb classic on sharpening
Will Improve Your Digital Output

Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Real World)
Bruce Fraser
Manufacturer: Peachpit Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0321449916

Book Description

It's a sad but undeniable fact of life: Whether you scan, shoot, or capture, the process of digitizing images introduces softness, and to get great-looking results, you'll need to sharpen the great majority of digital images. The softness introduced during digitizing results from the very nature of the digitizing process. To represent images digitally, we must transform them from continuous gradations of tone and color to points on a grid. In the process details gets "averaged" into the pixels, softening the overall appearance. For some types of printed output, further softness is introduced when the image pixels are converted to dots of ink or toner. As a result, just about every digital image requires sharpening. But another sad fact of digital photography is that most images are sharpened badly--either not enough, too much, or using the wrong methods--creating chunky details and harsh edges. Author, Bruce Fraser is here to teach readers all they need to know about sharpening including when to use it, why it's needed, how to use the camera's features, how to recognize an image needs sharpening, how much to use, what's bad sharpening and how to fix over sharpening. For more on Sharpening: http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/11242.html

Customer Reviews:

This book boosted my knowledge and confidence.......2007-08-09

This book has taken the mystery out of image sharpening and has boosted my confidence regarding the end quality of my work. Bruce not only explains the "how" of sharpening but also the "why" of sharpening. You no longer have to settle for acceptable results. Go for optimal!

Get it. Read it. You won't regret it.

John Tucker
John Tucker Photography
Portraits ~ Events ~ Assignments

Somewhat outdated by ACR 4.1 but a worthwhile read on an important subject.......2007-07-05

Despite appearances, this book is fairly slim and a quick read. Fraser's central tenets are multipass sharpening (to retain your output options plus fit with an automated approach) and the use of masks to isolate sharpening to real edges (to reduce halo width and/or not exacerbate grain/noise).

In practical terms, a lot of what Fraser says just has to be taken on faith as he doesn't engender a methodology for the reader to evaluate overall image sharpness (up until the output pass) on screen. Given the recent changes to the Details tab in ACR 4.1 I suspect a lot of readers will be on their own though as the only guidance this book has is on radius. Still, the creative/output sharpening approaches are proven and just as valid.

Curiously I find most of the "optimally" sharpened half-toned images presented in the book to be somewhat over-sharpened. The digital revolution would seem to have brought about a change of emphasis in maximizing the potential of the file rather than presenting a real world similitude. But maybe all this is a personal thing. I don't think anyone has a mortgage on "optimal" sharpness.

The only other book that I'm aware of that treats sharpening with any depth is Dan Margulis' "Professional Photoshop" which is aimed more on getting images out the door. In my experience, both approaches can achieve similar results on the page.

This book shows the workings of Fraser (and co's) popular Photokit Sharpener commercial product which embodies the approach presented in this book. In fact, there's sufficient detail herein to write your own routines which will give identical results ... at least for the specific examples given. I was curious why he would do so but with foreknowledge of his impending death I think his wisdom was that knowledge lives on longer than products. For this I am grateful.

Wow, a real book for professionals... FINALLY.......2007-03-08

As a photographer and owner of a photo-restoration business, this was a very important topic for me. I regularly get out of focus images to restore and often the basic sharpening methods in Photoshop simply aren't sufficient.

There is a lot of theory in the beginning of the book, which is good; helpful especially if you don't have a solid understanding of digital sharpening, but then comes the real meat. Fraser goes into many different ways to achieve the effects you need with detailed instruction. It's sometimes hard to see the changes in his photo illustrations, but trust him and try what he says. My copy is FULL of post-it tabs. Superb book for the professional.

Superb classic on sharpening.......2007-02-22

If you own Ansel Adam's classics "The Negative" and "The Print", then you'll want to read and own this digital classic on sharpening techniques. Bruce Fraser gives you the motivation, the proof and the workflow to sharpen images so that a single master file can be used at many different resolutions. This book is a must read if you want to make 13x19 or larger prints from you digital camera or scanned images.

Will Improve Your Digital Output.......2007-02-07

This book is well written and understandable if you have a bit of technical expertise. Though I would have liked to seen a small section devoted to how to sharpen my work in the beginnig (I like to read the ending of mysteries first), Bruce Fraser eventually give you this workflow. He is, of course, right to give you the theoretical foundation, which he does superbly.
I took the easy way out and bought the sharpening tools from Pixel Genius, which do 80% of what Bruce talks about, but I wouldn't have understood what that software does nearly as well if I hadn't read this book.

Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Real World)

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a must read!!!
This book is only ok
Superlative
This is the bible...
PSCS2 for expert (and patient) photographer

Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Real World)
Bruce Fraser , and David Blatner
Manufacturer: Peachpit Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0321334116

Book Description

Fooling around with Photoshop to create interesting composite artwork is all well and good. But if you rely on Photoshop to meet tough production challenges in a fast-paced professional environment, fooling around won't cut it! You need results, and you need them now: This book delivers! In this copiously illustrated volume, best-selling authors David Blatner and Bruce Fraser offer scads of hands-on production techniques as well as clear explanations of the concepts that drive them, so that you can get the best results possible on your own Photoshop CS2 projects. You'll learn about managing color, getting great scans, correcting tones and colors, and more. You also find complete coverage of all of Photoshop CS2's newest features: integration with Adobe Bridge; Vanishing Point; super-tight integration with the rest of Adobe's Creative Suite 2; and more. Throughout, the emphasis is on efficiency: the time-saving tips and professional shortcuts that will allow you to work faster, smarter, and more creatively with Photoshop CS2.

Customer Reviews:

a must read!!!.......2007-05-08

i use photoshop everyday. at work and at home. of course i know everything... i thought! of course... NOT!!!!
a must read for everyone using photoshop more than 15 minutes a day... :-)

have fun!

This book is only ok.......2007-02-13

This book covers a lot of ground, and doesn't just cover surface topics either, its really an in depth look into the amazing world of Photoshop.
I'm not going to cover the contents of each chapter, you can find another review that does just that, all that I would like to do is give another point of view that I wish someone else had given when I was looking to buy this book.

I have about 13 Photoshop cs2 books, and this is probably the one that has disappointed me the most. Its not a very practical book, although it covers a lot of ground, I found the explanations to be a tad incoherent and a bit too long winded, they go into so much detail and become so technical that you end up loosing site of what you are trying to achieve. For instance I worked through the chapter on color settings-(setting up Photoshop so that what you see on the monitor and what actually prints looks the same) and I found that after working through almost 100 pages, I was no closer to understanding color management than when I started, and ended up having to go onto the internet to try and figure out how it works.

I want to point out, its not that the subject matter is too advanced, its just in my opinion not very clearly presented compared to many other books out there. If you compare their take on removing an image from its background with Katrin Eismann's book "Masking & compositing" you will see immediately what I'm talking about. Their teaching style is very cumbersome, and top heavy compared to Katrin's sleek, streamlined articulate approach, and this goes for every chapter in the book.

If you are trying to learn how to use some of the more advanced controls in Photoshop, I would recommend that you look somewhere else, where as if you have been using Photoshop's advanced functions for 15 years and want to find out how to tweak those controls so that you can get the most out of them then this book may certainly help you there.

Superlative.......2007-01-30

Adobe should purchase the rights to this book and send it out as the manual. It is staggeringly good. Scott Kelby's books are silly tricks. These guys provide the theory behind what the program is doing, and then explain in clear, understandable and friendly prose how to master the essential tools in the program.

Reading technical material has never been so enjoyable.

This is an incredible book.

This is the bible..........2007-01-05

This really is the top pick for a book on Photoshop CS2. Keep in mind though that it is much more of a manual than a tutorial. It is probably a bit of a steep learning curve for an absolute beginner. It has far more depth than almost any other book on the subject. It also lives up to its title "Real World" in that the authors give very useful pragmatic advice as to what is actually useful and how best to apply the tools to situations you are likely to encounter. It IS NOT a step-by-step tutorial. If I had to have only one book on Photoshop it would be this one. If you are truely starting from scratch I'd recommend that you supplement this book with a few online tutorials just to get you up and playing with the software a little before diving into the details.

It is worth noting there are plethora of really poor photoshop books out there. Besides this book, which is probably the pick of the litter, you might also consider:

Scott Kelby's book: This one is extremely basic, holds your hand the whole way, has huge dialog box captures and really does nothing to educate you as to what is really going on. It is a very shallow book. I only list it here because if you are actually terrified of photoshop this might be a friendly introduction. That said, I don't understand why such a book exists. It makes perfect sense for Photoshop Elements, but if you are actually bothering to use CS2 it implies you want more tools and control that Kelby's book introduces you to.

Martin Evening's book: Also a good in depth book. Not quite as deep as Real World, but also a bit more tutorial oriented. A very good supplement and probably a number of people's first choice.

Photoshop LAB Color, Dan Margulis: Once you know your way around Photoshop you'll want some help actually deciding what exactly to do to your images. The LAB colorspace offers some of the fastest ways to improve images but is a bit counter-intuitive at first. If you tend to photograph natural scenes it is the one colorspace to work in. Get this book, you won't be dissappointed.

In short, if you don't need to be led by the hand and want a very in depth resource that covers nearly everything but focuses most on what is useful then you want "Real World Photoshop CS2".

PSCS2 for expert (and patient) photographer.......2006-11-13

I'm an Engineer and Physicist, so I'm always eager to go to the root cause of the things I'm doing. Bruce and David definitely know what's behind Photoshop and they'll explain it with deep details, too deep. This is the only reason why I can give the book only 4*. There are plenty of examples, but they take long and convoluted way to explaining things. If you are a beginner, look for something else, but if you're an intermediate, this may be the book for you. It is very comprehensive and can give you very professional instruments to improve your Photoshop workflow. They even show you many different ways to tackle the same problem in the most effective way. The drawback is the tiring length. Probably the same concepts could have been summarized in less than 2/3 of the pages.
Moral of the story: If you can focus your attention through the 1000 pages of the book, you'll end up with a large luggage of bits of information, tip and tricks you even ever dreamed of.

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Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2
Bruce Fraser David Blatner
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Adobe Photoshop | Digital Photography & Video | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000MUG0BQ

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Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2

Manufacturer: PEACHPIT (LONG)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Adobe Photoshop | Digital Photography & Video | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000GTDYS0

Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2 Industrial-Strength Production Techniques

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Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2 Industrial-Strength Production Techniques
David Fraser, Bruce Blatner
Manufacturer: Peachpit Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Adobe Photoshop | Digital Photography & Video | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000OUEEMG

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Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2: Industrial-strength Production Techniques
Bruce Fraser
Manufacturer: Peachpit Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: B000N7B9T6

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