FM2 : British and American Film

1. FM2: British and American Film

2. Kind Hearts and Coronets • Briefly summarise the plot of the film • What are the main themes? • How does it link to the social context of the time? • In what ways can it be seen as ‘ quintessentially British’?

3. Light-hearted more humane cynical behaviour humorous class Kind Hearts and Coronets is different from the usual Ealing Comedies: the film treats the values of English culture in an angrier, more elegant, more cynical and less cautious way; it mercilessly exposes forms of behaviour, rituals and class differences without, however, reconstituting them in the end, as other Ealing films do But HOW does it do this? Light-hearted humane cynical angrier elegant cautious rituals comedic

4. Where does Kind Hearts start? family photographs sentimentally framed in the Edwardian manner • It begins twice, if not, three times: suggests a film of quiet nostalgia? yearningly old-fashioned music – aria from Don Giovani tastefully stylised credits

5. Mr Elliot’s mournful enthusiasm establishes the black humour Where does Kind Hearts start? • Then the film proper starts: ending of the Duke’s life and Elliot’s last execution (all about endings?) feeling of social insecurity ‘how does one address a Duke?’

6. Where does Kind Hearts start? • Then the memoir self-consciously makes a new start: That beginning is Louis’ birth – and another ending With so little time remaining to complete my story, it is difficult to choose where to begin. Perhaps I should begin at the beginning Louis narrative now slips back before his birth and starts over again with his parents’ first meeting

7. Where does Kind Hearts start? • All this is very strange and very self-conscious • Why would Hamer and Dighton choose to open their film this way, with these hesitancies and false starts? • Why?

8. Where does Kind Hearts start? • It really begins with a book, Israel Rank by Roy Horniman • Horniman: homosexual, socially adrift, Greek aristocracy + navy • Double pun on ‘Rank’ • Jewish taint – ‘Israel’ • Anti-Semitic? • How interpreted as not anti-Semitic? • Complications for Ealing?

9. Importance of names: • Why is the hero called Louis Mazzini? • What are the significance of some of the other names? • Sibella, Ethlered, Edith etc

10. Key scene – Louis’ mother’s death: • Louis posture – faintly ridiculous • photograph drops clunkingly • air of theatrical awkwardness - tableau • off-key effect is undoubtedly comic • Why is a tram accident near Clapham Junction funny? • We are not seeing life, or even the representation – but the parody of the representation • Louis, having killed his father just by being born, now loses his mother in a tragic tram accident near Clapham Junction. We see Louis kneeling at her bedside, fading she requests a burial at Chalfont’s family vault. She dies, dropping in that instant from her frail hand the heart-shaped photograph of her dead husband. Louis weeps uncontrollably. • A drearily sentimental deathbed scene?

11. You are trying to sell that most unsaleable commodity to the British – irony. Good luck to you Balcon told Hamer:

12. Written Consolidation: • Think back to the quotation at the start of the lesson: • Write a paragraph, to hand in at the end of the lesson your ideas about how/why Kind Hearts does this Kind Hearts and Coronets…treats the values of English culture in an angrier, more elegant, more cynical and less cautious way; it mercilessly exposes forms of behaviour, rituals and class differences