Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T00:21:16.720Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Magic Box: What Is British Cinema?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2010

Jim Leach
Affiliation:
Brock University, Ontario
Get access

Summary

In the final sequence of The Magic Box (John Boulting, 1951), William Friese-Greene, the British inventor, whom the film depicts as an unacknowledged pioneer of motion pictures, attends a meeting of film exhibitors in 1921. He pleads with them to support British producers rather than follow the economic logic that encouraged them to show more popular and less costly Hollywood films. After making his impassioned speech to no avail, Friese-Greene drops dead, creating a powerful allegorical ending that translates the story of an individual who lacks the practical sense to exploit his own invention into the depiction of a national culture that fails to support its own cultural industries.

The Magic Box was the film industry's contribution to the Festival of Britain, with many leading actors appearing in cameo roles, designed to mark “the contribution made by the cinema to the life of the nation.” It did indeed celebrate the life of a British film pioneer whose work had been overshadowed by other more famous inventors, such as the Lumiere brothers in France and Thomas Edison in the United States, somewhat distorting the historical record to make Friese-Greene's work seem more important than it actually was. However, a film about missed opportunity does seem a somewhat odd choice for such a celebratory occasion.

Raymond Durgnat compares this film with Scott of the Antarctic (Charles Frend, 1948) to support the idea that “the British could hardly respond to the idea of success without an aura of failure surrounding it.”

Type
Chapter
Information
British Film , pp. 30 - 47
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×