Film Critics and British Film Culture

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Edited by Robert Shail and Sheldon Hall

Type: Studies
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
Keywords: Great Britain, critics
Publishing date: 2025 (August 31, 2025) (Upcoming)
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 256 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN

978-1-3995-1050-9

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Book Presentation:
For decades, cinema audiences have turned to the film reviews featured in national and local newspapers, listened to commentators via radio, television and, latterly, the internet, and read fan magazines to learn about the latest releases. These critics helped shape the responses of generations of film fans, creating success and failure, as well as controversy.

This wide-ranging collection brings together some of the leading academics on British film history to consider the role of these commentators. It covers the work of influential critics like Dilys Powell and Raymond Durgnat and key magazines such as Time Out, Monthly Film Bulletin and Radio Times. Contributors include leading scholars such as James Chapman, Pamela Hutchinson and Julian Petley, along with the screenwriter and filmmaker David McGillivray and others who have worked as film journalists themselves.

For film students or cinema enthusiasts anywhere, this volume provides an insightful analysis of the British film critic.

About the authors:
Robert Shail is Professor of Film and Director of Research at Leeds Beckett University. He is the author of The Children’s Film Foundation (2016), Tony Richardson (2012), Stanley Baker (2008) and British Directors (2007). He is also the editor or co-editor of several anthologies, including Crank It Up – Jason Statham (2019), Gender and Contemporary Horror in Film (2019) and Seventies British Cinema (2008).Sheldon Hall is an Emeritus Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. A former film journalist, he has contributed to numerous books and journals on British and American cinema. He is the author of Armchair Cinema: A History of Feature Films on British Television, 1929-1981 (EUP, 2024) and Zulu: With Some Guts Behind It (2005/2014), co-author of Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History (2010), and co-editor of Widescreen Worldwide (2010).

Press Reviews:
This lively, wide-ranging collection focuses on an important dimension of British film culture – the role of the film critic – that has been neglected, mined unthinkingly or marginalised in previous accounts. Encompassing film annuals and broadcast media as well as newspaper columnists, these well-researched accounts – breathing life in by-line names such as C.A. Lejeune or Dilys Powell – provide fascinating historical detail to illuminate the broader historical contexts in which they were produced and circulated. Giving the lie to assertions that there is no such thing as British film culture, this collection will make essential reading for anyone interested in its changing nature and significance. ― Andrew Spicer, Professor of Cultural Production, University of the West of England Bristol

See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press

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