Adult Themes: British Cinema and the X Certificate in the Long 1960s

(Hardback)

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Description

Between the late 1950s and mid-1970s, British cinema experienced an explosion of X-certificated films. In parallel with an era marked by social, political, and sexual ferment and upheaval, British filmmakers and censors pushed and guarded the permissible limits of violence, horror, revolt, and sexuality on screen. Adult Themes is the first volume entirely devoted to the exploration of British X certificate films across this transformative period, since identified as the long 1960s. How did the British Board of Film Censors, harried on one side by the censorious and moralistic, and beset on the other by demands for greater artistic freedom, oversee and manage this provocative body of films How did the freedoms and restrictions of the X certificate hasten, determine, and reshape post-war British cinema into an artistic, exploitational, and unapologetically adult medium Contributors to this collection consider these central questions as they take us to swinging parties, on youthful crime sprees, into local council meetings, on police raids of cinemas, and around Soho strip clubs, and introduce us to mass murderers, lesbian vampires, apoplectic protestors, eroticised middle-aged women, and rebellious working-class men. Adult Themes examines both the workings and negotiations of British film censorship, the limits of artistic expression, and a wider culture of X certificate cinema. This is an important volume for students and scholars of British Film History and censorship, Media Studies, the 1960s, and Cultural and Sexuality Studies, while simultaneously an entertaining read for all connoisseurs of British cinema at its most vivid and scandalous.

Reviews

Adult Themes offers a full range of fascinating insights into Britains film culture across the long 1960s, specifically the deployment of the X certificate as a means of mapping previously uncharted territory in an increasingly permissive social climate. Taking in such varied films as Peeping Tom, The Partys Over, Secrets of a Windmill Girl, 10 Rillington Place and Zee and Co, made and released during John Trevelyans liberalised leadership of the British Board of Film Censors, the twelve chapters (plus a thoughtful editors introduction) provide new perspectives on how films of this era responded to, mediated, and sometimes anticipated attitudinal change - or directly challenged the status quo by means of the new possibilities granted to them by the X. Highly recommended reading for those interested in British cultural history, the Sixties, censorship and regulation, and the always contested cinematic terrains of sex and violence, crime and horror. * Melanie Williams, Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of East Anglia, UK *
I well remember the British X certificate and how I sneaked into my first one -- Circus of Horrors (1960) -- in those distant days of yesteryear. These co-editors and their contributors have performed an indispensable job in covering such a wide area and providing information that will form indispensable reading for generations to come. Well-researched, expertly written in clear and concise ways and attuned to significant issues of culture and history, this will become a definitive work in this area for years to come. * Tony Williams, Professor of Film and Literature, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA *

Author Bio

Anne Etienne is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Drama at University College Cork, Ireland, and her research focuses on theatre censorship and Arnold Wesker. Benjamin Halligan is the Director of the Doctoral College of the University of Wolverhampton, UK, and his research focuses on film history, music and media, and critical theory. Christopher Weedman is Assistant Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University, USA, where his research focuses on mid-twentieth century British and American cinema.