The Centaur of Albion

Traditions and their Transformations in the British Cinema of the 90s, of the 20th Century Writing this book was a strange journey over bridges across different cultures.

The title is a metaphor of the hybrid, intellectual and anti-spectacular british feature cinema from the end of the 20^th century with affinity to egalitarianism, minimalism of the "short form", archetypal imagery and hedonism. It is a triumph of the expansive yough's counter-culture with it's intrinsic intolerance of authority, power and cliches. The transformation of tradition in the context of instability of the national-specific in the light of the historic retrospective and the identity crisis in a globalised world.

All these are serious topics, but I hope the the narrative about them will crack a laugh, will cause sadness in enjoyment and will extract light from the shadow. because those movies are musically beautiful, decadent, introvert, melancholic, and yet, free from the prison of flesh. each one of them can be compared with a unique journey through the "parish of the spirit" - an enigmatic and even mystical territory, reserved for people with Sense and Sensibillity. Films for all those who reject "Pride and Prejudice" who like contemplaning the sight of "Wuthering Heights", taking adventurously "A Passage to India" or "The Way to the Stars" in searching for "Wonderland".

The Brit films go directly "Under the Skin" and in spite of showing "Dirty Pretty Things", they easily engage the viewers in the "Angelic Conversation" by gripping their intuition and imagination. In no other cinatography is there such a passionate love story between "The Mistress of Words" (literature) and "The Master of Images" (cinema). That love brings into this world a new poetics marked by the art of transformism. it is a subject of the alternative canon confronting traditional values and overexposes violence, style and sexuality.

A great Bulgarian author once said thet a reading human was beautiful.

This book is for everyone who likes watching movies and capable of seeing not only the woods but the trees too. This is why I would add that a "seeing" human is also beautiful...

Водолей ЕООД
София, 1750
жк Младост 1, бл. 1ж, вх.1, ап. 8
i_vodolei@abv.bg

Introduction - That Obscure Object of Desire
An Attempt to Underline the characteristic features of the British Cinema of the 90s in the Light of Historical Retrospective

• The Instability of National-Specifics in the Global Age
• Stuctural-organisation Features of the British Cinematography
• The Poetics of the British Film of the 90s: The new Sensitivity of the Old Albion

Ontological Cinema, or the Tradition of Realism

• The Different Faces of reality
• Brit grit of the Foretold Tadeum of the "Gritty" Realism of the British Social Cinema
• Naturalism, Hyperrealism and Surrealism. The BBC Generation
• Psychological Realism or the Mystery of the English middle class
• Biographic Pictures: Biopics and Anti-biopics

Fictional Cinema or the Tradition of Screen Adaptation of the literary Works

• Screen Adaptation of "living culture"
• Heritage Films: Tradition and emotional Intelligence
• Ironic Adaptations in teh Postmodernism Reality
• Bond Movies: A Genre Between Modern Myths and Product Placement

Screen Adaptation of Drama

• Adaptation as the Art of Performance
• Shakespeare orever! Adaptation As Re-Contextualisation

Comedy - User Manual

• The Punch Institution of teh Art of Laughing Seriously
• The British Film Limericks
• The Dangerous Charm of the Romantic Comedy
• The Metaphysical Humour of Social Comedy

Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
Filmography of the British Films of the 90s