Rule, Britannia! : the biopic and British national identity / edited by Homer B. Pettey and R. Barton Palmer.

"Selected film, television, recordings, and radio" (pages 303-306)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: the Kray twins and biographical media / Homer B. Pettey -- The biopic, the nation, and counter-history in the films of Derek Jarman / Marcia Landy -- Elizabeth I and life of visual culture / Homer B. Pettey -- Gender and authority in the Queen Victoria films / Jeffrey Richards -- The re-centering of the monarch in the royal biopic: The queen and The king's speech / Giselle Bastin -- The Iron Lady: politics and/in performance / Linda Ruth Williams -- Casting the British biopic: The Barretts of Wimpole Street, 1934 -- 1957 / Deborah Cartmell -- The muse's tale: rewriting the English author in The Invisible Woman / Hila Shachar -- A matter of life and art: artist biopics in post-Thatcher Britain / Jim Leach -- Closer and closer apart: questioning identities in Richard Eyre's Iris / Mark Luprecht -- Carving the national body: Jack the Ripper / Dominic Lennard -- Leslie Howard's The first of the few (1942): the patriotic biopic as star vehicle / R. Barton Palmer -- Who the man who never was, was / Murray Pomerance -- Secrecy and exposure: the Cambridge spies / Erica Sheen.

"Rule, Britannia! surveys the British biopic, a genre crucial to understanding how national cinema engages with the collective experience and values of its intended audience. The volume focuses on how screen biographies of prominent figures in British history and culture can be understood as involved, if unofficially, in the shaping and promotion of an ever-protean national identity. The contributors engage with the vexed concept of British nationality, especially as this sense of collective belonging is problematized by the ethnically oriented alternatives of English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish nations. They explore the critical and historiographical issues raised by the biopic, demonstrating that celebration of conventional virtue is not the genre's only natural subject. The chapters cover filmic depictions of such personalities as Elizabeth I, Victoria, George VI, Elizabeth II, Margaret Thatcher, Iris Murdoch, and Jack the Ripper. Rule, Britannia! offers a provocative take on an aspect of filmmaking with profound cultural significance"-- Provided by publisher

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