Film on Four - Fall and Rise

The British film industry was for a long time considered little more than a cottage industry. Truffaut is famously quoted as saying that 'Britain' and 'Cinema' were a contradiction in terms. Its steady decline, reaching its nadir in the seventies, has often been blamed on competition from television and video.
Towards the end of the century there were encouraging signs of a resurgence in British film production. A steady increase in the number of films Britain produced is evident since 1985. With major successes in the recent years of films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Trainspotting there seems to be an emerging trend for British cinema's international kudos to finally start translating into a profitable and (relatively) stable industry. Ironically it would seem that television, so blamed for the death of British cinema, is now perceived in some corners as presenting a positive contribution to this trend, in particular the efforts of Channel Four's Film on Four.


Click here for read more about the rise and fall of the British Film Industry.