Q7 By Jessica

Question7: What are some of reasons for the decline of cinema? How many cinemas did there use to be in Brighton?

Answer:

The number of cinemas is impacted by the cinema attendance. The decrease of cinema attendance is the major reason for the decline of cinema.

One reason for the decline is plain economics. The cost of a movie ticket is increasing, far faster than inflation. So the movie theater is becoming less affordable. In June 2010 American Pulse survey, BIGresearch reported that 72% of Americans now consider watching movies at the cinema as too expensive.

But there is anothere underlying root cause, even more significant for the declining box office, the growth of consumer digital electronics and technology, including the Internet, what people will call digital tschnology.What digital technology has brought audiences is easy and cheap(or even free)access to multiple forms of entertainment at-home and on their mobile device. This concludes films and video. Audience can now view movies in the comfortable of their homes on big screen high definition television that have gotten very affordable. Viewing movies is not limited to audiences' home TV. Audiences can watch from anywhere on their computer, iPad or hand held device. Digital technology allows entertainment to reach audiences instantly, at any time and any place, with little effort and cost, including often for free. And for the easy access and low cost, they will trade off on quality. Watching a streaming film on a TV, smart phone or iPad is certainly not the same experience as watching the same film in the movie theatre. But it is sure rates higher in what people call convenience (cheap and easy).

There used to be four cinemas in Brighton.

The List of Useful Resources about Question7:

Book: 

[1] John Sparaos. The Decline of the Cinema. London: George Allen & Unwin     Ltd,1962.
[2] Harper, Sue. British Cinema of the 1950s: the decline of deference. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

The answer of Q6 by Sherry

The question 6 is:

How long did the British Empire last? What is the commonwealth?

This is my answer:

When did the British Empire begin is a debateable topic to be discussed. Some historians state it was as early as 12th century, when the Normans moved into Ireland. Others insist that it has began in the 1490s. The rest of them date the empire from the early 1600s. But the end of the British Empire has an exact answer, it came in the year after the Second World War, and when Britain transferred Hong Kong to China on June 30 ,1997, the British Empire become an episode of history.

Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has sometimes be synonymous with “republic”. Most notably, the commomwealth of nations, an association primarily of former members of the British Empire is often referred to as simply“commonwealth”.

What kind of sources would help you answer these questions? 

And construct your search terms. 

Firstly, I searched the key words (British Empire , Commonwealth) of this question in google, and found a lot of basic informations.

There were so many informations and I had no idea about what should be trusted. So I just read some informations of British Empire and commonwealth in wikipedia, which is an encyclopedic website to got simple knowledges about this question.

Secondly, I started to use the Sussex direct → Library →Library resources, and found the followinf website. I clicked “Electronic Library” and then clicked the “online resources” to do search. 

And this is waht I found:

There were also too many types of informations including some reviews and conference proceedings,so I changed “all resources” to “books” “Ebooks” “journal” “DVD”and do on, to serching for the key words respectively. 

Then I made an intelligent guess through the name of these books, for example, the name like “the British Empire Themes and Perspectives”may be talk about the history of British Empire, so it might included the time of Empire start and end. “Canada and the British Empire” should based on the relationship between these two countries so it wasn’t a good choice for this topic.

After intelligent guess, I clicked “details” to read some descriptions of these books to make a decision and also check if it was available in the library. 

Tirdly, I made a list (the following one )about what resources is uesful for this question. And then I went to the library to find this resources and borrowed it. By the way, there were plenty of books I didn’t found in electronic library before, but they were useful as well.

The List Of Useful Resources (About Q6)

Books:

The British Empire Themes and Perspective. (Edised by Sarah Stockwell)

I borrowed this one finally, because I checked it in library and noticed that it not only has the knowledge of history in British, but also contect the informations in colonial countries, I thought it might be helpful when I tried to understand why the empire end up at last.

British Empire (Pattrick Colquhoun 1745-1820)

The British Empire in 1558-1997(Trevor Owen Lloyed)

Journal:

Commonwealth(Rodez Editions Subervie)

The Commonwealth Today( biennial guide in brief)(Commonwealth Secretariat)

Ebooks:

Scotland and The British Empire (John M MacKenzie 1943, T.M Devine) 

DVD:

The British Empire in colour(Stewart Binns, Warner Vision Australia, Art Malik Narrator,Carlton Production:Warner Vision International 2002.)

Topic3 By Elise

Topic 3: what is the Blitz? What does the Blitz spirits mean?

Answer:

The Blitz was the period of World WarⅡwhere German Luftwaffe planes bombed Britain for a sustain nine months, from 7^th September 1940 to May 1941. Although some air raids could be found but there were still many people died and a large number of buildings were destroyed.

The Spirits of the Blitz is when people live with fear and homeless, they still try to help each other, rose to the occasion and did not give up. There were two key points why they maintain their faith. One of them was because St. Paul’s Cathedral was never destroyed. Another one is because of the spirits and efforts that are done by Churchill. Therefore the spirits of the Blitz means, especially shown by a group of people, that British people is stoicism and determination in a difficult or dangerous situation.

In addition, there is one more thing I have found very interesting. Some critics have called the Blitz Spirits a myth. An article I have found is talking about analyzing and examining how this myth was retold in British newspaper after the 7^th June 2012 bombing in London. This article makes me critical think about the Blitz Spirits.

What kind of sources would help you answer these questions? And construct your search terms.

Answer:

(01^st Oct 2013)

I start my topic with searching on the Google in order to get the basic idea about what is the Blitz. Because I need to make sure I would not search for the wrong information about the topic. What I can get is something below. These articles are all written on the history website or CBBC which I feel can be trust.

website of history

CBBC

Then, I start to use the online resources from library. I typed in ‘The Blitz’ first, and then I get 67,109 references which are shown related to my key word. Luckily I found three books are exactly named ‘The Blitz’.

results by 'The Blitz'

What I do next is that I check all those three authors and find out one of them, named Peter Chrisp, has recently released another version of ‘The Blitz’ in 2013. And both of these two books were labeled with history, war, battle of British. After that I find another two relevant books.

The book I want to borrow

Last but not least, although maybe I can get information about ‘the Blitz Spirits’ from these book, but I still need to see what I can get by typing in ‘the Blitz Spirits’ Additionally, I also want to get some information from some journals. The result is quite good. I find two articles are useful and though one of them I get some new judgments about ‘The Blitz Spirits’ which make me feel surprised.

(02^st Oct 2013)

Today I went library and try to find the book called ‘The Blitz’. Unfortunately I failed to find it although it is shown ‘available’. However I find other several interesting books that I did not discover it yesterday on the library website. In addition, I also find the book that I cannot make sure whether it is useful and I have read though the contents. The book has one chapter specify the blitz during the World war two.

Books are not in the search result but useful

List:

[BOOK] The Blitz (Peter Chrisp)

• Borrow it and check, because there are no contents on the website
• Unluckily, I failed to find this book, it’s shown off ‘available’, but it is no there.

[BOOK] Wartime: Britain 1939 – 1945 (Juliet Gardiner)

• In this book, it covered most of the important war between 1939–1945. I believe that ‘The blitz’ must be included.
• Today, I checked the contents for this book, there are one chapter exactly talked about the topic

[BOOK] The Blitz and tis legacy: wartime destruction to post-war reconstruction (Mark Clapson P.J Larkham)

• This book is totally talked about ‘the blitz’. What I need to do is just picking up some useful chapters

[BOOK]  The myth of The Blitz (Angus Calder)

• This book is totally talked about ‘the blitz’ and the myth of Blitz. I collect one from the library.

[JOURNAL] ‘Bomb Back, and Bomb Hard: Debating Reprisals during the Blitz’ (Holman, Brett)

• It is talked about the Blitz Spirits and the myth of the Blitz.

[JOURNAL] ‘The myth of the “Blitz spirits” in British newspaper responses to the July 7^th bombings’ (Darren Kelsey)

• It is also talked about the Blitz Spirits and the myth of the Blitz.

"if...." ― review by Saaya

I watched “if….” (1968) that directed by Lindsay Anderson.

The story is set in the British public school, 

and its story proceeds with introducing the school life.

1.    College House

2.    College “Once again assembled”

3.    Term Time

4.    Ritual and Romance

5.    Discipline

6.    Resistance

7.    Forth to War

8.   Crusaders

      In this film, the negative aspects of social or educational system are described.There are some detailed rules of school life.The students in an upper grade have the privilege and absolute authority toward other students, so they were domineering. Whatever they instruct, the students in a lower grade have to follow their instructions.For example, carrying the luggage, preparing meals, or shaving.However, most students are guided by those things.


In this part, I was interested in the attitude of main characters.Mick (main character's name) and his friends often took a defiant attitude, and disobeyed the rule, for instance, they were smoking or drinking alcohol.

However, they always tidied themselves, and they had the gentlemanlike behavior.
The most impressive scene was when they were inflicted corporal punishment by students in an upper grade. After Mick were punished, he shook hands and said 'Thank you' to them.

I felt their true pride from their carriage or consciousness, and those portray the British man, I think.


Next, I would like to talk about the screen. This film has both monochrome and colour parts. At the first time I saw, I couldn't understand what it means. But it might portray this school life as the world where reality mingled with illusion, I guess.

This film describes bullying, homosexuality, strict hierarchical relationship, or rebelling against an oppression, and also includes some black humor. (I like the scene that a priest appears from the drawer!) 

If you have a interest in this film, please watch it!

Trainspotting-review by Jessica

Trainspotting is definitely one of the greatest films in the end of 90s in the UK.This film became almost a cultural phenomenon as soon as it was released in Britain in February 1996.

First of all, I want to explain the name of this film. Trainspotting is a slang from Britain, which means a game that idle people in somewhere trains pass by guess the next train's time and destination to kill time. But in this film the name of Trainspotting has a deep meaning, I suppose, where will it take our characters when the train passes by?

Next, I have to talk about the famous talented director of Trainspotting- Danny Boyle. Although Danny Boyle's works are not too many, just aroud up 10 works, Tainspotting(1996) and Slumdog Millionaire(2008) are enough to make him be the one of the greatest directors in the world. It is the best proof that the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony: Isles of Wonder directed by him.

Danny Boyle has high passion to youth, music,romanticism and cruel realism. In Trainspotting, it shows the wild growth life of some young Scotch. Drugs, crime and despair fill in every cineframe in this film, which is the first impression of this film. It is claimed the compulsory film of "literary and artistic" youths.

"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big telivision...Choose your future. Choose life...But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I choose something else. And the reason? There are no reasons." This is the classic dialogue of Trainspotting.The chasing down Edinburgh's Princes Street that opens the film. Running is the iconic scene of Danny Boyle's works. It also could be watched in Bombay in Slumdog Millionaire. With the running, the dialogue of the leading actor Mark shows us the attitude of totally negating the values of the mainstream. Where do Mark and his firends run? A scene that Mark and his friend escape to Scottish Highlands, after seeing the endless highlands, they felt confused and then went back to the heroin and crime's world. 

The following scene is Mark with his friend's escaping after pushing drugs that is copy of Beatle's classic pose.It is a black humour.

Another memorable scene is Mark diving down the "Worst Toilet in Scotland" headfirst.It is a surrealism expression.When Mark jumps into the closetool, he swims in a pure ocean with the music Deep Blue Day and then he is excited to find the drugs coming to the worst toilet again. We could see the drugs twinkles.It also a successful black humour.

However,Danny Boyle doesn't only description the life of corrupt youths, and he also givs us the objective thinking of this. One side, we could feel the same feeling with the characters' that the desiration of motivation of life, and on the another side,we see the final tragedy fate of youths escaping normal life.I able to undersatnd the criticism and reflection of the corrupt youths.In my consideration, it is the most important  sense of Trainspotting.

To sum up, the film is a black comedy, at times hilarious, tragic, surreal, brutal and uplifting. It doesn't condemn drug addicts, but it is probably more effective then any amount of preachy moralising as it depicts the devastating consequences that can happen to drug users.

PS. the acting of leading chractor Ewan McGregor and music of Trainspotting is amazing!

IF....: Violence and revolution are the only pure acts.

IF.... is one of drama feature films directed by Lindsay Anderson, which satirizing English public school life. It was made in 1968 and it is extremely controversial, partly because of linking with the affairs in France. As watching this film, I  got confused when it suddenly turned into B&W from colour film. I thought that it is ridiculous. 

But soon I realized that, it mixes colour and B&W cinematography as easily as it mingles satire with dark fantasy. The film paints a distinctly negative picture of the British school system and, by extension, English society.(http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/if1968/)

This film is against the old rules, which refers to the old tradition of 'fagging' and still persisted in many British independent boys' school. The substance is students should be watched and persecuted by the 'Whips': senior boys given authority as prefects over juniors. The prefects are entitled to the services of 'Scum': who are first-year boys assigned to run errands: make tea and generally act as unpaid servants.  That's not fair, but it is a traditional regulation in England.

Education in English society was antiquated. But,  this situation was being tolerated until 1960, when the recession had taken place in France. 

The story developed,

boys in school planed an uprising.

They fixed broken guns and used them to shot the powers-that-be.

This film is of extremely satire to the old rules, especially to the authority.

I've learnt that, 'Never bow to authority, but always tip your hat.'

For this film, it is hard to make a judgement about the violence of students. Some people say that,

Violence and revolution are the only pure acts.

I think sometimes people like to see inflated forms of acting. However, in reality, as economy and society developing, all things must obey the principle of  history. The new supersedes the old.

What do you think about it?

IF....

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – review by Elise

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

– Black Humor of British Film

It is very hard for me to imagine that this is the director’s debut.

‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ is not a Hollywood blockbuster which is always flooded with sexy, heroism or saving the world. Full of British features can be found not only through the British accents but also the typical black humor. The plot is excellent and enjoyable because it just likes the domino which there one thing leads to another.

When I saw the film, the first 8 minutes I felt confused. There were only a group of people who appeared and said something then followed by another group of people. It seems like illogical and confusing. However when the plot developed to the scene that one of the main characters called Eddy was enjoying the high-stake card game with the loan shark, and not long ago, this loan shark just asked two thieves to steal two guns. The story became clearer for me and I can detect that there are some links among these two things and the film title.

Eddy were playing high-stake card game

Two thieves just broken into a house

Moreover what is really make a deep impression on me is the last scene when the three guys saw the price of two guns (around 500000pound) and another guy was just throwing them away in the river. 

They were looking at the price of gun and shocked~

He was tying to throwing away the guns~it is an open-ending

In addition, the next topic which I am going to talk about is the characters in this film. They are all special and with difference sense of black humor. Firstly, I would like to tell about the female characters. There are only four of them and most of them are insignificant: one is a show girl in sexy club; one old lady was robbed by the thieves; one is a female DILA and the most interesting one is a female drug addict who is the marijuana grower's girlfriend. She always dizzy ans sleepy and the only time she waking up was just before she died. What she have done is really surprising, she swooping down to a machine gun and there is only one person died.

Secondly, the movie is mainly man-oriented. Besides the four young man in the film, there are many interesting male characters can be find out like: a fat guy called ‘Nick in Greek’ who was involved in the case bafflingly; a gang boss who also sale porn products; two stupid thieves who came from Northern; a pair of father and son who liked to ‘solve problems for others’ and etc. What they have done in this film is absolutely remarkable.

Furthermore, another signature achievement of this movie is it score. Differnet music and songs appear along with the development of the plots. This make a higher-standard audio-visual enjoyment for the audience.

I just liast some of them which I written down:

'Hundred Mile High City' -> open  scenes

'The Boss' -> the father and his son turn up

'Police And Thieves' -> marijuana growers and the 'snow white' show up

'Liar, Liar' -> when they play card game and the gang boss was cheating

'Wanna Be Your Dog' -> after Eddy lose the game will be settled by the debate(50000 pound)

'Why Did You Do It' -> Eddy was explaining what had happened to his friends

'The Payback' -> they get back their money from the gang boss

These are all perfectly fit the plots and the lyrics seems like seamless.

Last but not least, this film is full of black humor, especially in the lines. I find one of the amusing lines is said by the drug dealer Rory:

Your stupidity might be your one saving grace. 
Don't uuh to me Greek boy!...
Is this some white cunts' joke that black cunts don't get?...
If you hold back anything I'll kill you!
If you bend the truth or I think your're bending the truth I'll kill you! 
If you forget anything I'll kill you!...
Now do you understand everything I've said? Because if you don't know I will kill you!!!

It is funny because this a guy is a bit neurotic, he got a glass table but no glass on the top. And many thing he has done can really me laugh. 

What's more, let take a look how do these call each others.

hatchet man of Harry

Two thieves

This movie not only make you enjoy the British black humor but also get something to learn. Because every time the father and his son show up, the father always asked him to fasten his safe belt.

Put your seat belt on!!!

To sum up, this is movie with amazing plots, stylishly shot, cool music and only talk about two guns + four women + several groups of men.

stylishly shot