Studying British Cinema: The 1970s

Danny Powell encourages readers to reevaluate the 1970s through the medium of film. Combining cultural and sociological analysis, he focuses on the 1970s as an age of political extremism and conflict, of the struggle between authority and the disenfranchised during a decade of strife that produced volatility in a country faced with "no future." Discussing an age of experimental film that avoids the obvious in terms of presentation, theme, narrative, and neat endings, Powell emphasizes the link between domestic British cinema and cultural uncertainty. He discusses Performance (1968), Straw Dogs (1971), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Get Carter (1971), The Wicker Man (1973), Tommy (1975), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), and Jubilee (1978).