The films of the
Children’s Film Foundation (CFF) construct an arguably romanticised
yet progressive image of the suburbs where children claim and consume the
streets of the post-war British housing regeneration. In films such as Cup Fever (1965), Egghead’s Robot (1970), and Terry
on the Fence (1985) children are foregrounded, whereas adults are relegated
to marginal roles, and pushed indoors to work or perform domestic duties.
The CFF films
celebrate and explore British suburbia as a site of childhood play and
independence. For audiences of the time these films played a major contribution
to the ways in which the suburbs were constructed through British visual
culture, firstly in the cinema, and later on television.
I
was part of the group of youngsters who stayed at home to watch Tiswas (1974 – 1982) and / or
Multicoloured Swap Shop (1976 – 1982). However, I did see some of the CFF films – such as Sammy’s Super T-Shirt (1978) – on
television in the mid 1980s. I was also familiar with CFF clips from the TV
series Screen Test (1970 – 1984).
The
only time I've seen a CFF film was at the National Film Theatre many years ago
when they screened The Glitterball
(1978). I was there as a film student, making notes for a dissertation, and must have made an incongruous sight, scribbling notes on an A4 pad in the dark.
This was before the film was available on DVD, and it's a good exercise for
film scholars to try and make notes without being able to hit the pause button!
Now I’ve
written a chapter for Filmurbia:
Screening the Suburbs (published April 2017). In it, I look at how boys and
girls of the 1960s use the suburban streets to practice for an important
football match, and how by the 1980s, the potentially-violent suburbs may have
persuaded audiences to appreciate the safety of their own living rooms.
I’m
looking forward to reading about the other screen suburbs in this edited
collection.
Further
reading:
Forrest, David, Harper, Graeme, and Rayner,
Jonathan, (eds.), 2017, Filmurbia: Screening
the Suburbs, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan
No comments:
Post a Comment