In the 1980s, British films would experience a remarkable resurgence despite the failing production and box-office numbers. The renaissance was signaled by a sudden gust of Academy Awards for Hugh Hudson's well-oiled Chariots of Fire (1981), produced by David Putman, and the extravagantly-budgeted Richard Attenborough feature, Gandhi (1982).
The groundwork for these successes had been laid in the latter Seventies with the emergence of several innovative and independent producers, some of whom (Puttnam, Leon Clore) were old hands in the business, while others were mere neophytes (Michael White, the team of Davina Belling and Clive Parsons). The public sector was represented by Simon Perry at the National Film Finance Corporation and Peter Sainsbury at the BFI. Among newfangled production companies, the most notable was HandMade Films, established by erstwhile moptop George Harrison to produce the cult classic Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979). It did an unprecedented feat with its film adaption by maintaining the Python comedy connection, while successfully branching out into drama; and on the strength of Life of Brian, Python alum Terry Gilliam's star-packed fantasy film; Time Bandits would make its way to the ol' silvers in 1981 thanks to a little help from friend Harrison.
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| Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1694 |
Television would play a significant role in financing films, blurring the distinction between those made for the cinema and those tailored for TV. Scottish television facilitated Bill Forsyth's staggeringly successful Gregory's Girl (1980), a teenage romp set in Scotland about a milquetoast who fancies a football-playing lass. The advent of Channel Four gave rise to a series of films intended for screening by the channel but also garnering exposure in cinemas both at home and abroad. This included Peter Greenaway's stylized thriller The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), an erotically charged murder mystery set in an idyllic country home in the seventeenth century. Polish director Jerzy Skolimowsi's Moonlighting (1982), a wryly witty take on a quartet of Polish carpenters clandestinely renovating a home in Kensington while the military are occupying their native land, novelist Neil Jordan's debut film Angel (1982), an oblique commentary on the troubles of Northern Ireland and Sir Richard Eyre's lauded The Ploughman's Lunch (1983) a comprehensively cynical Room at the Top for the Eighties, scripted by novelist and screenwriter Ian McEwan who has since been cited as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.