New waves and old myths: British cinema in the 1960s

The 1960s witnessed a revitalization of British cinema and the emergence of a flourishing and diverse film culture, after what was widely perceived to be the doldrums era of the 1950s. The 1950s had seen the two great cinematic traditions of the 1940s-Ealing and Gainsborough-gradually running out of steam and expiring. Many of the great directors of the 1940s (Lean, Reed, Powell, Dickinson, Hamer, MacKendrick) declined, retired or removed to America. There was a sclerotic sense of old formulae being unimaginatively followed, of a failure of nerve and invention. The characteristic products of the decade reflected this: the war films that relived old glories; the Norman Wisdom comedies that trod in the footsteps of George Formby; the anaemic ‘international’ epics that aimed futilely to break into the American market, and which misused the sensitive talents of such stars as Dirk Bogarde and Peter Finch. In ethos and outlook, in technique and approach, mainstream 1950s films were essentially conservative, middle-class and backward looking.