Make-believe and realism in British film production: from the coming of sound to the abolition of the National Film Finance Corporation

In The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Sir Thomas Cromwell urges the King to consider a fourth marriage. Henry answers that he would consider such a thing “the victory of optimism over experience”. As he laughs, the camera tracks along a row of courtiers laughing along with him. There is then a long shot of the vast banqueting hall, full of yet more laughing courtiers. But the laughter does not stop there. We see servants outside the banqueting hall laughing too. We then go down into the subterranean kitchens, where an army of cooks and scullery maids share in the amusement.