BOOK LAUNCH:
THE SCREENWRITER
IN BRITISH CINEMA
AT THE BFI REUBEN LIBRARY, SOUTH BANK,
LONDON ON MONDAY 10TH FEBRUARY, 6.30PM
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You are invited to enjoy a glass of wine at the
launch of Jill Nelmes’ new book The Screenwriter in
British Cinema and look at a display of some of the
screenplays and correspondence held in the BFI
special collections which Jill drew upon.
Though screenwriting is an essential part of the
film production process, in Britain it is yet to be
fully accepted as an area of academic study. The
Screenwriter in British Cinema draws on hitherto
unused drafts of screenplays, correspondence and
related material held in the Special Collection of
the BFI National Archive, and includes close textual
analysis of Powell and Pressburger’s A Canterbury
Tale and T.E. B. Clarke’s The Lavender hill Mob, which
illuminate the writing and production process.
The eleven chapters are each based around a
collection from the archive, exploring the work
of acclaimed authors such as Robert Bolt in his
collaborations with David Lean, but also draw
attention to neglected writers like Jeffrey Dell,
John McGrath and the prolific Mark Grantham, a
B movie writer of the 1950s and early 1960s. The
collections give a fascinating insight with regard
to husband and wife team Muriel and Sydney
Box, as well as more formal partnerships between
producer and writer. Letters in the David Puttnam
Collection show this highly successful producer
nurtured writers Bill Forsyth and Bruce Robinson
while allowing them creative freedom. Studying
the changes in screenplay drafts alongside their
accompanying correspondence reveals much
about the development process, as in the case of
Janet Green’s screenplay for Victim (1961) as well as
allowing textual and comparative analysis.
This is an opportunity to view highlights of the
Special Collections and to find out more about the
role of the screenwriter in British Cinema.
Paperback | ISBN: 978-1-84457-365-3 | £24.99
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