British film and Thatcherism

'While American film go-ers wellcome british directores and performers, British films rarely achive popular acclaim and menetary rewards. Only small percentage of British films, such as The Private life of Henry 7(1933) and Chariots of fire(1981), ever match the financial levels attained by even moderately successful American pictures in the United States." (Friedman, Lester. 1993, p4)

There is "a certain incompatibility between the terms 'cinema' and 'Britain'"(Truffaut)

"The archetypal American hero remains the rugged loner who fights for personal rights and individual freedoms, not the union organizer who battles for a better hourly wage or the factory worker who struggles against bosses.... The point, however, is to defeat evil individuals, not to question, reform, or destroy the basic system that spawned them. In essence, then, traditional American films see evil doers as aberration of a basically healthy sociaey. They remain outside that society, intrinsically different from the mainstream and rarely signifyng some internal social flaw that must be altered by fact or deed. Once they are dispached, life returns to normal" (Ibid,.p7-8)