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A Taste of Honey
Series: BFI Film Classics
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Format: Paperback / softback
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This book is ideal for readers interested in British cinema history, feminist film studies, and cultural representation, as well as those studying social and working-class narratives in film.
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Description
A Taste of Honey (1961) is a landmark in British cinema history. In this book, Melanie Williams explores the many extraordinary ways in which it was trailblazing. It is the only film of the British New Wave canon to have been written by a woman — Shelagh Delaney, adapting her own groundbreaking stage play.
At the behest of director Tony Richardson and his company, Woodfall, it was one of the first films to be made entirely on location and was shot in an innovative, rough, poetic style by cinematographer Walter Lassally. It was also the launchpad for a new type of young female star in Rita Tushingham.
Tushingham plays the young heroine, Jo, who finds she is pregnant after her love affair with Jimmy (Paul Danquah), a Black sailor. When Jimmy’s ship sails away, Jo is comforted and supported by her gay friend Geoff (Murray Melvin), while her unreliable mother, Helen (Dora Bryan), has her own life to lead.
Candid in its treatment of matters of gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and motherhood, and highly distinctive in its evocation of place and landscape, A Taste of Honey marked the advent of new possibilities for the telling of working-class stories in British cinema. As such, its rich but complex legacy endures to this day.
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781839021558
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 20 April 2023
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: BFI Publishing
Illustration: 60 bw illus
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 8.0mm
Width: 134.0mm
Height: 188.0mm
Weight: 165g
Pages: 104
About the Author
Melanie Williams is Professor in Film and Television Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK. A specialist in British cinema, her publications in this area include British Women’s Cinema (2009), Ealing Revisited (BFI, 2012), David Lean (2014), Female Stars of British Cinema: The Women in Question (2017) and Transformation and Tradition in 1960s British Cinema (2019).
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