The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph

巴兹尔·迪尔登和迈克尔·莱尔夫组成了战后英国电影界最重要的电影制作团队之一。从1943年他们第一次合作《钟声响起》到1970年《闹鬼的人》，他们合作了三十多部电影。他们是伊灵工作室最多产的导演和制片人团队，他们从20世纪40年代末到60年代制作的一系列社会问题电影，涉及种族主题（如1959年的蓝宝石），性（如1961年的受害者），犯罪和犯罪（如1950年的蓝灯，1958年的暴力游乐场）被认为是那个时期的重要英国电影，在英国电影课程中广泛放映和教授。虽然这些电影在最近英国电影和电影研究的热潮中得到了一定程度的认可，但迪尔登和莱尔夫的更广泛的作品在很大程度上仍未被考虑和忽视。因此，例如，很少有人试图将他们关于社会问题电影的工作与他们对战后社会和文化变革的男性调整的更广泛兴趣联系起来，例如在诸如《死亡情人的萨拉班德》（1948年）、《方形戒指》（1953年）或《绅士联盟》（1960年）等电影中所表达的。将Dearden和Relph简单地理解为社会问题电影的制作人，并没有公正地对待他们作品的多样性，以及他们作品的全部主题。这也导致无法区分他们电影中的重大差异。因此，人们倾向于接受不加批判的电影，如《被俘虏的心》（1946）或《去一个地方》（1963）作为社会问题电影，尽管它们最好被理解为属于一个完全不同的传统。相比之下，本研究将从四个主要的一般和语境类别来研究迪尔登和莱尔夫的电影：喜剧电影及其喜剧传统；伊灵工作室在战争年代的形成时期；大量讲述战后调整的电影；以及20世纪60年代的国际电影。社会问题电影是第三类的核心，在这里被称为“社会调整戏剧”，与“男性调整戏剧”和“道德困境”戏剧区分开来。因此，这项研究将为迪尔登和瑞尔夫的电影带来更细致和历史敏感的方法，仔细描绘战后调整中心主题的不同戏剧方法，其中“社会问题电影”仅占一部分，并且仅限于五部，尽管有影响力的电影。此外，这项研究将提供一个新颖的焦点，喜剧在迪尔登和雷夫的电影中始终存在，对伊灵工作室战时电影制作人的重要性的新见解，以及对20世纪60年代被严重忽视的国际年代的重要性；在现有的学术研究中尚未实质性地讨论的特点和趋势。它还将检查并揭示他们的工作方法和迈克尔·雷尔夫作为艺术总监完成的工作。这项研究将对迪尔登和莱尔夫的电影及其对英国电影文化的贡献进行历史和批判性的重新评估。它将利用报纸、相关行业出版物、期刊、回忆录和其他幸存的档案和文件中所载的丰富的经验证据。特别重要的是，作为迈克尔·巴尔肯收藏的一部分，英国电影学院以前没有考虑过的文件存档。这些文件包括迪尔登和瑞尔夫拍摄的一些《伊灵》电影的制作文件和相关信件。该项目还将受益于迪尔登和尔夫的亲属提供的独特的个人档案资源，以及对阿滕伯勒勋爵、布莱恩·福布斯和道格拉斯·斯洛科姆的采访，这些人在他们的职业生涯中与他们密切合作。

Basil Dearden and Michael Relph constituted one of the most significant filmmaking teams in British cinema in the post-war period. From 1943, when they first worked together on The Bells Go Down, to 1970 which saw the release of The Man Who Haunted Himself, they were responsible for over thirty films. They were the most prolific director-producer team at Ealing Studios and the series of social problem films they produced from the late 1940s up to the 1960s, which addressed themes of race (eg Sapphire 1959), sexuality (eg Victim 1961), crime and delinquency (eg The Blue Lamp 1950, Violent Playground 1958) are recognised as key British films of the period and are widely screened and taught on British cinema courses. While these films have received a degree of recognition in the recent upsurge in British cinema and film studies, the wider oeuvre of Dearden and Relph remains largely unconsidered and neglected. So, for instance, there has been little attempt to situate their work on the social problem films in relation to their broader interests in masculine adjustments to post-war social and cultural change, articulated for example in such films as Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), The Square Ring (1953) or The League of Gentlemen (1960).The simplistic perception of Dearden and Relph as makers of social problem films has failed to do justice to the diversity of their work and to the full range of themes which characterised their output. It has also resulted in a failure to distinguish significant differences across their films. Thus, there has been a tendency to accept uncritically films like The Captive Heart (1946) or A Place to Go (1963) as social problem films, when they are best understood as belonging to an altogether different tradition.By contrast, this study will address the cinema of Dearden and Relph in terms of four substantial generic and contextual categories: The Comedy films and their comic traditions; the formative period of the war years at Ealing Studios; the extensive body of films that address post-war adjustment; and the international films of the 1960s. Social problem films are central to the third category, and are here labelled 'dramas of social adjustment' and distinguished from 'dramas of masculine adjustment' and dramas addressing 'ethical dilemmas'. As a result the study will bring a more nuanced and historically sensitive approach to the cinema of Dearden and Relph, carefully delineating between different dramatic approaches to the central theme of post-war adjustment, of which the 'social problem film' comprised only a part, and was restricted to only five, albeit influential films. In addition, the study will provide a novel focus on the consistent presence of comedy in the cinema of Dearden and Relph, new insights into the importance for both filmmakers of the wartime period at Ealing Studios, and to the greatly neglected international years of the 1960s; characteristics and trends that have not been substantially addressed in existing scholarship. It will also examine and bring to light their working methods and the accomplished work of Michael Relph as an art director.The study will offer a historical and critical reassessment of the cinema of Dearden and Relph and their contribution to British film culture. It will draw on a rich base of empirical evidence contained in newspapers, relevant trade press, journals, memoirs and other surviving archives and documents. Of particular significance are previously unconsidered documents archived at the British Film Institute as part of the Michael Balcon collection. These include production files from some of Dearden and Relph's Ealing films and related correspondence. The project will also benefit from unique access to personal archive resources made available by relatives of Dearden and Relph and from interviews with Lord Attenborough, Bryan Forbes and Douglas Slocombe, who worked closely with them during their career.