By David Gritten Published: 1:19PM GMT 19 Feb 2010
Britain"s best: Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish in Bright Star This Sunday, the leading lights of the British film industry will pour themselves into glamorous evening clothes and repair to the Royal Opera House, where they will tread the red carpet before making their way into the Bafta awards ceremony. There they will present each other with awards and bask in an atmosphere of mutual backslapping before a watching television audience.
Bafta Awards: night of the stars Interview: Bob Hoskins on The Street James Bond: why the blue-eyed Bond is a hit Rome and Juliet, Shakespeares Globe, review Robbie Keane rounds on his critics after pledging to stay at Liverpool Whale sharks toilet moment caught on filmI only hope that none of them looks too smug while theyre about it. The fact is, the last year has been a pretty good one for British films, with almost a dozen genuinely worthwhile titles in release. But its been disappointing in the sense that the British cinemagoing public has not turned out en masse to see them.
Even those titles singled out by the Baftas as representing the best our industry has to offer have performed indifferently at British box-offices. There truly hasnt been a breakout hit among them. And for people living in vast swathes of this country, away from urban centres, there have been few chances to see interesting British films.
This is nothing new. Only a year ago, we were celebrating the extraordinary success of Slumdog Millionaire, a huge hit here and throughout the world while some were wondering if the British industry might benefit from its momentum.
Theres a recurring motif here that goes way back to Four Weddings and a Funeral, through The Full Monty, Billy Elliot, right up to Mamma Mia! and Slumdog. Once every few years, a British film (often about the triumph of little underdogs) captures the global imagination, and otherwise rational people start speculating that here, finally, is a bright new dawn for our film industry.
It never happens, of course, and it certainly didnt after Slumdog. Instead, the industry fell into its familiar pattern of boom and bust. Indeed Film Four, the production company that launched Slumdog on the world, found itself in financially straitened circumstances.
In a sense, then, Sundays Baftas will be surveying a year that has found British films in default mode: that is to say, not reaching sizeable audiences.
Youd never know this from the upbeat press releases issued by the UK Film Council, the quango that, among other things, offers completion funding from the public purse to those British films that tick the right boxes. The UKFC never tires of telling us how well our films and the talent in them are performing. Look, heres a Britflick (or a British actor) nominated for an Oscar! Look, British independent films have never been more popular!
One sometimes wonders if the UKFC (which does actually perform several valuable functions) feels the need to indulge in this happy-clappy propaganda to shore up its own comfortable existence and withstand close political scrutiny.
In truth, there is a massive disconnect between the British film industry and the audiences it is meant to serve. Consider Baftas five nominees this year for Outstanding British Film: In the Loop, An Education, Nowhere Boy, Moon and Fish Tank. None has been a sizeable hit, except by the low standards of the industry.
In the Loop and An Education (both also Oscar-nominated) both grossed £2.2 million in British cinemas during the course of their entire run, over several weeks. That sounds fine till you consider that Valentines Day, a mundane Hollywood romcom, just grossed £3.7 million here on its opening weekend.
Nowhere Boy and Moon have grossed some £1.3 million, and Fish Tank only £600,000. To put the fortunes of the last film in perspective, it means that fewer than 110,000 people have paid to see it. Not many, is it?
Its not as if bad notices by British critics, the most popular excuse for failure employed by our film producers, played any part. These five titles were largely reviewed positively. Personally, Id rate all of them, plus the neglected Bright Star (which seems to me the best of all), among my 20 favourite titles of the past 12 months.
So can it be that we simply dont like British films?
Not necessarily. Valentines Day, like so many heavily marketed and advertised Hollywood films in Britain, opened last week on a massive number of screens 432. Fish Tank opened last September on just 47. What hope did it have? At that time, I met its director Andrea Arnold, who told me plaintively that she believed lots of people would like her film if only they got the chance to see it.
But they dont. Some weeks back, I alluded to this in a Saturday Telegraph column, and a reader wrote to confirm that her friends were "not aware of this type of (British) film, whereas they know all about American releases". Popcorn movies, she added, could be seen "anywhere, at all times, but anything else is restricted viewing as far as my two local cinemas are concerned".
Now this was someone with not one but two local cinemas. And she lives within 20 miles of London. If she feels excluded from British films, imagine how someone living in Cumbria or Cornwall must feel.
Still, in fairness, its not as if there were lines around the block to see these British films on the relatively few screens on which they played. Im not quite convinced Fish Tank, with its gritty, uncompromising subject matter, would have found a large audience had it been distributed more widely.
As to whether "we" like British films, it depends who you mean by "we". Tastes have changed, audiences have become progressively younger, and Hollywood simply caters to them more effectively. Id guess that, for example, An Education and Bright Star attracted mainly older crowds, and they alone do not create hit movies.
Still, its a sad reflection if potential audiences are denied the chance to see the best films the British film industry can offer.
Our cinema chains are partly to blame. Is there another country in Europe that so willingly rolls over for the big studios, and allows Hollywood product, so much of it indifferent, to exclude our own films? Over the years, when in France, Germany, Italy and Sweden, Ive been struck by the prominence of domestic films in cinemas.
There will be people at the Baftas on Sunday who have the power to change this state of affairs. Its about time they started. British film-makers and those who fund them should start by asking themselves if their films genuinely appeal to our film-going public. As it is, an awful lot of television viewers on Sunday may be wondering if this isnt just an insular industry thats talking to itself.
HOW THEY PERFORMED
HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Critical reaction: "At once loud and boring, like watching paint dry while being hit over the head with a frying pan." Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian
Number of UK screens on opening: 516
UK box office gross: £26 million.
BRITISH FILM
Bright Star
Critical reaction: "It feels special without being at all precious" Sukhdev Sandhu, Daily Telegraph.
Number of UK screens on opening: 118
UK box office gross: £1.05 million.
