The Holiday and British Film - by M Kerry (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A refreshing insight into a previously neglected area of popular British cinema - the holiday film - including historical information about the British holiday and analyses of key films from the 1900s to the recent past.

Review Quotes

'This thorough, well-argued and well-documented study is carefully structured and lucidly written. Matthew Kerry not only analyses in detail all the major films relating to the holiday but also invaluably establishes their social, cultural and cinematic contexts decade by decade. He theorizes the holiday by reference to the established authorities (Bourdieu, Adorno, Debord, Urry, Bakhtin), and analyses their various approaches to the 'tourist gaze', spectacle, marginality and the carnivalesque. The whole adds up to a unique and valuable addition to the existing literature both of the cinema and the holiday.' - Jeffrey Richards, Lancaster University, UK

'This is a ground-breaking book. It makes a comprehensive analysis of the British holiday film, and shows its complexity and variability. Matthew Kerry lays out the crucial cultural tasks performed by the holiday film, and shows how its pleasures are presented. He locates film history within a broad social and cultural context in this valuable and wide-ranging book.'

- Sue Harper, Emeritus Professor of Film History, University of Portsmouth, UK

"The Holiday and British Film will be just as welcome to social historians, and especially to historians of leisure, for it represents an excellent example of how fruitful the interaction can be between film studies and other disciplinary areas when the research is thematically focused and methodically innovative. A particular strength of Kerry's work is that he demonstrates equal confidence in his use of cultural theory (Adorno, Bakhtin) and social history (referring to the work of key historians of the seaside holiday such as John Walton and James Walvin), without being overwhelmed by either. The result is a genuinely interdisciplinary study.

The underlying theme of the book is the relationship between the holiday film and British national identity. This work should be accorded significant intellectual currency, not only as an examination of a largely unmapped trend in British cinema... but also as a contribution to the ongoing and ever-current discourse around British cinema and national identity." - Professor James Chapman, Journal of British Cinema and Television 9.4 (2012)

About the Author

MATTHEW KERRY is Lecturer in Film and Media at Nottingham Trent University, UK.