This year’s EIFF retrospective attempts to fill in some gaps in the history of British film with a strand entitled After the Wave: Lost and Forgotten British Cinema 1965-1979. It proffers rare prints of undervalued works that failed to breach the canon first time around, including efforts from the likes of Stephen Frears and Ken Russell. By reviving such infrequently-exhibited films, the retrospective helps reframe a period of British cinema often overshadowed by more glamorous, contemporaneous movements in Germany and the US, or glossed over entirely in accounts that leap from the sixties’ kitchen-sink realism of Karel Reisz, Lyndsay Anderson and Ken Loach, to the hyperbolic ‘the British are coming!’ 1981 Oscars (with the years in between abbreviated to bawdy comedies and Hammer Horror’s decline).
Seeking to readdress the balance are Stephen Frears’ debut feature Gumshoe (1971) starring Albert Finney as the titular bingo caller turned private eye; freshly-topical political satire The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) which charts the ascent of Peter Cook’s Tory pollster; and John Mackenzie’s pre-The Long Good Friday drama Made (1972) about a single mother’s relationship with a rock star. And if you crave something self-referential try Maurice Hatton’s Long Shot (1978) which was filmed at the Festival in 1977 and features cameos from Wim Wenders and John Boorman. It tells the humorous story of two ambitious filmmakers attempting to pull together the means to make a movie.
EIFF’s promotional posters ask ‘2010: What Will You Discover?’ beneath a formidable list of past premieres: Manhattan, Wild Strawberries and Fitzcarraldo amongst others. With such a strong mix of curios and cult classics on offer in this year’s retrospective, perhaps the EIFF should reframe their question: In 2010, What Will You Re-discover?
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