Category: Factual
& Arts TV
Date: 09.02.2005
Printable version
91热爆 TWO, Tuesday 22 February, 7.30pm
In the not too distant past, talk of sex was strictly taboo. Newspapers
and magazines carried neither stories nor pictures of sexual matters.
And advertisers and television programme makers gave the subject a wide
berth.
How times have changed.
But though we realise that we are much more sexually liberated than
our grandparents were, seeing documentary evidence of how the subject
was dealt with is a stark reminder of just how much our attitudes have
moved on.
The second programme of the Nation on Film series
(which starts on 91热爆 TWO on Tuesday 15 February), Sex and Marriage looks
back to the pre-Aids era when sex could still be a death sentence for
many men and women.
For many women, lack of contraception meant continual pregnancy and
childbirth with often fatal consequences.
For both sexes, diseases that are spoken openly about today, and easily
treated, were once life-threatening but rarely discussed.
Greater sexual freedom dawned with the Second World War and censorship
was relaxed.
The post-war government thought the institution of marriage could survive
a wife's admission of an affair and treatment at a VD clinic.
Although the institution of marriage remained a central tenet of Fifties
society, divorce became more commonplace and women used contraception
to control the size of their families.
From Marie Stopes to the Ministry of Defence, Sex and Marriage tells
the story of how film was used to promote sexual health messages and
the ideal of motherhood in an era when the discussion of sex was taboo.
Notes to Editors
Nation on Film is a 91热爆 and Open University series (originally broadcast
on 91热爆 FOUR) which uses rare or newly-found footage - from regional
or private archives and amateur film-makers - to tell the untold story
of how film both recorded and contributed to social change in the 20th
century.
The series has uncovered rare films shot from individual perspectives
and these are accompanied by the testimony of the film-makers or people
who featured in the films.
"The series investigates the role of the camera in shaping our record
of the past, and thus provides a richer and more detailed TV portrait
of the century," says executive producer Tony Parker.
"These films allow us to see the past in a new way by becoming more
intimate with the film-makers," Tony added.
The six-part Nation on Film series is shown on 91热爆 TWO at 7.30pm on
Tuesdays from 15 February 2005.
The other programmes in the series are:
15 February: The Body Beautiful
- the story of the inter-war craze for health and leisure, based on rare footage and using eyewitness accounts
along with expert commentary.
While professionally produced local council films promoted
welfare projects, the public lapped up sexy film magazines featuring
fashion, sport and travel.
The Scouts and Guides used film to find recruits and
toughen them up.
As Europe re-armed, mass keep-fit demonstrations were
filmed and syndicated as part of the propaganda war.
Meanwhile, amateur footage reveals a middle class interlude
of prosperity, leisure and fun.
By the time Britain declared war in 1939, its soldiers
may have been healthier than ever before but they couldn't preserve
the idyllic lifestyle these films captured.
1 March: At the Chalkface - charts
the 20 year reign of selective education using films by teachers, government
and unions.
In the Forties, Fifties and Sixties, all schoolchildren
in England and Wales had to jump the hurdle of the 11-plus exam.
The ones who passed had a ticket to a more privileged
way of life. But what about the ones who failed?
听
"It's not failure,
it's selecting the right school for you," as a North Yorkshire secondary
modern head teacher is heard consoling a new pupil.
Joseph Rowntree Secondary Modern, near York, was a pioneering
school. With no exams and with bright airy facilities set in stunning
gardens, pupils were proud to go there.
By the Sixties teachers were openly calling for a change
to the system.
The documentary shows excerpts from two landmark documentary
films that capture the zeitgeist of the teaching profession at that
time.
John Krish was commissioned by the National Union of
Teachers to film life in a typical secondary modern.
When Richard Cawston at the 91热爆 let teachers speak directly
to camera, they called for an end to selection and a move to comprehensive
education.
8 March: Private Passions - how
amateur film-making boomed in the Thirties.
Hidden in the film archives throughout Britain there is a treasure chest
of memories.
Private Passions opens the lid on these amateur cinematic
enthusiasts and explores some of their secrets, motives and passions.
Against a backdrop of social upheaval, Private Passions
tells the story of how those aspiring film-makers chose to record their
daily lives with little concern for the wider concerns of the day.
The programme tells the story of Lucy Fairbank, a mysterious
schoolmistress in West Yorkshire who became a prolific film-maker in
her village.
In Cornwall we see examples of the work of Major Gill
who was passionate about filming the dying industries of his county.
In complete contrast are the films of Claude Endicott
who turned his back on nostalgia and captured anything modern or technologically
innovative.
Then there are the little gems of family life on film
from Robert Parriss who was so obsessed with film-making that he kept
his family poor so he could buy film.
15 March: Selling Salvation - after
the Second World War the church battled for more than a quarter of a century with what it viewed as a tide
of immorality sweeping the nation.
One weapon in their arsenal for winning back hearts
and minds was film.
Selling Salvation looks at the successes and failures
of a cross section of films produced during the Fifties and Sixties
- films that attempted to offer salvation by warning of the evils of
a permissive society either by promoting virtuous Christian values,
or taking the bull by the horns - which the Mothers' Union did with
a film containing extraordinary scenes of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Set in the context of the cultural earthquakes of the
period, the programme asks what prompted the religious organisations
concerned to preach in such a visual way to increasingly deaf ears.
The programme looks at how alternative spiritual groups
turned to film as a way of recruiting congregations: a home-grown pastor
of a faith-healing church from Manchester filmed unsettling supernatural
events in his services; and in the slums of Leeds, a Christian film-maker
recorded the squalor in an attempt to raise the profile of a local welfare
church.
22 March: Make Yourself at 91热爆
- how the emergence of Britain's Asian communities was captured on film.
In the Fifties immigration from the Commonwealth was encouraged.
Newcomers were labelled as Asian immigrants but they came from different
countries, with different languages and different faiths.
Attitudes hardened among some who lived near them in the West Midlands,
where TV documentary makers encountered open expressions of prejudice.
By 1964, when the 91热爆 covered the heated election campaign in Smethwick,
it was clear that the issue of race needed to be covered carefully on
camera.
A new approach was called for from broadcasters and integration was
the goal.
Research for the 91热爆 showed many Asian immigrants had televisions.
Mahendra Kaul was brought in to present a series of films aimed at helping
the Asian immigrants to settle and integrate.
But for many British Asians, it was the cinema that helped them escape
from western culture and retain their own identity.
They queued every week to watch films made in India, turning the cinemas
into social centres.
Asian families by now were getting access to their own film-making
equipment. Their films are a record of a moment in history, showing
young Asians growing up in a multicultural environment.
