Product Description

A study of the life and work of Alan Clarke, maker of bleak and brutal films - mostly for television - who was among the film-makers who came to the fore out of the BBC in the 1960s and 1970s. His films include "Scum", which was remade for the cinema after being banned by the BBC.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #425390 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

David Thomson, The Independent on Sunday
'A quite remarkable, heartbreaking book… Makes you sit up and start reading… A model of how to write film history.'

Nick Roddick, Sight and Sound
'If there is a better book about British television in the 70s and 80s, I have yet to read it.'

Angus Wolfe Murray, The Scotsman
'Richard Kelly’s book is a fascinating insight into a man of difficult, testy and passionate views.'

Customer Reviews

Brilliant biography of a seminal yet overlooked genius
Alan Clarke was a major force in film. His work was uncompromising in its examination of the ordinary. Although not a name that would spring to most lips if asked to name great British directors, the body of work impresses at the slightest review. It is therefore important that his name and achievements be kept alive on our bookshelves as well as in the archives of the BBC (the very corporation which banned "Scum", Clarke's borstal masterpeice, and so forced him to seek artistic freedom on the bigger screen). Richard Kelly's book uses an unusual format to present Clarke as remembered by friends, colleagues and cotemporaries. The book is a conversation. Kelly manipulates the material from over 200 interviews into an easy-flowing chain of perspective. There is no, and no need for, an authourial voice, so brilliant are the interviews woven together to provide a seamless, complex narrative of a life. Truly a book worthy of its subject.