I. B. Tauris & Company The New Scottish Cinema (Cinema and Society)

From a near standing start in the 1970s, the emergence and expansion of an aesthetically and culturally distinctive Scottish cinema proved to be one of the most significant developments within late-twentieth and early twenty-first-century British film culture. Individual Scottish films and filmmakers have attracted notable amounts of critical attention as a result. The New Scottish Cinema, however, is the first book to trace Scottish film culture's industrial, creative and critical evolution in comprehensive detail across a forty-year period. On the one hand, it invites readers to reconsider the known - films such as Shallow Grave, Ratcatcher, The Magdalene Sisters, Young Adam, Red Road and The Last King of Scotland. On the other, it uncovers the overlooked, from the 1980s comedic film makers who followed in the footsteps of Bill Forsyth to the variety of present-day Scottish film making - a body of work that encompasses explorations of multiculturalism, exploitation of the macabre and much else in between.In addition to analysing an eclectic range of films and filmmakers, The New Scottish Cinema also examines the diverse industrial, institutional and cultural contexts which have allowed Scottish film to evolve and grow since the 1970s, and relates these to the images of Scotland which artists have put on screen.In so doing, the book narrates a story of interest to any student of contemporary British film. Review Murray s unparalleled knowledge and meticulous scholarship is further distinguished by his... holistic methodology... (it)... results in a study that offers indispensable reading for film scholars and industry professionals alike. Duncan Petrie, Professor, Department of Film, Theatre and Television, University of York Scholarly, elegantly written and critically nuanced... [This book] will surely become essential reading not only for film students but for those with a more general interest in Scottish culture. --Colin McArthur, editor of Scotch ReelsMurray's histories and critiques of selected films are both diligent and likeably discursive: he is an astute writer whose open-minded attention extracts intriguing detail from films… a timely, challenging and highly readable companion to Scotland's recent film activity. --Hannah McGill, Sight and Sound Vol. 25.9 (September 2015)[A] vital analysis of the evolution of Scotland s cinema since 1990, Jonathan Murray s book intertwines intricate analysis of films... with a precise account of tortuous developments in the chronically under-funded local industry. --Graham Fuller, Film Comment Vol. 51.5 (Sept/Oct 2015) About the Author Jonathan Murray is Lecturer in Film and Visual Culture at the Edinburgh College of Art (UK). His primary research interests are Scottish culture and contemporary British cinemas. He is the author of Discomfort and Joy: the Cinema of Bill Forsyth (2010) and lead editor of Scottish Cinema Now (2009).He also writes regularly on contemporary world cinema for a range of international publications.