Exploring the multifaceted legacy of Mark E. Smith and The Fall, this volume delves into their influence on music, art, and politics. It examines Smith's unique and often controversial persona, highlighting his enduring impact on popular music over a remarkable thirty-year career. The book presents various perspectives, making it a vital resource for understanding the complexities of Smith's work and his band's cultural significance.
The British Glamour Film and the Permissive Society
Exploring British pornography in film during the 1970s, the book examines the cultural shifts surrounding the "Summer of Love," the Permissive Society, and the impact of Margaret Thatcher. Author Benjamin Halligan highlights overlooked filmmakers whose works reflect lifestyle aspirations and societal changes of the era. By analyzing pornography as a lens for understanding recent cultural and social history, the book offers a critical perspective on its role in shaping contemporary British society.
The book explores the transformative impact of the revolutionary fervor of 1968 on European cinema, highlighting the crises, innovations, and provocations of the era. It offers a fresh analysis of how filmmakers like Godard, Pasolini, and Fassbinder, along with genres such as horror and pornography, mirrored the cultural upheaval of youth in revolt. Set against a backdrop of social and aesthetic change, the study delves into the avant-garde and mainstream cinematic responses to a period characterized by significant cultural conflict and activism.
Hotbeds of Licentiousness is the first substantial critical engagement with British pornography on film across the 1970s, including the "Summer of Love," the rise and fall of the Permissive Society, the arrival of Margaret Thatcher, and beyond. By focusing on a series of colorful filmmakers whose work, while omnipresent during the 1970s, now remains critically ignored, author Benjamin Halligan discusses pornography in terms of lifestyle aspirations and opportunities which point to radical changes in British society. In this way, pornography is approached as a crucial optic with which to consider recent cultural and social history.