A Taste of Honey

Williams, Melanie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3609-207X (2023) A Taste of Honey. BFI Film Classics . Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781839021558

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Abstract

A Taste of Honey (1961) is a landmark in British cinema history. In this book, Melanie Williams explores the many, extraordinary ways in which it was trailblazing. It is the only film of the British New Wave canon to have been written by a woman – Shelagh Delaney, adapting her own groundbreaking stage play. At the behest of director Tony Richardson and his company, Woodfall, it was one of the first films to be made entirely on location, and was shot in an innovative, rough, poetic style by cinematographer Walter Lassally. It was also the launchpad for a new type of young female star in Rita Tushingham. Tushingham plays the young heroine, Jo, who finds she is pregnant after her love affair with Jimmy (Paul Danquah), a Black sailor. When Jimmy's ship sails away, Jo is comforted and supported by her gay friend Geoff (Murray Melvin), while her unreliable mother, Helen (Dora Bryan), has her own life to lead. Candid in its treatment of matters of gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and motherhood, and highly distinctive in its evocation of place and landscape, A Taste of Honey marked the advent of new possibilities for the telling of working-class stories in British cinema. As such, its rich but complex legacy endures to this day.

Item Type: Book
Uncontrolled Keywords: british cinema,women film history
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Interdisciplinary Institute for the Humanities
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Legible / Visible
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > British Cinema & Television
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Film, Television and Media
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 08 Sep 2022 11:30
Last Modified: 21 Jul 2023 10:49
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/87935
DOI:

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