Many thanks for the excellent replies to my question on film & unions! best, Philippe -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: Film and TV Studies Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Namens Leo Enticknap Verzonden: zondag 3 oktober 2004 22:03 Aan: [log in to unmask] Onderwerp: [SCREEN-L] Reply: unions in films Langford B writes: >Corrupt unions & mobsters feature in Once Upon a Time In America (Leone, >1984) & of coure Hoffa (DeVito, 1991) They also feature in 'I Married a Communist' (Stevenson, 1950). John Dougill writes: >The Peter Sellers film I'm Alright Jack (1959) was a biting satire of >British trade unionism. ...and also of outdated and incompetent management methods, which the film argues stifled British economic recovery in the aftermath of WWII. Some pretty similar points are also made in 'The Man in the White Suit'. The political and economic context is explained very well in Correlli Barnett, 'The Lost Victory'. >And his Navigators shows what happens when unions are broken by >privatisation on British railways..... It shows a heavily biased view of 'what happens'. Loach clearly believes that British Rail was some kind of utopia - it probably was if you worked for it, but for those forced to use it as a means of transport the situation was somewhat different. I suspect that this wasn't an experience that affluent film directors such as Ken Loach had to subject themselves to very often. For the rest of us, the refreshing absence of any national strikes since the partial privatisation and fares which have gone down in real terms are a welcome development, whether Loach likes it or not. That doesn't alter the fact that railways are an obsolete Victorian technology and that if the government had any sense, they'd close the lot and convert the freed-up land to motorways and airport runways, but we're now veering off topic... Leo ---- To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask] ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.ScreenSite.org