Question 10: Choose a film and discuss it through the illustration. How does social, political and historical context inform form and content? This Happy Breed (1944) by Noël Coward Introduction: British national cinema after the First World War was somewhat subdued compared to the fantastical images of previous peacetime. British cinema of the 1940s is often referred to as the "golden age", in which British films were able to compete with Hollywood in both the domestic and international markets. This arthouse strategy contested the Hollywood paradigm by “Combining the objective character and aesthetics of the documentary movement with the stars and resources of studio cinema,” noted critic Richard Armstrong (Armstrong, 2012). This artistic compromise suited both the bourgeois class of south-east Britain, who preferred major educational films, and the working class, who preferred mainstream Hollywood genre films. Noël Coward's second collaboration with director David Lean, This Happy Breed (1944) follows the Gibbons family, led by Patriarch Frank Gibbons (Robert Newton) over a twenty-year period beginning at the end of the Great War and ending at dawn of the Second World War. Coward presents the Gibbons' family life as that of any family, juxtaposing their love for each other with the trials and tribulations of life, particularly post-war life, and how the Gibbons family finds their way in a society in change. A key feature in the difficult-to-define movement of cinematic realism is the depiction of “certain aspects of life as they are experienced” (Lay, Samantha, 2002: p 8). Lean shows just this by focusing on family banalities, the idiosyncratic exchanges between Frank's recently widowed sister Sylvia (Alison Leggat)... at the center of the paper... available at: http://www.criterion.com/ current/posts/2220-this-happy-breed-home-truths [Accessed March 8, 2014].Morley, S. (1985). Kay Walsh Obituary. The Independant [online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/kay-walsh-6147393.html [Accessed 10 March 2014].Genaitay, S. (2008). ). BFI |. David Lean [online] Old.bfi.org.uk Available at: http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49462 [accessed 4 March 2014]. Feldman, R. (2014). in [Accessed 5 March 2014].Screenonline.org.uk, (2014 BFI Screenonline: Social Realism [online] Available at: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1037898/ [). Accessed March 10. 2014].