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Heart of an Empire (1935)
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Күн бұрынMore from our archives: film.britishcou...
The British Council Film Collection is an archive of more than 120 short documentary films made by the British Council during the 1940s designed to show the world how Britain lived, worked and played. Preserved by the BFI National Film Archive and digitised by means of a generous donation by Google, the films are now yours to view, to download and to play with for the first time.
The film focuses on the urban landscape of the country's capital city with a particular emphasis on famous historical landmarks, including some of the buildings that surround the headquarters of the British Council.
As the title suggests, this film gloriously frames the city of London, and all of its bustling activity, as The Heart of an Empire. Littered with iconic urban imagery, such as Downing Street and No. 10, Buckingham Palace and Carlton House Terraces, the film visually depicts the workings of the city and how each separate element comes together to form the empire's nexus.
The film discusses British heritage but also refers to the many different dominions of the empire at the time; offering footage of their London buildings. As the narrator states, these dominions are also represented in London by their goods and commodities, which are imported and marketed. In addition, the film documents the King's Birthday Parade of the mid 1930s, boasting footage of the Red London Guards at the ceremony.
The film drives home the notion that at The Heart of an Empire the British people really have their "fingers on the pulse of world affairs".
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@lisastallingskeelor3328 4 жыл бұрын
I love these old narrated reels. Very comforting.
@dnstone1127 3 жыл бұрын
The 'gothic' London left by the Victorians was one of the wonders of the world, all but gone now due to the blitz and post war modernist rebuilding and property development which carries on to this day.
@ricardobardales8137 Жыл бұрын
Wonderful and brilliant! Britain has an admirable culture, cities and traditions.
@nicholasmorrill4711 Жыл бұрын
Did have.
@richardlitwin4046 7 жыл бұрын
Absolutely splendid.
@braverbird60 2 ай бұрын
Something is so erie and 6:56, where a view of Buckingham palace is shown. It’s the music and the video itself, it seems like a faded memory. A modern movie could not do this.
@normannokes9513 3 жыл бұрын
Those chhiling scenes across the Channel celebtrating the growth of a new empire.
@mwe152 13 жыл бұрын
Britain before it was broken. It's the air of decency that's strikes you most about Britain in those days & the thing that's so often missing today.
@mgore90 4 жыл бұрын
I wouldn't despair just yet. Having lived in Italy for the past 2 years, and travelled extensively around Europe, I can say that we Brits still have a unique sense of decency and politeness towards strangers that is lacking elsewhere. The Italian mentality has its upsides, such as closer nit families and friendship groups, but this seems to come at the expense of treating strangers as human beings. It's the little things, like queuing; I've never, for example, seen an Italian place the shopping items divider on the belt after they have placed their items down -- again in supermarkets once you're in you can't leave without buying something without alarms going off -- very low trust society, it just seems like everyone is out to get everyone else. Britain is unique.
@user-ky6vw5up9m 4 жыл бұрын
Don’t be fooled
@mebeasensei 3 жыл бұрын
Oh...mother England. Bring thy blossom back to thee. ... a future, a pavement, a sense of certainty, even if it is bleak...my imagination can peek ...at blossoming plains and dusty lanes...and a song.....By the Beatles.....Johnny would be proud...
@itcu185 3 ай бұрын
the narrator sounds like a fancy lad
@mgore90 4 жыл бұрын
Just imagine Britain, and Europe, without WWI and WWII.
@elrjames7799 3 жыл бұрын
@Michael Gore. A profound comment that, probably, few will appreciate.
@mk14m0 3 жыл бұрын
It would have been an entirely different world. But WWI grew out of the old order, and WWII grew out of WWI, so I fear that, without those wars, there would have been other wars, that would have been just as bad. The wisdom that came after those wars could have prevented them, but it wouldn’t have come in the first place, had the wars not happened.
@petrasant5495 3 жыл бұрын
EE Bah Gum, that were grand.
@braverbird60 4 ай бұрын
the exact finest moment of London, just before modernism infected this place.
7 жыл бұрын
I love the way he pronounces TERRACE . I'd wish I could speak such splendid RP!
@rogerclark3229 3 жыл бұрын
You can if you have elocution lessons! You don't have to have a horrible accent. You can change it.
@otisarmyalso 4 ай бұрын
Stayed at Hotel overlooking the park. Just as i recall could walk to all pl es
@nicholasmorrill4711 Жыл бұрын
I wonder what the people back then would think of it now.
@deejay3971 10 жыл бұрын
back when it was an empire
@adrianjackson2696 6 жыл бұрын
About 65 nations and 1/3 of humanity are the Commonwealth now.
@Aquarius. 3 жыл бұрын
the spirit of Ann bulling brought eye ear
@VCYT 6 жыл бұрын
Note, that the UK didn't need the EU to build the greatest empire of all time.
@gavinreid8351 5 жыл бұрын
No, it needed military might. The gun against the spear. Massacres, starvation, control.suppression.
@patricktheil8844 4 жыл бұрын
and they did not need the EU to lose it again
@grosvenorclub 4 жыл бұрын
@@gavinreid8351 Yes and no , it was actually more to do with trade but that never makes good movies . Depending on your interest the readings of the Hudson Bay Company or East India Company and others make far more interesting reading . Yes there may well have been massacres along with other powers of the day ( we probably based our example on the Romans or Vikings ) but trade was what really made the Empire .
@MegaDeansy 4 жыл бұрын
Yeah, the Roman Empire was nothing ...................................
@edwardkerrigan5356 3 жыл бұрын
@@gavinreid8351 Here we go - Britain always wrong, everybody else right.
@28704joe 4 ай бұрын
The British invented the flush toilet, something I will eternally be grateful for. Since then with the aid of Brexit they have successfully used said device to send their country down it.
@westbourne14 10 жыл бұрын
At the 1945 election, the people chose welfare over imperial grandeur. Individually, they may have prospered as a result, but the nation as a whole became a lot poorer.
@Abshenonas 9 жыл бұрын
They made the right choice
@Abshenonas 9 жыл бұрын
Other nations gained their freedom
@smegmalyzer 8 жыл бұрын
+westbourne14 the people are the nation, of course they chose welfare what dream are you living in
@stephenbrookes7268 7 жыл бұрын
You must understand that the British Empire was owned by and run for the benefit of the Aristocracy, and their petite bourgeoisie. The ordinary Brits were oppressed. Post war Britain was our country. What has made us poorer was the mass privatisations of the Thatcher Era. The tax payers paid for all of those assets which are now mostly owned by foreign companies. That is what is keeping us down. The same basic principles of enslavement are now being practiced on us as were done by the British to the colonies.
@gavinreid8351 5 жыл бұрын
We fought a war against German empire building. The countries of the British Empire wanted freedom after fighting in that war.
@drwhatson 3 жыл бұрын
"I say! The treffic is t'riffic, what?"
@greatbritishmale 11 жыл бұрын
Britiain before the 1960s. What happened :(
@adrianjackson2696 6 жыл бұрын
The 1960's saw a Labour government for the most part. Left parliamentarians living in the socialist past.
@gavinreid8351 5 жыл бұрын
The suppressed countries if the empire got their freedom the British exploitation.
@Mr.SLovesTheSacredHeartofJesus 4 жыл бұрын
@@gavinreid8351 LOL!
@caomhan84 4 жыл бұрын
@@Mr.SLovesTheSacredHeartofJesus you may LOL at what Gavin Reid said, but he's right. They even reference it in the video...the resources from other countries that made the empire bountiful. But the empire was on borrowed time in the 20th century. It was shattered by WW2 because of the institutional rot that had already set in, chiefly because of the men that had lived their entire lives in a world where Britain ruled and got far too arrogant to think it would ever collapse. They never fully appreciated how fragile its foundations were, especially in Asia. Topple some of the dominoes and the whole house comes down. 19th century thinking just didn't work in a post-industrial 20th century. Take away the indigenous cooperation that provided the Empire with its resources (and its illusion of control), and then stretch what resources remained to past their breaking point with modern war, and...well....the result was inevitable. Even without WW2, it was just a matter of time until it all fell apart. In the end, Gandhi was right. A few hundred thousand Englishmen simply couldn't control millions....when those millions decide to "down tools."
@edwardkerrigan5356 3 жыл бұрын
@@gavinreid8351 Usual blinkered narrow argument - no allowance made for the mores of the time. Always Britain wrong and everybody else is right.Get a sense of perspective for heavens sake and remember hindsight is one of the easiest attributes to flaunt.
@richardcurry4912 3 жыл бұрын
Imagine that the only music they could find for the opening scenes is FRENCH! No hope.
@grotekleum 3 жыл бұрын
The English aren't fussy - if it fits they'll borrow it.
@gavinreid8351 5 жыл бұрын
This was made during the depression. Despite everything collapsing around them the British, who considered themselves the Master race, still clung onto the idea of Empire. Germany has aspirations for a similar empire but we fought to prevent that. The British empire became too big to control .our armies could not cope with the problem of nations wanting their freedom.
@keithchapman109 3 жыл бұрын
The Master Race is more correctly a term use by the nazi to describe the Germans. We thought of ourselves as the "best" and lucky to be English, what the others thought about themselves the English cared less. The Empire was given up because the moral argument for self determination and freedom was incontrovertible, especially after a world war had been fought to restore those principals in Europe and elsewhere. The Empires demise was inevitable, it was a matter of doing it in as an orderly and timely way as possible. Your ideas about the thirties and the cause of the Second World War are eccentric to say the least. Less dogma and more history would inform.
@adeh503 3 жыл бұрын
If only they knew what was going to happen in 5 years time
@paulbroderick5358 8 жыл бұрын
All at a time when the sun never set on the British Empire or rose on the those living in squalor
@edwardkerrigan5356 3 жыл бұрын
@The Englishman Absolutely - typical irrelevant remark.
@Sennmut 11 жыл бұрын
Modern "education", and liberalism happened.
@kiwitrainguy 3 жыл бұрын
I think you mean NEO-Liberalism.
@Nonamearisto 7 жыл бұрын
So, Britain praises itself in this one. I could describe it in incredibly vulgar terms, but I won't.
@axle700 3 жыл бұрын
Shut up do
@gch8810 Жыл бұрын
I am guessing you are from a former colony that greatly benefitted from being in the British Empire.
@Nonamearisto Жыл бұрын
@@gch8810 More like, one of 13 of them which didn't benefit very much.
@zen4men 4 ай бұрын
@@Nonamearisto Have you any idea of how much money was invested in America by England ( and then Britain )? All written off. / How could America fail? Other people paid for it's building, and they had an entire continent to plunder. /
@Nonamearisto 4 ай бұрын
@@zen4menBritain made far more money from America than they ever spent, at the expense of the colonists, the natives, and yes, black slaves. Not to mention, most of the start-up costs were born by companies and individuals such as William Penn or by religious sects such as the Puritans. Not a lot actually came out of the actual treasury of the UK. Or rather, what would become the United Kingdom. Wasn't quite called that in the 1600s.
@Makeyourselfbig 4 ай бұрын
This was back when 25% of the worlds population thought the land they lived in belonged to them when it actually belonged to us Brits. Some people eh? I'll bet they wish we were back ruling over them right now.
@VinayakPande53 Ай бұрын
I can speak for Indians in saying that we do not wish for that.