FromGreat Expectations© Carlotta Films
Week one celebrates the wealth of British literature in the second half of the 19th century: Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray directed by Albert Lewin), Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book), Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Rouben Mamoulian) and George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion by Anthony Asquith, 1938).
Five screenings create a picture of Victorian society: its puritanism and its hypocrisy (Oscar Wilde by Gregory Ratoff), the violence between social classes and the consequences of industrialisation (How Green was my Valley by John Ford). The films Black Narcissus by Michael Powell and The Four Feathers by Alexander Korda take us across the British Empire from India to Africa.
The third week looks at the mysterious, darker side of British life: in the London fog, murderers and prostitutes, decadent aristocrats and depraved middle class characters meet and confront each other (Jack the Ripper by John Brahm). And behind the lofty windows of elegant homes, ghosts emerge straight from the subconscious of troubled characters (The Ghost and Mrs Muir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz). And of course there is the most famous detective of all, drug user and violinist, the immortal Sherlock Holmes (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes by Billy Wilder).
Finally, four screenings are devoted to Charles Dickens, whose bicentenary will be celebrated in 2012, with the famous David Lean adaptations of Great Expectations and Oliver Twist.
Programme subject to change
