This volume offers a detailed and comprehensive analysis of British film culture from 1997 to the present. Using a wide range of films from the Blair era and beyond as case studies& mdash;from from Notting Hill (1999) and Billy Elliot (2000) to 28 Days Later (2002) and The Queen (2006)& mdash;it examines the ways in which recent British filmmaking might be regarded as distinctive, relevant and successful.

Not all documentary films and videos are sober depictions of the real world. Documentary representations can present expressive, entertaining and spectacular images. This book examines such innovative approaches as they occur within the process of "documentary display"& mdash;a practice which emphasizes the visual attractions of documentary representation. Works of documentary display explore modes of exhibitionistic "showing" in which sensation is frequently the vehicle of cognition and knowledge. Such a display is analyzed within the popular and prominent forms of found-footage film, "rockumentary", the city film, nonfiction surf film and video and certain views of natural science topics. This accessible and informed study, with its focus on entertaining, popular, spectacular and sensational forms of representation, makes an important contribution to theoretical analyses of documentary film and video.