Akenfield

Akenfield
Directed byPeter Hall
Screenplay byRonald Blythe
Based onAkenfield: Portrait of an English Village
by Ronald Blythe
Produced by
  • Peter Hall
  • Rex Pyke
CinematographyIvan Strasberg
Edited byRex Pyke
Music byMichael Tippett
Production
company
Angle Films
Distributed byAngle Films
Release dates
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£120,094[1]
Box office£931[1]

Peter Hall's film Akenfield made use of a scene depicted in Thomas Bewick's 1797 A History of British Birds: a reaper finds he has just killed a partridge sitting on her nest.

Akenfield is a film made by Peter Hall in 1974, based loosely upon the book Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe (1969). The production company Angle Films that produced the film had three directors; Peter Hall, Ronald Blythe and Rex Pyke. Blythe himself has a cameo role as the vicar and all other parts are played by real-life villagers who improvised their own dialogue. There are no professional actors in the piece. Blythe's book is the distillation of interviews with 49 local people, maintaining privacy with false names and sometimes amalgamating two people in one. Blythe once referred to his book as a work of poetry. [2] The film is a work of fiction, based on an 18-page story synopsis by Blythe.

  1. ^ a b Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 357. Income is distributor's receipts, combined domestic and international, as at 31 December 1978.
  2. ^ "Ronald Blythe - 'Akenfield' the film". YouTube.