Petit imagined a British cinema that never materialized

Evidence

Petit has described Content as an ‘informal coda’ to his 1979 film Radio On (recently reissued on BFI DVD). With its strong debt to European art cinema, Radio On projected a rapprochement between British and European film that never happened – a rapprochement anticipated in the 1970s art pop (Kraftwerk, Bowie) used so prominently in that film. Petit imagined a British cinema that, like that music, could assert its Europeanness not by rejecting America, but by confidently absorbing American influences. Yet this future never arrived. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 501

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Fisher’s wider argument in this book about hauntology and lost futures — the ‘non-existent past’ phrasing recurs across the collection. — connects to: A British-European film rapprochement was once imaginable but never arrived — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 501

Broader Connections

• A British-European film rapprochement was once imaginable but never arrived #expands (0.85) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 501