Mind the Gap: Brexit Cinema, the Long Take, and British National Identity

With its vote in 2016 and implementation in 2020, Brexit has defined the twenty-first century in the United Kingdom and British moving image culture along with it as British identity has become increasingly defined by inclusion and exclusion, inside and outside, polarization and separation. This presentation will consider the role of the long take (an unusually lengthy uninterrupted run of the camera) in twenty-first century British cinema through examples from Atonement (2007), 1917 (2019) and Adolescence (2025). Through a historical, cultural, and formal analysis, this presentation considers the twenty-first century British long take as a mirror of British angst by engaging with essays like "Between unity and fragmentation: the highly choreographed long take” by Laura Feijó and “Brexit and English Identity” by Ben Wellings. Amid the division of Brexit, the long takes explores the paradoxes of contemporary British politics: mending, division, standing out, and sneaking in unnoticed.