Buffy the Vampire Slayer: BFI TV Classics Book Series
Book reviews by Steven Salardino of Skylight Books
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: BFI TV Classics Book Series
British Film Institute
What do Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Withnail and I, The Birds, and Doctor Who have in common? They all have their own featured title in the British Film Institute’s ‘Classics’ series. This year, BFI has introduced ‘TV Classics,’ the latest of these series’, with books about Doctor Who, The Office (the original British version), Our Friends in the North, and (the only American show featured so far) Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
To fans of the BFI film books, these new TV studies are reason to celebrate. The BFI Film Classics and Modern Classics series provide tight critical analyses of some of our favorite films and are written for both the casual movie viewer and the hardcore maximum package Netflix subscriber. Films such as Lolita, On the Waterfront, Groundhog Day, High Noon, and Jaws all get illustrated essays full of insight, history, personal observations, as well as deconstructed readings with interviews of key screenwriters, directors, and actors. (Did you know that the line “Are you a sponge or a stone” from Withnail and I was taken from director/writer Bruce Robinson’s experience with Franco Zeffirelli when filming Romeo and Juliet? Did you even know Robinson acted in Romeo and Juliet?)
To have BFI turn some attention to contemporary television shows (and legitimize the ‘Classic’ label) gives some of us slightly obsessive fans validity. It can be argued that TV is more culturally influential than films with its in-home placement and the emotional connection created by observing a character’s development over multiple years. As anyone who has spent time with Buffy knows, watching the episodes week after week was not just another excuse to cram eight people on a bed and stuff our faces with nachos and tequila. Rather, it was partaking in a Dickensian serialization that was revolutionizing American TV. At Skylight, we may be a little overboard in our love for the Chosen One and the rest of the Scoobies (we have carried over 20 different books on the series) but any watcher (Buffyverse pun intended) of the series will tell you that this show did, in fact, push the envelope. In the new BFI book, critic Anne Billson goes season-by-season dissecting what made Buffy the Vampire Slayer powerful and addictive. Reinventing the high-school genre (Beverly Hills 90210, Happy Days) with formal experimentation and subverting monster movie clichés with powerful characters and writing, Billson explains how creator Joss Whedon produced an emotionally relevant and complex mythology. Show highlights and critical story arcs are examined and the author relates her own personal experience watching the episodes along with their critical achievements. The series’ unique take on crucial subjects like death, love, high school, and vampires is explored and pondered on. Ultimately the book shows how a story of personal empowerment became a story of global empowerment while retaining its integrity and ultimately transforming what television is capable of.