Cornut-Gentille D'Arcy Chantal 2009 This thesis is devoted to the analysis of the Raj films produced in Britain during the 1980s, namely: Heat and Dust (Ivory, 1982), Gandhi (Attenborough, 1982) and A Passage and to India (Lean, 1984), and the TV series The Jewel in the Crown (1982) and The Far Pavilions (1984). As a genre, this kind of film has often been accused of promoting an old-fashioned notion of British identity, based on those Victorian values of the past. On the other hand, I believe that a close analysis of the films may reveal a certain degree of criticism of the past as well as traces of dissatisfaction with the present, especially in terms of ethnic and gender relationships. Hence, what I try to demonstrate, or rather explore, is the presence of different discourses in these productions, their complexity and ambivalence and their cultural importance in both reflecting and constructing – or refracting – the social reality of their historical context. TESIS