British Social Realism
Social Realism in European Cinema
Soviet Socialist Realism
Italian Neorealism
French New Wave
New British Cinema
Five Periods of British Social Realism
DOCUMENTARY
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John Grierson
BRITISH NEW WAVE “Angry Young Men”
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“Saturday Night, Sunday Morning”
SWINGING LONDON
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“Blowup”
CONTEMPORARY (Mike Leigh, Ken Loach)
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“Secrets & Lies”
HYPERREALISM
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“Trainspotting”
John Grierson
(1889-1972)
MODERN DOCUMENTARY REALISM
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Father of the documentary film
Film as an effective means of communications
between individual and the state
Purpose is to create social unity and reform
John Grierson
(1889-1972)
MODERN DOCUMENTARY REALISM
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Focused on poverty, hunger, unemployment,
and other social problems
Intuitive/experiential films can enable people
to understand social issues better than
rational, cognitive analysis
Use of realistic and naturalistic images to
signify abstract realities
British Social Realism
ZEITGEIST OF THE 1950s
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Collapse of British Empire
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Suez Canal crisis
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Cold War (Ban the Bomb)
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Working class / student protests
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Materialism and consumerism
British Cinema: 1945-54
“Several pressures prevented films from
adopting more radical social positions in that
period. Foremost was the industry's fear and
suspicion of involvement in controversy.
Behind this was the repressive form of
censorship imposed at that time by the British
Board of Film Censors. Attacks on the
establishment were not only discouraged, they
were actively forbidden. Social criticism, at
least of things British, tended to be
retrospective. Hence the flurry of historical
costume pieces. It was all right to discuss the
bad behaviour of the Victorians .
--www.britmovie.co.uk
British New Wave
(1950s-1960s)
FREE CINEMA
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“Free” from the dictates and restraints of the
commercial film industry and UK studio system
Comparable to French New Wave rebellion
against “cinema du papa” and tradition of quality
Title of film program at National Film Institute in
1956:
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Anderson: O Dreamland

Reisz/ Richardson: Momma Don’t Allow

Mazzetti: Together
“Kitchen Soup” Manifesto
British New Wave
(1950s-1960s)
FREE CINEMA
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Sight and Sound and Sequence magazines
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“The camera eye they turn on society is
disenchanted, sad, occasionally ferocious
and bitter.”
Signed films, with a point of view
(not documentaries)
Make films “in the streets”
British New Wave
(1950s-1960s)
Lindsay Anderson
O Dreamland (1953)
Reisz / Richardson
Momma Don’t Allow (1955)
Jack Clayton
Room at the Top (1958)
Tony Richardson
Look Back in Anger (1958)
Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
Karel Reisz
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning (1960)
British New Wave
(1950s-1960s)
British New Wave
(1950s-1960s)
ANGRY YOUNG MEN
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Protests by college students and working class
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Questioning of the “myth of the British Empire”
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Frustration over lack of class mobility
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Loss of traditional moral and cultural values
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Females depicted as “clinging, entrapping”
individuals, forcing men to stay in home town,
raise family and buy new consumer products
Alienated youth
British New Wave
(1950s-1960s)
ANGRY YOUNG MEN
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New Left Review
Called for a fundamental restructuring of the
British economic system
Attacked:
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Unfair labor practices
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Middle class values
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Immoral popular culture
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Class structure
British New Wave
(1950s-1960s)
ANGRY YOUNG MEN
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Part of a larger social movement, assailing the
British class structure and calling for the
replacement of bourgeois elitism with liberal
working-class values.
British New Wave
(1950s-1960s)
ANGRY YOUNG MEN
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Frank approach to sex and other taboos
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The mechanization of life
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The “sadness of urban life”
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Found Board of Censors over-protective and
obsolete
British New Wave
Room at the Top
(1950s-1960s)
“The film coincided with the upsurge of discontent
with Britain's direction, distaste for the
government and anxiety over nuclear involvement
which produced the CND and the Aldermaston
marches. Room at the Top, with its opportunist
hero screwing the establishment of his northern
town and the inn owner's daughter, provided a
readily identifiable index of reaction for the
suburban filmgoer. “
--www.britmovie.co.uk
British New Wave
The People
(1950s-1960s)
D. H. Lawrence
Ah the people, the people!
surely they are flesh of my flesh!
When, in the streets of the working quarters
they stream past, stream past, going to work;
then, when I see the iron hooked in their faces,
their poor, their fearful faces
then I scream in my soul, for I know I cannot cut
the iron hook out of their faces, that makes them so drawn,
nor cut the invisible wires of steel that pull them
back and forth to work,
back and forth, to work
like fearful and corpse-like fishes hooked and being played
by some malignant fisherman on an unseen, safe shore
where he does not choose to land them yet,
hooked fishes of the factory world.
Swinging London
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London center of counter-culture
revolution
Music, fashion, art, film
Recovery of the British economy
from the post World War II austerity
Creation of alternate view of reality
(beyond rebellion of “angry young
men”)
Swinging London
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Emphasis on hedonism, free-love,
drugs, experimentation, mysticism
and “the East” (vs. West)
Also focuses on the lost, isolated
individual alienated from tradition
and convention (e.g., Alfie)
Swinging London
Popular British Cinema
“Americans have shown…that they want
pictures reflecting the simple emotions.
We are trying to crash into their market
by offering them gloom-sadism-and-softfocus. We must aim at the box office
and not the art gallery. It is no good
aiming over their heads. It will not help
us earn dollars.”
Kine Weekly (1947)
Popular British Cinema
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Sustain myth of “Englishness”
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Stereotypes:
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London urbanity (lords and ladies)
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Historical costume dramas
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Simple but crafty villagers
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Adaptation of literary classics
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Animations
Top Grossing Films in UK (2005)
1 Revenge Of The Sith
2 Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
3 War Of The Worlds
4 Meet The Fockers
5 Madagascar
6 Hitch
7 Batman: Begins
8 Mr. & Mrs.Smith
9 Wedding Crashers
10 Fantastic Four
11 Ocean's 12
12 Pride And Prejudice
13 Robots
14 Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
15 Wallace & Gromit:Vurse Of The Were-rabbit
16 Valiant
17 Closer
18 The Aviator
19 Kingdom Of Heaven
20 The 40 Year Old Virgin
US
US/UK/Australia
US
US
US
US
US
US
US
US/Germany
US/Australia
UK
US
US/UK
UK
UK
US
US
US/UK/Spain/Germany
US
State of UK Film Industry
Country
India
Films Per Year
Screens
1,200
United States
543
Japan
293
France
200
Spain
137
Italy
130
Germany
116
China
100
Philippines
100
UK
100
36,000
3300
The Power of Cinema
“Americans have turned every cinema in
the world into the equivalent of an American
consulate.”
--UK government report
The Battle with Hollywood
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Government subsidies (including Lottery)
Television support (Channel Four)
(33% of feature films made in Britain in 1984)
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Secrets and Lies, Trainspotting
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Co-productions (“The Full Monty”)
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British “product”; US distribution—and profits
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Use US stars (Bridget Jones’s Diary)
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Emigration to US (directors)
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Artistic resistance (Mike Leigh)
Current British Social Realism
MARXIST SOCIAL REALISM
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Expose social injustices, poverty, crime, etc.
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Economic determinism
PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIAL REALISM
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People forced to live in horrific conditions
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Society dealt them a bad hand
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Still human beings with free will
Current British Social Realism
KEN LOACH (Marxist)
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Film as medium for social reform
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Location shooting & non-professional actors
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Class inequality, unfair labor practices, child
welfare, poverty, crime
Marxist political perspective
“Not an exemplary example of cinematic
realism”
Current British Social Realism
MIKE LEIGH (Psychological)
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“Master of psychological cinematic realism”
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Social commentary without sermonizing
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“This is the way life is, the way people are”
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Characters are the key
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Unique approach to filmmaking
Mike Leigh: “All or Nothing”
Hyperrealism
“The burning intensity of a copy where an
imprint of the real becomes a starting point for
its stylization and refinement.”
--European Cinema
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Intensification of “the real”
Postmodern, time-condensed, hyperbolic and
parodic depiction of social reality
Reality on steroids
A Question of National Identity
THEMES / EMPHASIS
1930s – 1955:
Nostalgia for Old England the Empire
Common heroes and myth
British heritage films & literary adaptations
“Englishness”
British New Wave:
Questioning of government’s vision
Protest against consumerism,
suburbanism and Americanization
Class struggle
1960s-70s:
Counter-culture experimentation
1980s:
Deindustrialization, unemployment
Changes in social roles, masculine
identity
1990s – 2000s:
Multiculturalism, alternate heritages