British Postwar Cinema 1960-1990 - Essay Example

THE BRITISH NEW WAVE -- A CINEMA OF THE AUTEUR OR A CINEMA OF THE Portraying the ‘gritty social realism’ of post war years, the British New Wave cinema of the late 1950s and early 1960s artistically captured the sentiments and sensitivities of the angry and disillusioned young working class of the industrial north, placing them at the forefront of contemporary culture. Although the New Wave movement lasted only a few years, from 1959-1963, and the total films in the genre were just about half a dozen, the British New Wave continue to be revered for the powerful themes and evocative cinematography, the film critics of the time envisaging these movies to be heralding a ‘renaissance in British cinema.’ [Aldgate, 2006] While British New Wave and the social realism of the post-war years effectively disappeared from the big screen by the mid 60s, realism of the New Wave continues to influence filmmakers as Mark Herman, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, evident in their respective movies Brassed Off (1996) All Or Nothing (2002), Sweet Sixteen (2002). The New Wave was essentially the British response to French contemporary equivalent—the auteur cinema of Nouvelle Vogue by Truffaut, Godard and others, which focussed on innovative narrative and cinematic techniques, vitally making cinema a personal expression of the director. Even as the British New Wave drew significantly from auteurism of the Nouvelle Vogue, adapting literary and theatrical source material and focusing on realism, the ‘tell-it-like-it-is New Wave movies distinctly differed from its French counterpart in form and style. Perceivably influenced by documentary-style realism, New Wave artistically combined the vision of the novelists or the playwright, and cinematic creativity of the director. The paper attempts to analyse the creative aspirations and the artistic influences of the New Wave filmmakers with a view to understanding and categorising the essential genre of British New Wave, as a cinema of the auteur or as a cinema of the writer. Yet, central to the analysis is the idea that while essentially following the historic tradition of British Cinema of adapting successful dramas and novels and persevering the spirit of documentary-style realism of Free Cinema, the British New Wave adapted and altered the auteur theory of contemporary French cinema, combining the art and craft of the writer and director in distinctly remarkable ways. Crucial to the analysis may be an understanding of the historical development of the movement, and the motives and motivations of the New Wave filmmakers. The mid-1950s, a period of profound change in Britain’s socio-cultural landscape, proved a breeding ground for new movements in art and literature. As British society emerged from the economic turmoil of the post-war ‘austerity’ period, the long- pending agenda for social change assumed significance in literary and cultural discourses. A new class of writers, the “Angry Young Men” emerged in theatre and literature, challenging the social status quo, their works focusing on the reality of life for the working class of the industrial north, who were beginning to acquire a certain level of social and economic power. [Lay, 2002; Murphy, 2000] On the film production front, the WWII and post-war years saw cinema emerging as “a popular and vital element of national culture.” [Murphy, 2000; p.5]. While the mainstream British cinema focused on the affluent south presenting a partial national culture, by the mid-1950s, a parallel cinema – the Free Cinema – originated as some playwrights and film critics of the “Angry Young Men” circle separately embarked on a new style of film production – the low-budget documentary style social commentary on contemporary working class society of the grimy north. Lindsay Anderson’s O Dreamland, Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson’s, Momma Don’t Allow and Lorenza Mazzetti’s Together were the first movies of the new ‘free’ cinematic style. These movies attempted to import the Angry Young Man trend into cinema, as Tony Richardson, prominent among the group, commented: ‘It is absolutely vital to get into British films the same sort of impact and sense of life that what you can loosely call the Angry Young Man cult has had in the theatre and literary worlds’ [Hill, 1986; p.40]. While the new trend was successful and gained the acceptance of British film industry, the Free Cinema ended abruptly in 1959, as the new style became clichéd. The British filmmakers were by then responding to the French Nouvelle Vogue and Truffaut’s ‘politique des auteurs,’ though incongruently, with their adaptations of the “kitchen sink” drama representing the nitty-gritty reality of working-class life, paving way for the British New Wave. Combining elements of contemporary international cinema as well as “the British theatrical style,” the new style “manifested as …documentary influenced realism” [Murphy, 2000; p.5] characterised by a “fusion of documentary and feature film techniques.” [Murphy, 2000; p.126] Shot in a pseudo-documentary style in black and white, and dealing with social issues of class, sex, sexuality, and so forth, New Wave films introduced realist approach and a socially progressive outlook into British feature filmmaking.  Essentially adapting successful dramas and best-selling novels, and characterised by an unrelenting proclivity for documentary and realism, the British movies were distinctly different from that of the French contemporary equivalent, the cinema of the auteur, which focussed on innovative cinematic techniques, creating a cinema of directors as authors who experimented and experienced cinema as a visual medium that was not limited by the confines of psychological or social realism, plot and dialogue. [Conomos, 2000] Yet, radically departing from the accepted British documentary tradition, presenting the subjective realism of the director, as against the objective social reality, [Hill, 1986] the British New Wave effectively adopted auteurist elements in making the highly influential movies, more often outdoing their literary sources. Film critics often have a difficulty in attributing auteurism on British New Wave – the director as “auteur,” the “author” of the movie with a clear vision, which he recurrently imposes on his films. [Hill, 1986] Being adaptations from novels and plays the British new wave films does not present the same style of authorship as in films by Truffaut or Godard. Yet, adapting works by writers who share the same social outlook as the director, cinematising the abstract emotional trajectories of their characters, rather than documenting social realism by examining socio-economic questions of class and power, [Hill, 1986] the British New Wave directors like Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz and John Schlesinger evidently adapted the French auteurism in their cinematography, presenting cinema as the director’s personal and subjective view of a society, even as their films were in reality limited by the central plot of the drama/story and the vision of the writer. As said, the issues of sex, class and social stratification of the post-war England were a central theme in many of the New Wave movies as in their literary sources. Sympathetic films on the working class by directors and writers who belonged to middle class, the New Wave are considered an outsider’s view of the society, the realism in these movies being a subject of controversy. [Hill, 1986; Murphy 1992] While the first films of the New Wave genre like Jack Clayton’s Room at the Top (1958) based on John Braine’s 1957 novel and Tony Richardson’s Look Back in Anger (1959) based on John Osborne’s 1956 play portrayed the conflict between working-class and middle-class characters, the later movies like Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) adapting Alan Sillitoe’s 1958 novel, and Tony Richardson’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) based on Alan Sillitoe’s 1959 short story looked at the conflicts within the working class. Other movies of the genre include Tony Richardson’s The Entertainer (1960), James Hill’s The Kitchen (1961) Tony Richardson’s A Taste Of Honey (1961) John Schlesinger’s A Kind Of Loving (1962) Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life (1963); the New Wave effectively came to an end with John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar (1963), though the trend set by these directors continue to influence filmmakers and actors in Britain and elsewhere. [Murphy, 1992] Analysing a few of the most prominent these movies may be crucial to understanding the essential genre of New Wave –whether they fit the description as a cinema of the auteur or as a cinema of the writer. A New Wave trailblazer impacting the British industry with its realistic cinematography, capturing the anger of the lower middle-class working youths in post-war England for the first time in British Cinema, Jack Clayton’s feature film Room at the Top, based on John Braines most famous novel deserves credit in the discussion. In form and style Room at the Top essentially introduced the New Wave; yet, focusing on the conflicts in interpersonal relationships, the poster presenting the movie as “A Savage Story of lust of ambition,” the film is atypical of the New Wave genre that were to follow, for its lack of depth and intensity. The Monthly Film Bulletin reviewed the movie in 1959: “despite an increasingly oblique and superficial attitude to the system and background that produces todays Joe Lamptons, Room at the Top nevertheless signals a bold and personal directional talent in Jack Clayton as well as a rare departure in British film-making.” [Author Unknown, 1959; p. 15] Room at the Top, as its literary source, focuses on a materialistic working-class male, Joe Lampton, seeking a life of affluence in a Northern industrial town, choosing the easy route of marriage with an upper class woman, ignoring the true love of a woman who fulfils his sexual desires, and eventually paying a high price for his heartless materialistic aspirations. The film successfully conveys the realism and outlook of the novel – the hopelessness of a working-class man trying to build himself a ‘fulfilling’ life of wealth, power and sexual choices—apparently making it a cinema of the writer. Yet, as the director recreates the human melodrama on celluloid, with his astute choice of actors and ardent choreography of characters accompanied by perceptive camera movements and montage editing imaginatively capturing the intense emotions of anger, envy, lust and love, and the broader perspectives of gritty social reality of northern lifestyle – the murky theatres, grimy streets, stuffy, cluttered interiors – the film effectively becomes a personal statement of the director, Clayton’s cinematic vision and creativity making Room at the Top a cinema of the auteur in a very discreet way, the director sharing the vision of the writer even as the movie is essentially limited by the dialogue and plot of the novel. In depth and intensity of representing social reality, movies by director-playwright duo Tony Richardson and John Osborne are particularly remarkable, and characterise the typical genre of New Wave. The duo, belonging to the Angry Young Men cult, sharing a common vision on post-war working class life, determined to produce new types of film drawing on the ideas of Free Cinema, created the independent film company Woodfall in 1959. Their films had a political statement and used the portrayal of a male working class to chart a general outline of a broad sociological type than the unique quality of individual life. [Murphy, 1992; p16] The duo’s first film Look Back in Anger assumes significance in the discussion on British New Wave for the predetermined stance of abandoning the powerful pressures of conformism and commercialism in feature filmmaking, and their shared vision of capturing the angry and rebellious nature of the post war generation, making the film a unique creation combing the vision and craft of the playwright and director. The reality that Osbornes play is strongly autobiographical vitally persuades one to classify Look Back in Anger as a cinema of the writer. Yet, as Richardson passionately translates the plot of the play into the film medium, his perceptive directorial talent and cinematic creativity vitally leaves a sign, making him the author of the film in obvious terms. Even as he captures the sentiments of Osborne’s protagonist, Jimmy Porter, the angry young man disillusioned and unhappy with the social structure of post-war British society, filming the scenes of the play that originally took place in the small apartment, at various open real-life settings in Northern England, adopting a vibrant cinematography that is in no way stagy, and adding a subplot of racism with additional characters to depict social reality, Richardson clearly adopt auteurist elements, as the movie rises beyond the character of a filmed play of John Osborne, to that of a movie ‘based on a play’ by Osborne. [Adapted from Stewart, 1995] Despite this, a clear awareness of the play is vital to the viewing of the movie, if one were to understand the political message of the filmmaker. By the early 1960s, New Wave filmmakers in Britain, seemingly discontented with the construction of fixed meanings, causing a truism of film language, began to see cinema as open to reality – a medium incorporating the paradoxes and ambiguities of reality. A real break through in British New Wave cinema, in that respect, is Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), which introduced many cinematic conventions and assumptions that were to typify other New Wave films such as A Kind of Loving (1962), The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1962), This Sporting Life (1963) and Billy Liar (1963). [Murphy, 1992] Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is an adaptation of the famous novel by Allan Sillitoe, who also wrote the screenplay for the movie; hence it may seem reasonable to attribute the authorship of the cinema on the writer, than the director. In theme and content, as well characterisation, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is typical of the Angry Young Man cult in cinema and theatre of the time. However, capturing life as it is with unflinching honesty Karel Reisz introduces his vision of post-war British working class society given to the despicable life of illicit-sex, extra-marital relations, abortion, misogyny et al. Arthur Seaton, the protagonist of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, is a young, well-paid lathe operator living in working-class area of Nottingham. Highly individualistic and misogynistic, he is “out for a good time,” – while ‘Saturday Night” signifies Arthur’s drinking, fighting and womanizing, the “Sunday Morning” implies the consequential retribution for his hedonistic lifestyle causing him to lose his freedom. Evidently Allan Sillitoe’s focus was on the individual; his hero is not a class symbol as Reisz’s “archetypal angry young man.” [Lay, 2002; p. 71] Reisz craftily applies his directorial faculty and auteurist techniques, in retelling the story from a social realism perspective, creating a movie that came be known by its director– the opening shots of the workers leaving the factory and making their way home through the Nottingham streets not only captures the reality of industrial life, but also creates a crucial link for the audience to identify with the director’s vision and motivation, while the central theme is limited by the vision of the writer. Though critics like Hill argues that the poetic shots and montages of the northern industrial landscape are “visual abstractions…emptied of socio-economic context” [Hill, 1986, p. 136] having little relevance to the narrative, they serve the director and the audience in relating the individual’s story with the social reality. Rather than constructing fixed meanings, the visual abstractions in a way make the film open to reality; transforming the “scarred industrial landscapes of Northern England” [Lay, 2002; p. 22] Reisz’s poetic realism lends a unique auteurist quality to movie, though the sense of authorship is not as powerful as in movies by Godard or Truffaut. The later New Wave movies -- Tony Richardson’s Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, which tells the story of a working class teenager sent to a reformatory school for stealing money from a bakery in Nottingham, and John Schlesinger’s A Kind of Loving about the compromises of a young draughtsman in a North Country factory, seeking to escape the boredom of his workaday life, and Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life telling the story of a tough miner, Frank Machin who becomes a rugby league star, are all adaptations of famous literary works, yet the directors have attempted to remake these movies as their own, with a cinematic vision and creativity that simultaneously adapts and alters the vision of the writer, applying auteurist techniques premised not on French cinematic innovations, but on British social realist and documentary traditions. In conclusion, adapting successful novels the drama of the time, British New Wave may apparently seem a cinema of the writer lacking a sense of directorial authorship as seen in movies by French auteurs like Truffaut, Godard etc. Yet, effectively a British response to French auteurism, the New Wave employs auteurist techniques discreetly, and at times distinctly, in cinematography, editing, characterisation et al, though not identically as the French equivalent presenting a dreamlike cinematic experience, but incongruently, depicting life in its utter reality even as the movies vitally conforms to the literary texts in terms of theme, plot and dialogue. In this respect, the movie remarkably combines the vision of the writer, which becomes in effect the vision of the director, and the cinematic creativity of the director, making it difficult to classify the New Wave as a cinema of the auteur or that of the writer. While the movies does not present the authorship of the director, in its fullest sense, being vitally limited by the plot and theme of the novel, the director’s cinematic treatment of the story, adopting documentary influenced realism, relegates the authorship of the writer in the making of the movie; the New Wave thus presents a unique cinematic tradition, combining the art and craft of the writer and director in remarkably distinct ways. Bibliography 1. Aldgate, Dr Tony “British New Wave Cinema” 2006 Available at http://www.open2.net/historyandthearts/arts/newwave_p.html Accessed 9/05/06 2. Author Unknown “Review: Room at the Top (1958)” Monthly Film Bulletin Volume 26, No.301, February, London: British Film Institute, 1959 Available at: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/440778/index.html Accessed 9/05/06 3. Conomos, John “Truffauts The 400 Blows, or the Sea, Antoine, the Sea”, 2000 Available at http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/6/blows.html Accessed 9/05/06 4. Hill, John. Sex, Class, and Realism: British Cinema 1956-1963 London: British Film Institute, 1986 5. Lay, Samantha British Social Realism: From Documentary to Brit Grit. London: Wallflower Press, 2002. 6. Murphy, Robert British Cinema and the Second World War. London: Continuum, 2000 7. Murphy, Robert. Sixties British Cinema. London: British Film Institute, 1992 8. Stewart, Robert “A Rebel with a Cause: Look Back in Anger, 1995 Available at: http://www.glyphs.com/words/film/95/lookback.html Accessed 9/05/06 Read More