Every seven years, we gather round the TV screen to see what happened next... 49 Up, the latest instalment of that landmark Granada documentary series, has just been released on DVD. [Go here to see the trailer.] Clive Crook pays tribute in a subscription-only piece in The Atlantic:
The films are remarkable—without doubt the most interesting thing I ever expect to see on screen. Their cumulative effect is intellectually and emotionally overwhelming. I am a recent immigrant from Britain to the United States; I grew up, and into middle age, with these films. (I am two years older than the subjects, and recognize segments of my own life’s trajectory in their stories.) Still, it surprised me to find that so few Americans appear to have seen them, or even to be aware of them. I highly recommend them to you.
I'm about three years younger than Neil, John, Jackie and the rest. Watching the films is always an odd experience, because I'm reintroduced to a black-and-white telly world which is familiar and yet totally alien. And all the time, the issue of class lurks in the background. Contrary to what that caring, sharing Conservative Harry Phibbs says, social divisions remain a major theme. As Crook puts it:
There are qualifications and complications, of course, but social immobility emerges as a main finding of the series. (And while Americans might flatter themselves that it is otherwise on this side of the Atlantic, they are in fact no more mobile than the British—a subject for another time.)
I look forward to reading that. In the meantime, Wikipedia includes this aside about Charles, the public schoolboy who became a BBC producer.
During an on-stage interview at London's National Film Theatre in December 2005, Michael Apted (the director) revealed that Charles had attempted to sue him when he refused to remove Charles's likeness from the archive sequences in 49 Up.
Curious that a documentary-maker should want to keep his distance from the most celebrated factual programme of the age. Yet I understand why he said no.
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