1. British Social Realism

2. MY THESIS Trainspotting is a postmodern, hyper-realistic production that is a response to and a continuance of the great cinematic tradition of British Social Realism.

3. MY THESIS Trainspotting is a postmodern, hyper-realistic production that is a response to and a continuance of the great cinematic tradition of British Social Realism. This tradition began with John Grierson and the British documentary movement of the 1920S -1940s.

4. MY THESIS Trainspotting is a postmodern, hyper-realistic production that is a response to and a continuance of the great cinematic tradition of British Social Realism. This tradition began with John Grierson and the British documentary movement of the 1920S -1940s. It was refined and fully developed by the directors of the “Free Cinema” of the 1950s (aka the “Angry Young Man,” “Brit Grit,” or “Kitchen Sink Manifesto” movement)

5. MY THESIS Trainspotting is a postmodern, hyper-realistic production that is a response to and a continuance of the great cinematic tradition of British Social Realism. This tradition began with John Grierson and the British documentary movement of the 1920S -1940s. It was refined and fully developed by the directors of the “Free Cinema” of the 1950s (aka the “Angry Young Man,” “Brit Grit,” or “Kitchen Sink Manifesto” movement) …and lives on in the psycho-realistic films of Mile Leigh, and the social reform films of Ken Loach.

6. “European cinema’s defining aesthetic is realism
“European cinema’s defining aesthetic is realism. [It] has pre-cinematic origins in the nineteenth century European realist novel and in pre-twentieth century Western visual arts…as progressive attempts to represent a concrete ‘reality.’ The ideology of ‘realism’ is one of the means by which European cinema has traditionally sought to differentiate itself from Hollywood.” Shohini Chaudhuri, Contemporary World Cinema

7. Social Realism in Crime Films

11. The Origins of Realism (It’s a European thing)

12. Late 1800s Industrialization of Europe
Rise of naturalism and realism in the arts
Questioning of tradition values
Focus of art shifts from “kings and rulers” to the common man
Themes of alienation, oppression, dehumanization, poverty
Birth of existentialism
CIVILIZATION ENTERED THE MODERNIST WORLD
FAILURE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, WAR, POVERTY
A term used to describe the characteristic aspects of literature and art between World War I and World War II.
Challenges to Victorian order, 19th science
Sense that Western culture had lost its bearings & values
Revolt against dehumanization of industrialism
Exposure of hypocritical moralism of capitalistic Christianity
Popularization of evolutionary theory

13. 1900-1950 World Wars I & II Marxist challenge to capitalism
Oppression of workers and lower class
Imperialism and colonialism
Questioning of traditional worldviews in the arts and science (Freud and Einstein)
CIVILIZATION ENTERED THE MODERNIST WORLD
FAILURE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, WAR, POVERTY
A term used to describe the characteristic aspects of literature and art between World War I and World War II.
Challenges to Victorian order, 19th science
Sense that Western culture had lost its bearings & values
Revolt against dehumanization of industrialism
Exposure of hypocritical moralism of capitalistic Christianity
Popularization of evolutionary theory

14. Realism & Naturalism
Naturalism: The idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world.
Influenced by Darwinism
Focus on common people
Victims of industrialized society
Abandonment of artificial literary conventions
Loss of decorum
CIVILIZATION ENTERED THE MODERNIST WORLD
FAILURE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, WAR, POVERTY
A term used to describe the characteristic aspects of literature and art between World War I and World War II.
Challenges to Victorian order, 19th science
Sense that Western culture had lost its bearings & values
Revolt against dehumanization of industrialism
Exposure of hypocritical moralism of capitalistic Christianity
Popularization of evolutionary theory

15. Naturalism
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character.
It was depicted as a literary movement that seeks to replicate a believable everyday reality, as opposed to such movements as Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment.
Naturalism is the outgrowth of literary realism, a prominent literary movement in mid-19th-century France and elsewhere. Naturalistic writers were influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. They believed that one's heredity and social environment largely determine one's character.
CIVILIZATION ENTERED THE MODERNIST WORLD
FAILURE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, WAR, POVERTY
A term used to describe the characteristic aspects of literature and art between World War I and World War II.
Challenges to Victorian order, 19th science
Sense that Western culture had lost its bearings & values
Revolt against dehumanization of industrialism
Exposure of hypocritical moralism of capitalistic Christianity
Popularization of evolutionary theory

16. Naturalism
Whereas realism seeks only to describe subjects as they really are, naturalism also attempts to determine "scientifically" the underlying forces (e.g., the environment or heredity) influencing the actions of its subjects.
Naturalistic works often include uncouth or sordid subject matter; for example, Émile Zola's works had a frankness about sexuality along with a pervasive pessimism.
Naturalistic works exposed the dark harshness of life, including poverty, racism, violence, prejudice, disease, corruption, prostitution, and filth. As a result, naturalistic writers were frequently criticized for focusing too much on human vice and misery.
CIVILIZATION ENTERED THE MODERNIST WORLD
FAILURE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, WAR, POVERTY
A term used to describe the characteristic aspects of literature and art between World War I and World War II.
Challenges to Victorian order, 19th science
Sense that Western culture had lost its bearings & values
Revolt against dehumanization of industrialism
Exposure of hypocritical moralism of capitalistic Christianity
Popularization of evolutionary theory
Wikipedia. And Williams, Raymond Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana, 1988

17. Neorealism in European Cinema
Italian Neorealism French New Wave British Social Realism
CIVILIZATION ENTERED THE MODERNIST WORLD
FAILURE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, WAR, POVERTY
A term used to describe the characteristic aspects of literature and art between World War I and World War II.
Challenges to Victorian order, 19th science
Sense that Western culture had lost its bearings & values
Revolt against dehumanization of industrialism
Exposure of hypocritical moralism of capitalistic Christianity
Popularization of evolutionary theory

18. Andre Bazin ( )
Liked films that focused on everyday psychological experience
Italian Neorealism (The Bicycle Thief)
Disliked modernist, expressionistic
Disliked films that imposed a political ideology on the viewer
Long takes, of surrounding environment
Impact of environment on people (French determinism)

19. Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)
Response to artificiality of cinema of the Fascist period
Influenced by French poetic realism and American literary naturalism (e.g., Hemingway)
Experiences of poor and socially marginalized
“Slice of life”; things and facts in time and place (versimo)
Ambivalence of everyday experience
Some took strong social political stance
Marxist, with a hopeful, humanistic dimension

20. Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)
CHARACTERISTICS
On-location shooting
Long takes
Natural light
Medium and long shots
Non-professional actors
Working class protagonists
Environment as important as actors

21. Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)
CESARE ZAVATTINI
“Some Ideas on the Cinema” (1953)
1. Portray real or everyday people, using nonprofessional actors in real settings
2. Examine socially significant themes
3. Promote the “organic” development of situations--the “real flow of life”--in which complications are rarely resolved

22. Italian Neorealism (1940-50s)
CESARE ZAVATTINI
“Identification with the common man in the crowd.”
“Take dialogue and actors from the street.”
“Reality in American films is unnaturally filtered.”

23. French New Wave ( )
Response to French “tradition of quality” (“staged” literary scripts)
Cahiers du Cinema
Auteurism
Rebellion against authority & convention
Existential outlook (post-WWII)

24. Zeitgeist: France, Late 1950s
The Fourth Republic
20 governments between
Algerian War for independence (people questioned colonial policies)
More Algerians killed by French than French killed by Germans (ironic occupation)
Failed occupation in Indochina
Threat of nuclear war (Cold War)

25. French “Tradition of Quality”
“Le cinema de papa”
Producer-controlled studio system
Required certification from national film school (Institut Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques)
Highly institutionalized (15 studios, unions, apprentice system)
“Beautiful images to illustrate screen plays”
A “highly mannered style removed from everyday reality”

26. Zeitgeist: Culture & Popculture
Sartre and Camus (existentialism)
Influence of avant garde, “Beatnik” culture on society
Hedonistic “youth culture”
All-night dancing at jazz clubs
Rejection of bourgeois values
Fascination with things American:
Hollywood
Coca-Cola
Blue jeans

27. Origins Sociological survey on the values of postwar French youth
Clothing, habits, morals, values
Generation wanted to be liberated from traditions of the past
Obsession with the “new” (TV, appliances, automobiles)
Emergence of the “new liberated French woman” (Bridget Bardot)

28. New Generation Candid attitude toward sex
Young women identified with the Bardot image
Rejection of parent’s values
Accent of individual freedom and expression
Infusion of American culture (jazz, cars and Rock-and-Roll)

29. Young Film Makers “40 who are under 40”
Rejected French “tradition of quality”
1959 Cannes Film Festival (Existential novelist Andre Malraux was the Minister of Culture)
La Napoule colloquium of young filmmakers
Cine clubs in the Latin Quarter of Paris

30. Cahiers du Cinema Godard and Truffaut started as critics
Met Andre Bazin
Bazin was the “founding father” of film theory and New Wave cinema

31. French New Wave UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY:
Personalized existential visions
Stressed “the individual, the experience of free choice, the absence of any rational understanding of the universe and a sense of the absurdity in human experience”

32. French New Wave UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY:
Characters seek to act authentically, taking responsibility for their actions, instead of playing roles dictated by society
Marginalized anti-heroes, who act spontaneously and often amorally

33. French New Wave FILM AESTHETIC: “Low-budget” anti-Hollywood look
Casual, natural appearance
Location shooting (not studio)
Ambient sound and light
“Real,” often improvised dialogue (overlapping)
Improvised scripting

34. French New Wave FILM AESTHETIC: “In the streets and cafes”
“Bored couple having meaningless conversation in Paris café, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and absinthe” (Skutski)
Mobile camera (tracking & panning)
Jump cuts, “free” editing
Admired Hitchcock & Italian Neorealism

35. French New Wave FILM AESTHETIC:
Auteurism: the personal stamp of the director
Long takes
Flux and flow of time
Breaks with common expectations of cinema
Loose plots
Self-referent

36. French New Wave: “Left Bank”
More experimental & cerebral
Philosophical investigations
Fascination with memory
Play with time and space
Political left
“Pre-postmodern”

37. French New Wave Jean-Luc Godard Francois Truffaut Alain Resnais
Eric Rohmer
Claude Chabrol
Agnes Varda
Louis Malle
Alain Robbe-Grillet

38. Five Periods of British Social Realism
DOCUMENTARY
John Grierson
BRITISH NEW WAVE
Angry Young Men
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning
SWINGING LONDON
Blowup
CONTEMPORARY (Mike Leigh, Ken Loach)
Secrets & Lies
HYPERREALISM
Trainspotting

39. 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 (Angry Young Men)
1960s-70s: Counter-culture experimentation
1980s: Deindustrialization, unemployment Changes in social roles, masculine identity
1990s – 2000s: Multiculturalism, alternate heritages Hyperreality

40. John Grierson (1889-1972) Father of the documentary film
MODERN DOCUMENTARY REALISM
Father of the documentary film
Film as an effective means of communications between individual and the state
Purpose is to create social unity and encourage reform

41. John Grierson ( )
MODERN DOCUMENTARY
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
Launched British Documentary Film Mob Movement (1940s--100 plus films)
Part 1
Part 2

42. British Social Realism
ZEITGEIST OF THE 1950s
Collapse of British Empire
Suez Canal crisis
Cold War (Ban the Bomb)
Working class / student protests
Materialism and consumerism

43. British Cinema:
“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 . --

44. British New Wave (1950s-1960s)
FREE CINEMA
“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:
Anderson: O Dreamland
Reisz/ Richardson: Momma Don’t Allow
Mazzetti: Together
“Kitchen Soup” Manifesto

45. British New Wave (1950s-1960s) Sight and Sound and Sequence magazines
FREE CINEMA
Sight and Sound and Sequence magazines
“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”

46. 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)

47. British New Wave (1950s-1960s)
Soup Kitchen Manifesto (1956)

48. British New Wave (1950s-1960s)
ANGRY YOUNG MEN
Protests by college students and working class
Questioning of the “myth of the British Empire”
Frustration over lack of class mobility
Loss of traditional moral and cultural values
Females depicted as “clinging, entrapping” individuals, forcing men to stay in home town, raise family and buy new consumer products
Alienated youth

49. British New Wave (1950s-1960s) New Left Review
ANGRY YOUNG MEN
New Left Review
Called for a fundamental restructuring of the British economic system
Attacked:
Unfair labor practices
Middle class values
Immoral popular culture
Class structure

50. British New Wave (1950s-1960s)
ANGRY YOUNG MEN
Part of a larger social movement, assailing the British class structure and calling for the replacement of bourgeois elitism with liberal working-class values.

51. British New Wave (1950s-1960s) Frank approach to sex and other taboos
ANGRY YOUNG MEN
Frank approach to sex and other taboos
Protest against the mechanization of life
The “sadness of urban life”
Found Board of Censors overly-protective and obsolete

52. British New Wave (1950s-1960s) Room at the Top
“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. “ --
Room at the Top

53. British New Wave (1950s-1960s)
The People 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.

54. Swinging London 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”)
“Don’t get angry, get crazy”

55. Swinging London
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, out of touch with Swinging London values (e.g., Alfie, Morgan, Georgy Girl)
Georgy Girl

56. Swinging London www.youtube.com A Decade to Remember-The Sixties

57. Current British Social Realism
MARXIST SOCIAL REALISM
Expose social injustices, poverty, crime, etc.
Economic determinism
PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIAL REALISM
People forced to live in horrific conditions
Society dealt them a bad hand
Still human beings with free will

58. Current British Social Realism
KEN LOACH (Marxist)
Film as medium for social reform
Location shooting & non-professional actors
Class inequality, unfair labor practices, child welfare, poverty, crime
Marxist political perspective
“Not an exemplary example of cinematic realism”
“Characters tend to be innocent victims, often cardboard figures” (Skutski)
My Name is Joe

59. Current British Social Realism
MIKE LEIGH (Psychological)
“Master of psychological cinematic realism”
Social commentary without sermonizing
“This is the way life is, the way people are”
Characters are the key
Unique approach to filmmaking
All or Nothing

60. Mike Leigh: “All or Nothing”

61. Opening
Toilet scene
Scotland scene
Final scene

62. Brazilian Cinema 1960’s Cinema Novo: political themes
Government withdrew support in 1990
Restored in mid 1990s
Globo Television created commercial film division (partial support of City of God)
Co-productions/US distribution
Common themes:
Police corruption
Favelas
“General malaise in society”
“Unviable nation”
"a…celebration of violence-for-good that plays like a recruitment film for fascist [police] thugs.”
Weissberg, Jay. Variety, 2008.
Source: Nagib, Lucia, ed., New Brazilian Cinema