British Social Realism: From Documentary to Brit Grit

Abstract

BRITISH SOCIAL REALISM: FROM DOCUMENTARY TO BRIT GRIT Samantha Lay. London: Wallflower, 2002, 134 pp. The Short Cuts series from Wallflower Press is a new range of slim volumes intended to form the basis of a comprehensive library of introductory film studies texts. Emphasizing modularity, the editors assume that the scholar or film enthusiast will select an individually tailored assortment of volumes appropriate to the academic course or project at hand. I do not see how any of the fourteen other titles currently offered would combine with Samantha Lay's new volume in the context of a single course's readings, but maybe the picture will change when the series reaches its projected total of some forty volumes. For purposes of this review, I will assess Lay's British Social Realism: From Documentary to Brit Grit as a stand-alone volume. Indeed, it is slim: 134 pages, few illustrations, a brief bibliography and filmography, and no index. Not unexpected at the introductory level, the documentation is sparse and theory is kept to a minimum. Lay does introduce some ideas from British cultural studies in one sustained section, but she in no way attempts a theoretical frontal attack on the topic at hand (28-32). Because the book is light on theory, it is organized along more historical lines. The first question that must be posed is what makes British social something special, something that justifies its treatment as genre, national cinema, or unique practice? Lay acknowledges that some have argued against the idea of an unbroken tradition of British social among them John Hill (i). Instead she tries to chart a compromise path that highlights recurrent realist concerns in British cinema over the last eighty years, while acknowledging the disjunctions that have caused it to be manifested in such diverse ways-from John Grierson's documentaries of the early sound era down to the highly personal, auteurist films of Gary Oldman, Mike Leigh, and Ken Loach. These similarities and differences are first posed in two wide-ranging chapters, under the headings of practices and politics, form and style, and themes and issues. Lay highlights points of contact with television from time to time, but it is a minor part of her book and thus a minor part of this review. Historically, in the documentary and New Wave periods, filmmaking practices were driven by technical considerations. These were similar to those of other realist movements, say Italian neorealism: the use of real locations, nonprofessional actors (or regional actors with regional accents), and collaborative (artisanal) production teams. The politics of these films, originally simply progressive, eventually became more antiestablishment, the flavor varying with the times. In the 19605 the tone was anticonsumerist (partly a reaction against excessive Americanization); in the 19805, anti-Thatcherist. My problem with her political discussion is her studious avoidance of the term left. In most times and places, realist filmmaking is left wing filmmaking, and the manifestations in Britain from the 19605 through the 19805 are no exceptions. Instead, Lay and the people she quotes throw up a bewildering structure of adjectives to describe realism. Specifically, when surface realism (presumably the Italian model) is combined with realism (Andrew Higson's term forfilmmakers motivated by a mission, as if rightists were not also motivated by a mission), the result is poetic realism, something that transcends ordinariness and achieves beauty (22,46-7). The trouble is that this last term is already in use for French films of the mid- to late-1980s, films very different from these British films in appearance and moral content, so I would resist extending the term in this way. Turning to form and style, it becomes harder to find continuity and easierto find disjunction. New Wave films tended to have conventional resolutions, achieving closure though not necessarily happiness (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner [1962]). …

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