October 12, 2006

49 Up.

49 Up "My own attachment is proprietary, nostalgic and narcissistic," writes the LA Weekly's Ella Taylor in the best piece yet on Michael Apted's series. "I grew up in London at roughly the same time as and in similar circumstances to some of the 7 Upsters who fell on the wrong side of what were then rigidly defined social tracks," but that alone only partially explains the insight of this:

In the end, whether you see the Up series as a great humanistic experiment, an exercise in cultural domination or, as John ruefully puts it, another episode of Big Brother, its pleasures are narrative and emotional rather than sociological. There's something deeply satisfying about watching life spans play out in all their banality and drama, with all their surprising left turns and leaps out of character, and their shedding of early miseries. In its way, the series is more refutation than confirmation of the Jesuit motto that guided its first episode: "Give me the child until he is 7, and I will show you the man." Yes, the rich stay rich, but if ever there was living proof of the limits of privilege in determining happiness, it's these films.

In the New York Times, AO Scott calls 49 Up and the series as a whole "one of the most remarkable experiments in the history of cinema." Turns out, the subjects' "lives reveal less about the British class system than about marriage, family relations and the slow turns of the life cycle.... Rarely has ordinary existence seemed so multifaceted and enigmatic, even in its banal everyday details."

Carina Chocano, writing in the Los Angeles Times, finds it "more than a deeply satisfying movie; it's a reminder of the wonder contained in ordinary lives." More from Sam Adams in the Philadelphia City Paper and Aaron Hillis at Premiere.

At Cinematical, Ryan Stewart interviews Apted; Erik Davis writes the review. The Reeler listens in on Apted's NYFF press conference.



Bookmark and Share

Posted by dwhudson at October 12, 2006 4:16 PM

Comments

I wrote about 49 UP in my next "No Zone" column for SIGHT & SOUND. While I've loved the series, I found this latest entry the least engaging of them all, and it doesn't help that there are now so many previous chapters that it seems half the running time of the new one is spent reprising those we've already seen. The participants are all well into positions where their own lives have stopped evolving; they're burying their parents and their kids are having kids (none of whom we get to know). And two of the ever-dwindling number of participants announce here that they'll likely be bailing out of the next one. And who can blame them? One senses that Apted's own involvement is sometimes half-hearted and obligatory, and I fear that any continuation is just going to turn into a death watch and rob the ongoing participants and their loved ones of any right to a normal, unobserved life for their remaining years. I'm not altogether sure that the last few updates have told us anything that wasn't at least evident by the third or fourth film. That said, I'm as much in this for the long haul as anyone.

Posted by: Tim Lucas at October 12, 2006 6:04 PM

Tim Lucas must be a very young person indeed to believe that anyone's life has "stopped evolving" because they are "burying ther parents and their kids are having kids." Trust me, there's a lot more evolving entailed in both those activities than there is in graduating college.

Posted by: ella taylor at October 13, 2006 5:56 AM

I very much enjoyed Ella's review, with its insights into British culture past and present, but I have to wonder if Apted wasn't influenced in this installment by the participants' antipathies to his process and product(s). He seemed to tiptoe around some of the issues that are evolving - both personally (the comfort in their own skins thing) and culturally (can't wait to see the new series Ella mentions).

I would have liked a little more interpretation in the editing - a more thematic approach. By the end of the film, it felt unfortunately like a succession of overlong holiday newsletters. I agree with Tim that this is the least engaging of the series, and I think it's because there's little organizing thematic material to engage us.

Maybe this installment has fallen prey to the "second in a trilogy" syndrome. The subjects aren't full of youthful potential anymore, nor have they entered wisdom-dispensing old age. They're just middle-aged, in the midst of "it", still becoming who they are but not yet aware of who that might be. At least, I hope that's the problem! I'm still looking forward to "56 Up", when I hope Apted will have recovered his footing.

Posted by: C Reed at October 13, 2006 11:20 AM

Naturally, I realize the points made by Ms. Taylor. What I failed to express adequately is that the film fails to show the lives of its subjects evolving in this chapter; everyone seems to be either in a holding pattern, withholding information as too personal, or bailing out. Their current lives are also defined by too many people -- spouses, children, grandchildren -- who are being withheld from the spotlight, so what we get is partial information that is shrinking in volume as each new chapter increases the amount of archival interviews to be drawn on for reference.

Posted by: Tim Lucas at October 13, 2006 11:39 AM