56-Up

56-Up (2012) The amazing experiment started in 1964 with the TV show Seven-Up! is now almost half a century old. For the briefest of re-caps: Fourteen children were chosen, from across the social spectrum, with the intention of revisiting them seven years later to see how they had changed, and what their prospects were in class-ridden British society. It was a big success, and against what I would have expected, has been revisited every seven years since then. My impression is that this is largely because of the passion the director, Michael Apted, has for the project. He must be a persuasive fellow because, in spite of some defections that lasted for from one movie to as many as three, there has been only one person who has dropped out permanently.

Some of the participants dread the seventh-year ordeal; others embrace it. It’s like having a bunch of intelligent lab rats, in a way, able to comment on the observations that are being made about them … though no actual experiments are ever done on them. They are left strictly alone until a filming year comes along. I can sympathize. Some object that it’s silly to think that anyone is getting any real idea what their lives are like when they see another fifteen-minute segment, capsulizing seven years. And they are perfectly right. But there are things we can observe, and I think it is valid to mention them. This is in no way a scientific study, and no one ever claimed it was. The demographics were fairly random, aiming only to have some poor children and some rich ones. And you know what? Though some of the poor ones are doing reasonably well, all the rich ones are doing a lot better than that, thank you very much.

The “kids” haven’t changed a lot between 49 and 56. I didn’t expect them to. Aside from feeling their age a bit more (one poor girl has bad rheumatoid arthritis, and had just been re-evaluated for her medical benefits and deemed “able to work”), these are people who are nearing retirement, and their lives usually revolve around kids and grandkids. All the working-class people have been devastated to one degree or another first by that lousy bitch Margaret Thatcher, and then by the Bush-Blair depression and the Bush-Blair War. The rich ones, hardly at all.

I won’t run them down one by one again. You can read my review of The Up Series as a whole and of 49-Up if you want to get to know them a little. If you haven’t already seen some of this series, you really owe it to yourself to take a look. (I wish there were sub-titles, because some of the East End kids have pretty thick accents, for an American ear. I know some people will find this a challenge. I did, a bit.) I don’t think it’s really necessary to see them all. In fact, you could do well enough just looking at this one, as we see astonishing montages of them at 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, and 56. You will get to know the unfortunate Neil, for instance, from his sweet boyhood to his problematic middle years to his sort-of accommodation to a tough life these days.

At 49-Up I expressed the worry that there might not be another. Now, I find myself optimistic that there might indeed be a 63-Up, if Michael Apted lasts that long. He would be nearly 80, but it’s possible.