A group of British children aged 7 from widely ranging backgrounds are interviewed about a range of subjects. The filmmakers plan to re-interview them at 7 year intervals to track how their lives and attitudes change as they age.
08 Dec Seven-Up! (1964)
Preparatory
I get most all of my films by recommendation and this is universally the most recommended to me of those I haven’t seen. The series I mean. I suppose it wouldn’t make any sense at all to see them out of order so as with everyone, we all start here.
To do that, we have to place ourselves in several other worlds. I’m an American. Though I spent a few years in school in the UK, We came home when I was five and I have few memories. For Americans, England — at least the pre-Thatcher England — was a sort of fairy-tale place where privilege was sprinkled here and there and strongly supported on the backs of the relatively poor remainder because by such tax they helped define what it meant to be British.
There aren’t many blanket statements that can be made of the US — and this is less true now — but it is still true that Americans define themselves in large measure against this tradition. The idea of class immobility seems a perversion of nature.
Naturally, that’s at the centre of how this experiment starts. I’m sure the filmmakers never intended to follow these children as markers (more than representatives) of the collapse of privilege. Not the injustice and wealth, but the willingness which Brits poured into protecting a country (twice!) against barbarians so that their rich could continue pulling the traditions along.
So start here, fellow voyager. This first instalment is completely without merit except in how it sets the starting point for a voyage through the transformation of an old two-class system to a “modern” two-class one, seemingly only for the amusement of the rest of the world.
Posted in 2006
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
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