British Free Cinema

At the end of the fifties young British documentary makers signed manifestos against a national cinema they judged polite and middle class, then moved to fiction with the novels of the angry young men. They shot in the factories of Nottingham, the northern estates and the brick houses: a worker spending his Saturday night wages, a young inmate whom a borstal trains up for a long-distance race, a pregnant teenager and her homosexual friend. Anderson would end by filming revolt in a boarding school.

works 5

• CinemaRoom at the TopJack Clayton · 1959A young man determined to rise gets on with a good match and a married woman at the same time.Cinema
• CinemaSaturday Night and Sunday MorningKarel Reisz · 1960A lathe operator works all week and spends everything on Saturday night.Cinema
• CinemaThe Loneliness of the Long Distance RunnerTony Richardson · 1962A boy sent to a borstal is granted the right to run alone outdoors.Cinema
• CinemaA Kind of LovingJohn Schlesinger · 1962A draughtsman marries a typist from his office out of obligation, and has nowhere to house her.Cinema
• CinemaIf….Lindsay Anderson · 1968An English boarding school, an autumn return to term, and three pupils who stop obeying.Cinema