What with the happenings outlined above and
a busy Year Eight routine, I admit I must have missed 2005’s “49 Up” and only
educated myself about the series this week. The “Up” series, for those of you
as buried beneath “The Sims 2 Nightlife” as I was in ’05, consists of
documentaries screened every seven years which are based on the same fourteen
subjects. When the program began in 1964 it introduced audiences to
seven-year-olds, who were this week revisited in ITV’s “56 Up” as post-middle
aged. I was acutely suspect of the concept when I initially read about it; was unassured, recognizing the personally mammoth and culturally paramount
shifts that can occur over seven year intervals, that anyone would especially care about what might be going on in the
lives of fourteen randomly selected people. Surely, reality shows have pulling power because we as viewers either have a hand in their
outcome or because their characters live anomalous lifestyles. Delving a little
deeper, I learnt that the premise of “Up” back in 1964 was to highlight the
long-term influences of a child’s socio-economic background. It was kicked off,
in short, with the prediction that these children’s lives were already
stretched out ahead of them and that their paths were irreversibly determined.
Although director Michael Apted has since commented on the series’ permutation
into shows about existentialism, personal changes and situational shifts rather
than social immobility, this made me rethink my earlier skepticism. Though I
might not have been enthralled by the subjects’ lives in isolation, when they
were set alongside one another and compared with what one might have predicted
their lot to be at 7 years of age, my attention was grabbed. “56 Up” shouldn’t
be thought of as a stand-alone documentary, and if it were I might as well
have taken myself off to people watch at the local bingo night. Rather, it
needs to be viewed as the latest link in a 49-year-long chain.
I’ll get to the participants themselves
later on; I’ve already prattled on about the relative insignificance of the ins
and outs of their individual lives when considered alongside the wider purposes
and initial premises of the series, but I’ll cover them nonetheless. Hats must
first be taken off to the formatting prowess showcased last night. When the participants
were revisited and re-interviewed, footage of their previous declarations,
aspirations and values was trotted out liberally. Baring in mind how imperative
it was to watch the show as part of a series with a specific hypothesis in
order to find it remotely worth turning on the telly for, this was a prudent
step on its producers’ account. By organizing the old snippets thematically
(“love”, “work”, “family” and “politics” most markedly), it was child’s play to
see how each participant had fluctuated over the course of decades (and credit
to the series’ makers for acknowledging these transitions despite the
initiatory principle that life’s paths are straightforward and inflexible). Striking
was the almost total absence of an interviewer or commentator’s voice. Plainly,
audiences were forced to watch the musings of the series’ subjects and
cultivate their own conclusions; the program's makers remained as objective as
the interview set up rendered feasible. Indeed, manipulative editing had been one of
my headaches when I settled down to watch last night. I didn’t grasp how 2555
days could be impartially squished into 15 minutes for each subject, but the
show didn’t endeavor to do so. The focus was on discussing rather than showing
uniform areas of each interviewee’s life and morals, which swerved my unfair
synopsizing gripe and made the all-important comparing the subjects’ situations a doddle.
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Next in the frame was Paul, and here the
show’s bucking of the social immovability hypothesis was plain. The viewer was
speedily reminded that Paul had started the series whilst in foster care,
before footage was shown of his cynicism towards marriage and rather detached,
muted outlook on life. Of all the participants my money would have been on Paul
to veer pitifully off of life’s rails, with little guidance and even littler
respect for 60s conventions (“what does ‘university’ mean?”). Fast forward 49
years, as last night’s offering wasted no time in doing, and Paul can be found
as a handyman in a “retirement village” alongside his wife with whom he shares
a “hum-drum” marriage. It was evident, particularly when he was questioned
about ageing (this was a savvy move, comparison-wise, given Sue’s notably blasé
attitude about getting on a bit) that Paul had metamorphosed, somehow, into a
docile and contented grandparent. Paul spoke candidly about the therapy he had
undergone around the time of “49 Up” and merely described his refusal to
“dwell” on it. I think any medium that can stress the transience of life’s
lows, whether it is television program, self-help book, whatever, is doing its
audience a service. Paul’s place on the show was worthwhile because of its rags
to riches element yet lack of sensationalism; his is a story that underscores the
favorable unpredictability of human life. Paul’s segment reaffirmed the stock I
had placed in the composition of the show, too. When he took a trip from his
new home of Australia to Yorkshire to visit a daughter there, the cameras were
there to follow him; the “Up” series is not, gladly, put together solely from
five minute chit-chats with its original lineup.
| Battered: Paul seemed unimpressed by the series' impact |
I labeled Paul’s story as one contrary to
viewer expectations and the notion that seven-year-olds have their lives mapped
out before them, but it hasn't a patch on Neil’s. After a fairly privileged
childhood, “Up” trailed Neil through Oxbridge aspirations, an abandoned degree,
homelessness and eventually the securing of a seat on local council. It was
promptly made manifest in “56 Up” that Paul was less than enamored with the
show’s reappearance in his life; he bemoaned the superficial support he had
received following previous episodes and, when questioned about the “nervous
complaint” he had been the victim of throughout his life, prickly responded
that “its not for this program to expose my private feelings.” His anger at
working relentlessly at a writing career to little avail (should I be scared?)
was palpable, as was his conviction that he was unable to achieve meaningful
relationship contentment (“I don’t have the capacity to make a relationship
work”). With Neil, I’m torn. On the one hand, it was undeniably fascinating to
see how life can unexpectedly batter someone who looked to have so much
promise, especially when set alongside Paul, and he’s a strikingly colorful, if
not a little warped, subject. On the other, watching him squirm under the interviewer’s gaze and lament the benefits of featuring on the series
made me want to turn to BBC just to cut him some slack. It was like some
perverse voyeurism. I’m yet to make up my mind about the ethics of following
someone so seemingly irritated by the show and so unstable as a character,
but either way the mutability of fortune and our universal vulnerability to it
was ineludible.
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Rounding off yesterday’s show was Peter,
who at seven years old served as Neil’s comprehensive school counterpart. Peter
withdrew from production of the series after the media lambasted his plucky
political speculations in “28 Up”, but last night made a potent return to the
show. So why the change of heart? Peter admitted it was to drum up publicity
for his band, “The Good Intentions” (you would have assumed he had developed
more distrust for public reaction to the show when it made him the target of
ridicule to the pitch that he hid himself away for nearly three decades, but
obviously not). Curiously, the recluse of the series displayed comparable
consistency of character when considered alongside the others. Yes, he had married
a band mate despite renouncing the institution at 21, but that cast-iron and standoffish
self-assuredness hadn’t wavered a jot. Say what you will about Paul’s potent
character but the show must be praised here for conveying exactly what he wanted conveying, despite that
changing from a 21 year old’s controversial and anti-establishment ponderings
to a middle-aged man’s self-promotion of his Americana country band (which, on
paper, makes for far less compulsive viewing).
The documentary arrested my interest for
its whole run, and disproved my preliminary doubts by provoking some genuinely
engrossing thoughts. Will I be watching the next two installments, spanning
across the coming fortnight? Perhaps. I just can’t shake the feeling that now
I’ve seen one installment, I’ve seen them all. Without having any legitimate
interest in what these strangers might be getting up to, I think that
everything I could ever take from the “56 Up” round of shows (regarding middle
age and the onset of grandparenthood) I took a belly-full of last night. I
promise, though, to pencil in at least one “63 Up” for 2019. Who knows, by that
time Paul’s band could have trumped One Direction and The Wanted stateside,
Neil could have stepped forward as out generations Tolkien and Sue might
finally have made it down the aisle…
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