Michael Apted’s seventh installment of the series about the British class system has its subjects sounding off on what it’s like to grow up on film.
By: Anthony Stoeckert
Followers of Michael Apted’s Up documentaries have become so invested in the lives of the 14 British people the films follow that the idea of not liking 49 Up is virtually impossible. So long as we see what everyone looks like and what’s happened in their lives since 42 Up seven years ago, we’re bound to be satisfied, and we are.
The movies, which air on British television and are shown theatrically in the U.S., started with 7 Up in 1964. The goal was to explore Britain’s class system and get a glimpse of the people who would be running the world in the then far-off year 2000.
Since that film, Michael Apted has returned to interview the same group of people every seven years (two seem to have dropped out permanently and one shows up only occasionally) and now we arrive at 49 Up, the series’ seventh entry. As highlights of past interviews are shown again, it’s astonishing to think about what we’ve learned about these people we first saw as children. We’ve seen them get married, raise children, get divorced and become grandparents. Two have had health issues, and in 42 Up, one confessed to infidelity.
Each film shows clips from the interviewees over the years and catches up on their lives today. It’s hard to pinpoint what makes the movies, including 49 Up, so fascinating. Part of it has to be the experience of watching people grow up right in front of our eyes. And though the subjects they discuss seem so simple relationships, children, careers, homes, death, and what they think of life in general these are the things life is made of, and how many films address them with such honesty? In 49 Up we learn that Sue, one of the working-class girls, has two children who did well in school but decided not to go to university. She’s somewhat disappointed, but understands since she made the same decision many years ago.
One of the strangers I’m most interested in is Paul, who at 7 years old is shown as an unsmiling boy who wants to be a policeman, but thinks it would be too difficult to achieve. By 14 he was living in Australia and had thought about becoming a gym teacher, but scratched those plans when he learned that would mean going to university. He was married by 28 Up but seemed doubtful that his wife, or anyone, could love him for who he was.
So while watching 35 Up and 42 Up I feared learning that his marriage didn’t work out, but now I’m convinced that Paul and his wife are in it for the long haul. She understands him, loves him and supports him, and she’s probably exactly what he needs. But then Paul talks about his son, who’s in a relationship and has a child. "We don’t know how long this is going to last, and we can only hope they do last," the father says about the son, and it’s clear we’re dealing with a life-long defeatist.
Over the years, Neil has become the favorite of the series’ admirers. At 7, he was a wide-eyed boy who talked with great enthusiasm about being a bus driver and showing people around the country. By 28 Up he was homeless and said something that will stay with me forever. Neil talks about what he thought he could have done with his life and thinks he would have been good at giving lectures or working in the theater. When Apted asks him if all that opportunity is lost, Neil’s answer is: "It does seem that way, yes." Today, he continues to live off the government and he’s actually been elected to the most local of political offices, but he remains alone and somewhat directionless, and his story has become less compelling if only because it hasn’t changed much.
The subjects have talked about how being in the movies has had an impact their lives before, but that seems to be a running theme of 49 Up. We hear them call Apted by his first name more often than in the past and Jackie expresses anger at the director for being portrayed as saddened by single motherhood and arthritis in 42 Up. "This may be the first one about us, rather than about your perception of us," she tells Apted during a heated exchange. Suzy, an upper class woman, talks about how painful opening up every seven years is, and hints this may be the last we see of her.
Roger Ebert, a champion of the series, wrote that in some ways, he knows these people better than some of his co-workers. After all, he doesn’t know what his co-workers thought about life when they were 7. I see his point, but disagree. As well as we think we know these people, we only spend 10 minutes or so with them every seven years and we’re at the mercy of the filmmakers. In his commentary to 42 Up, Apted admitted to portraying one marriage a certain way because he didn’t think it would work out.
None of that takes away from the power of the series, how every seven years we watch these people grow from child to adult right before us. At 49, this series is aging gracefully.
49 Up will be screened at the New Jersey Film Festival Fall 2006, Scott Hall, near the corner of College Avenue and Hamilton Street, Douglass College Campus, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Oct. 6-8, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $7, $5 seniors/students. Not rated. For information, call (732) 932-8482. On the Web: www.njfilmfest.com

