This Sporting Life.

Review #1792: This Sporting Life.

Cast: 

Richard Harris (Frank Machin), Rachel Roberts (Margaret Hammond), Alan Badel (Gerald Weaver), William Hartnell ("Dad" Johnson), Colin Blakely (Maurice Braithwaite), Vanda Godsell (Mrs. Anne Weaver), Anne Cunningham (Judith), Jack Watson (Len Miller), Arthur Lowe (Charles Slomer), Harry Markham (Wade), George Sewell (Jeff), and Leonard Rossiter (Phillips, Sports writer) Directed by Lindsay Anderson.

Review: 

"I suppose I'm the boy who stood on the burning deck whence all about he had fled. The trouble is I don't know whether the boy was a hero or a bloody idiot."

The British New Wave may have been just another style of films released in the 1960s reflecting its country, but it surely merits interest for the directors and stars that came out of its brief wake. Sure, it had similarities to the French New Wave (features imitating documentaries trying to capture a form of real life not seen in prior films in its country), but there is still something worth looking into when talking about British voices, particularly Lindsay Anderson. Anderson was born in British India in 1923. He had a scholarship for classic studies at Wadham College, Oxford before he took service in the Army as a member of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps and as a cryptographer. He returned to Oxford after the War and shifted his studies to English before graduating in 1948. He took up writing around this period, which included founding a magazine dedicated to film journalism in Sequence alongside people such as Karel Reisz. In the next decade, he would develop a philosophy of cinema that is referred to as "Free Cinema", in which they advocated for a British cinema that focused on being free from the constraints of demands for documentary filmmaking of the time (i.e. one that aimed for the working class to be seen on screen). From 1948 to 1967, he directed a handful of documentary short films (through funding from sources like Ford of Britain), and his earliest noticed short was Thursday's Children (1954), which he did with Guy Brenton about deaf children and their education. The two were awarded an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. He also started doing work in the theatre in 1957, which he would do on-and-off for the next three decades. Anderson had his feature directorial debut with this film, and he would follow it up with six further features and two documentaries before his death in 1994.

You have to understand that the film wasn't exactly a roaring success upon release, since producers saw that people likely preferred escapism more so than gritty or bleak realism movies. This New Wave wasn't exactly long for the world, starting with stuff like Room at the Top (1959) and ending with this film and Billy Liar (1963), all with their varying levels of "kitchen-sink realism". Of course, the British New Wave just happened to come around in the time of "Angry young men" era of playwrighting (well, sort of, since that term was coined to promote John Osborne's 1956 play Look Back in Anger). The movie is adapted from the 1960 novel of the same name, with its author David Storey (generally considered one of the writers in the "Angry young men" group) serving as screenwriter. Storey was a former rugby player before he became a novelist and playwright (incidentally, Harris was also a rugby union player in his native Ireland). Consider it like this: "kitchen sink realism" might not have rocked all of British cinema, but it did influence future directors over the next couple of decades, most notably with Ken Loach. The movie is essentially the story of a blunt instrument more than of a man. We are talking of someone who tries to express feelings with sensitivity yet can only respond with a punch for anything. It doesn't compromise at any point in its 134-minute run-time because anything else would seem like a great lie, particularly since it wants to capture what it means to see such raw emotion pour out on screen, whether on or off the rugby pitch (being familiar with football before seeing rugby being played is interesting though). It captures such a unique dynamic between Harris and Roberts, one that teeters between stormy and clumsy when it comes to the idea of togetherness. Harris (who in later life stated once that he would trade all his accolades to play with a senior team back home in Ireland) fits the bill for everything that Anderson wants from him in terms of a brute that is always fascinating to view in his attempts in bravado or even when he is clenched when singing in public (it is easy to see why he moved from supporting roles to star with this performance). He tries to move in romance like he does on the pitch in terms of force, if only because the pitch is the only place where he is in control of himself (working class or not, this is something one can see quite clear). Roberts and her balance between melancholy and abrasive when one sees her on screen against Harris, one made quite clear in the dinner scene when it comes to seeing just who they are in public. Badel and the other castmates are fairly effective in their contrast to the main two, if only because one isn't watching a movie bound to only to the rugby pitch or bound to sentimentality (Hartnell is the warmest of the folks, and it was this role that helped cast him for his most famous role in Doctor Who). The editing by Peter Taylor and cinematography by Denys Coop help in making such a starkly effective film come through in all the layers required, one that is bleak but always on the level in worthwhile entertainment. Dour or not, the best thing that can be said for this film is that it has managed to endure so well for itself in how it doesn't flinch at looking within misery that makes a winning feature film after a half century.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Putney Swope (1969).