what i watched last week

56 Up (Michael Apted, 2012). Latest in a long British television documentary series. If you’ve heard of it, you know what 56 Up is. If you haven’t heard of it, this isn’t the place to start (that’s Seven Up!). Every seven years, beginning in 1964, the series looks at a group of 14 people (all of them seven years old in 1964), to see what they have been doing the previous seven years. The original was intended to make a statement about the persistence of the importance of social class in British society, and in theory, the upper-class kids would become upper-class adults, while the lower-class kids would never rise above their station. There are all sorts of problems with this scenario, not least that the seven-year-old kids didn’t necessarily fit the class standard they were supposed to represent in the first place. In many cases (but not all), the class structure has stuck with the various people. Apted (who worked on the first film and has directed all of them since) has said he realized eventually that the keys to the films were more personal than political, and he seems less concerned now with forcing everything into a predetermined structure. The films become more fascinating with each permutation, as we learn more about the various characters, which is reflected in the fact that I rated the first three in the series 6/10, and each one since then 7/10. I don’t intend to miss any future episodes; I’ll always want to know what everyone has been up to. But it becomes especially apparent in 56 Up that the series hasn’t always been a good thing for the people in front of the camera.