Social Realism By Georgia Hornsby

1. Social Realism By Georgia Hornsby NEXT

2. Definition of Social Realism Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism is an artistic movement, which is expressed in the visual arts along with other realistic arts. These arts depicts social and racial injustice, economic and financial problems, through unvarnished pictures of life struggles often representing working class people and making their activities seem heroic on a daily basis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_realism BACK NEXT

3. Conventions Of Social Realism Earlier Social Realism films typically looked at issues such as unemployment , social status and the daily struggle of working class life. Now a days TV Drama’s and social realism films focus more on youth culture, with topics of gender, race, sexuality and social class being a lot more common. The most common focus for social realism films is sexdrugs and violence. TV dramas focus more on the first topics I listed, gender etc, where as a lot of social realism films focus on sex drugs and violence, but of course this doesn't mean that the other topics don't come under the same category. The age is important to the forms and conventions of a social realism. The forms and conventions for social of social realism. Most films use young teenagers and realism. The main forms and conventions young adults from 13 – 20. ‘Kidulthood’, ‘Kes’, ‘Sweet are; The use of unknown actors. ‘This is England’ all have main characters, this supports the social realism genre because between these ages the actors could be anyone which makes it realistic. Social class is a very important form and convention as most social realism films deal with the working class like ‘Billy Elliot’ directed by ‘Steven Daldry.’ The locations of a social realism film are usually set around a council estate or run down areas of different cities, but can be nice neighbourhood. Usually a social realism film deals with issues like drugs, sex, poverty, prostitution, homosexuality, alcoholism and crime. Many social realism films involve political views and religious views, this often separates characters causing rivalry or racism. BACK NEXT http://www.slideshare.net/tinkertaylor1981/british-social-realism-3986811

4. Old Social Realism films One of the first social realism films was ‘A Reservist Before The War, And After the War’(1902) This film was about the issues of unemployment that faced a Boer service man. This film was produced by the Williamson Cinematograph Company, who often did short films on social topics like unemployment, social class etc. Passport to Pimlico is a 1949 British comedy made by Ealing Studios, this film stared Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford, and Hermione Baddeley, it was directed by Henry Corenlius. This is quite a famous film for its time. BACK NEXT

5. Timeline Of Social Realism Films A Reservist Before The War, And After the War’(1902) Rescued Rover (1905) Spare Time (1939) Target For Tonight (1941) This Happy Breed (1994) It always rains In Sunday’s (1947) Passport To Pimlico (1949) Thunderbolt (1952) Room At The Top (1958) Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960) Kes (1969) My childhood (1972) High Hopes (1988) Secrets & Lies (1996) This Is England (2006) Fish Tank (2009) BACK NEXT

6. Target Audience of a Social Realism The target audience of a social realism could really be very broad or it could be a niche audience, it all depends on the storyline of the film and what sort of social realism it is. For instance, kidulthood and adulthood are both very gory violent films that involve sex, drugs and violence where as the film kes is more about social class. All of the films I have listed above are social realisms, and they all have a different target audience. Social realisms target audience depends on the films forms and conventions, as they use young main characters. This appeals to a fairly young audience. Films like ‘Kidulthood’ and ‘Adulthood’ are likely to appeal to teenagers from the ages of 13 up to 18 because of the culture the film is set around appeals to teenagers. Older films like ‘A Reservist Before The War, And After the War’(1902) would appeal to a much older audience as it is a film that was made a long time ago, I cant imagine many seventeen, eighteen year olds watching this film. Social Realism films such as Billy Elliot would appeal to a family audience as it is a feel good film, where as films like Trainspotting and This is England wouldn't be relevant for a family to watch as these films a lot of swearing, drugs and violence. BACK NEXT

7. Thoughts about Social Realism This is just a short clip I found on YouTube after searching for social realism clips, I like this clip because it shows a few famous faces talking about what they think of social realism, the films they've seen, and how the compare them with other social realism films. BACK NEXT

8. History of Social Realism Britain's contribution to cinema in the 1930s lay in a state-sponsored documentary tradition that would feed into the 1940s mainstream. Producer Michael Balcon revived the social/aesthetic distinction when he Documentarist Humphrey Jennings had been responsible for consensus-building works like Listen referred to the British industry's to Britain (1942) and Spare Time (1939), which, looking at the British at play, forged a 'new longstanding rivalry with Hollywood in iconography', influencing the 1950s Free Cinema documentary movement and the 1960s British terms of 'realism and tinsel'. Balcon, in New Wave. One of the strongest images of post-war British cinema is that of factory worker Arthur his position as head of Ealing Studios, Seaton downing a pint in one at the end of another week in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). Related to, though independent of, the commercial mainstream, the New Wave was fed by would become a key figure in the the 'Angry Young Men' of 1950s theatre, the verisimilitude of Italian Neo-realism and the youth emergence of a national cinema appeal of the French New Wave. Amid the smokestacks and terraces of regional life, Room at the characterised by stoicism and Top (1958), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), and A Kind of Loving (1962) verisimilitude. Combining the brought wide shots and plain speaking to stories of ordinary Britons negotiating the social objective temper and aesthetics of the structures of post-war Britain. documentary movement with the Thanks to the relaxation of censorship, characters had sex lives, money worries, social problems. stars and resources of studio British 'auteurs' like Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson and John Schlesinger dealt with prostitution, filmmaking, 1940s British cinema abortion, homosexuality, alienation and relationship problems. Here were factory workers, office made a stirring appeal to a mass underlings, dissatisfied wives, pregnant girlfriends, runaways, the marginalised, poor and audience. depressed. The New Wave was symptomatic of a worldwide emergence of art cinemas challenging mainstream aesthetics and attitudes. Identified with their directors rather than with the industry, the New Wave films tended to address issues around masculinity that would become common in British social realism. The New Wave protagonist was usually a working-class male without bearings in a society in which traditional industries and the cultures that went with them were in decline. Directors from Ken Loach to Patrick Keiller, and films from Mike Leigh's High Hopes (1988) to The Full Monty (1997) have addressed the erosion of regional and class identities amid a landscape rendered increasingly uniform by consumerism. http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1037898/index.html BACK NEXT

9. Similarities inTrailers I have compared the Fish Tank trailer (2009) Andrea Arnold, with Kes(1969) Ken Loach , the trailers I have chosen to compare are below, I uploaded them from Youtube. BACK NEXT

10. Fish Tank & Kes The first thing you notice when watching both of these trailers is that the two films both focus on the lives of two individuals, In Kes the film is focused around Billy Casper, a fifteen year old boy who has a little hope in his life and is destined to become a coal minor . He is bullied both at home, by his physically and verbally abusive half brother, as well as at school. Billy's mother refers to him as a helpless case and his father is dead. He is quite a mischievous character, he steals, gets other students into trouble and generally misbehaves. To the audience Billy comes across as an emotionally neglected boy, with little self respect. Like in Kes, Billy has dreams he feels he will never achieve, Mia is a fifteen year old girl in Fish Tank she dreams of being a dancer, when her mums new boyfriend arrives on the scene, everything changes for her. From the trailer it doesn't look like Mia has many , if any friends at all. She seems lonely like Billy. There are quite a few similiarties between the two characters, firstly they are both the same age and they both have dreams they feel they wont ever achieve. They are both working class or lower class citizens who get into fights and spend most of their time alone. In fish Tank, Mia meets her mums new boyfriend and everything changes for her, like in Kes, Billy makes a new friend, Kes a kestrel he t rains. The most obvious similarity of these two films is that both of the characters are abused at home by a member of their family. I feel that both of these are eye opening films and I would recommend them to anyone.

11. Britain's contribution to cinema in the 1930s lay in a state-sponsored documentary tradition that would feed into the 1940s mainstream. Producer Michael Balcon revived the social/aesthetic distinction when he referred to the British industry's longstanding rivalry with Hollywood in terms of 'realism and tinsel'. Balcon, in his position as head of Ealing Studios, would become a key figure in the emergence of a national cinema characterised by stoicism and verisimilitude. Combining the objective temper and aesthetics of the documentary movement with the stars and resources of studio filmmaking, 1940s British cinema made a stirring appeal to a mass audience.