The evolution of working-class stories in British cinema
We’re currently living in uncertain times, with the gap between the rich and the poor getting even wider. The British government’s lack of concern for citizens is sadly nothing new, and for decades, filmmakers have been highlighting the inequalities facing working-class people. However, these depictions have evolved over the years, forming a vital part of the British film industry.
Early British cinema wasn’t too focused on the lower classes, although Carol Reed, the director of The Third Man, made a few lesser-known movies, like 1940’s The Stars Look Down, featuring a social realist style. This predated the establishment of the genre, which would arrive several years later. The Free Cinema movement then came in the 1950s, when filmmakers like Lindsay Anderson and Karel Reisz made documentaries centred around working-class issues. These figures, alongside other directors like Tony Richardson and John Schlesinger, began to make narrative features during the late 1950s and 1960s, which would become hugely important.
Films such as Look Back in Anger, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Kind of Loving, This Sporting Life, and Bronco Bullfrog all explored working-class characters. The issues the characters dealt with often resulted from their lack of stable income and job, the monotony of work, or their tense living conditions. ‘Angry young men’ became a hallmark of this genre, with many hard-done-by male characters showing a desperate desire for escape from their dull lives.
Many of these films were male-oriented, although Georgy Girl and Taste of Honey are perhaps the best examples of kitchen sink dramas centred around working-class women. In the latter, homosexuality, pregnancy, and interracial relationships are explored, too, which was rather revolutionary in 1961.
By the late ‘60s, Ken Loach had emerged with Kes, a prime example of an emotionally charged and nihilistic kitchen sink drama. He has become a staple of British cinema, making movies about working-class men and women ever since. The same goes for Mike Leigh, a pioneer of social realism who began making Play for Today episodes in the ‘70s before creating some groundbreaking features in the coming decades like Meantime, Naked, Secrets and Lies, and Life Is Sweet. His work often takes us behind the curtains of working-class family households, where humour is interwoven with poignant explorations of poverty, relationships, and race.
However, if we jump back to the 1970s, there were indie dramas like Nightbirds, showing a bleak vision of the end of the swinging sixties, and Bill Douglas’ coming-of-age trilogy, My Childhood, My Ain Folk, and My Way Home, which depicted the filmmaker’s poverty-stricken upbringing. Later in the decade, Scum caused controversy for its depiction of rowdy male youths living in a borstal desperately in need of reform. Many films from this period highlighted the need for escape and the unhappiness facing many working-class young people. Sadly, Margaret Thatcher began her tyrannical reign over Britain in the late ‘70s, making things worse.
During this period, many movies were made that expressed the disillusionment felt by people at the hands of the Conservatives. There was also a lot more diversity that began to emerge within British cinema, however, with Babylon, a tale of working-class Black British men, hitting screens in 1980. Luckily, the establishment of Channel Four Films in 1982 helped to fund more British movies, which in turn welcomed some fresh and innovative pieces of cinema that reflected the scope of Britain. With movies like Letter to Brezhnev, Rita, Sue and Bob Too, My Beautiful Laundrette, and The Last of England, British cinema began to more accurately reflect the country.
These films explored a range of topics that showed the progressiveness of British cinema at the time, from class and race to sexuality and gender. The 1990s saw more funding come through, however, allowing British cinema to make more of an impact globally. Trainspotting and Human Traffic tapped into the drug-fuelled youth culture that seemed to reflect the need to deal with the poor prospects of securing a good job and being able to thrive in a devastated economy. The aftershocks of the Thatcher era can be felt in many of these films, like The Full Monty and Brassed Off.
The late 1990s and the early 2000s saw the emergence of more female directors ready to depict working-class stories on screen. Carine Adler’s Under the Skin is a great film about family relationships and womanhood, while Lynne Ramsay‘s Ratcatcher offers a tender story of boyhood and poverty. Her 2002 film Morvern Callar is an essential watch from this era, too, with Samantha Morton (also the star of Under the Skin) giving a powerhouse performance. Andrea Arnold won an Oscar with her third short film, Wasp, in 2003, which depicted a struggling single mother trying to juggle her role as a parent with a romantic life.
Arnold went on to make movies like Red Road and Fish Tank, two spectacular movies about working-class women. As a result, she cemented herself as one of the most important social realists of her time. Meanwhile, the early 2000s also Shane Meadows rise to prominence with movies like This Is England and Dead Man’s Shoes, with the former becoming particularly popular due to its mix of quintessentially British humour and tragedy.
These days, it seems that more female directors than ever before are making incredible depictions of the working class, particularly working-class women, with movies like Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper, Luna Carmoon’s Hoard, Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex, and Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun all performing well.
It is vital that we continue to see realistic working-class stories in the mainstream because cinema can’t simply ignore the very real issues facing thousands of Britons. Seeing people that we can relate to on screen is validating and comforting, while these stories also highlight the need for change and reform.
