Social realism: Britain’s most definitive cinematic genre
While cinema was invented by the French—which now calls Hollywood its main home—the United Kingdom has always been strongly associated with key developments within the medium. After all, the first-ever film is said to be Roundhay Garden Scene, which was filmed in Leeds despite being created by French inventor Louis Le Prince.
Among the various silent filmmakers who began working during the first few decades after cinema’s inception was Alfred Hitchcock, born in east London’s Leytonstone. He would soon climb the ranks to become one of the most iconic filmmakers of all time, making many Hollywood features after his initial success creating films in England. He pioneered the modern thriller, full of tension and suspense that kept the audience enthralled.
Thus, for decades, the classic thriller thrived in Britain, becoming popular alongside war films, melodramas, comedies, and historical dramas. The country proved to be particularly good at these genres, but they weren’t exclusive to the United Kingdom. However, in the late 1950s and the 1960s, a genre emerged that is now most strongly associated with the United Kingdom more than anywhere else – social realism.
During the ‘50s, Britain was still recovering from the destruction caused by the Second World War. A new generation was growing up in the shadow of death and fear, and despite claims that the country was experiencing a golden age in terms of low unemployment levels and better wages, by the end of the ‘50s, poverty levels had increased, and many people found themselves struggling to get by. Thus, the sense of disillusionment felt by many, whether that be due to a lack of employment or perhaps working the same monotonous job every day before going home to a cramped flat, was channelled into a new kind of filmmaking.
The social realist films that emerged at this time were the natural predecessors to the ‘angry young men’ literary and theatre movement, with plays like Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer receiving cinematic adaptations. Filmmakers like Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz, and John Schlesinger were some of the biggest names of the British New Wave, painting an often bleak but necessary portrait of working-class lives in Britain. Taboo themes like interracial relationships, abortion, and class conflict made their way onto the big screen through films like A Taste of Honey, Kes, and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, bringing much-needed visibility to the lives of those cast aside by the British government.
These films, often dubbed as kitchen sink dramas, significantly influenced the way in which working-class people in Britain were viewed with their complex and empathetic portrayals of day-to-day life, often undercut with a hearty dose of quintessential British humour. The genre’s golden era might have been the ‘60s, but it has never gone away, with Ken Loach continuing to make social realist films into the present day, while filmmakers like Alan Clarke and Mike Leigh appeared shortly after and established themselves as key players in the genre.
Many television plays emerged on British TV during the ‘60s and ‘70s that continued the social realist tradition, and Clarke and Leigh both established themselves in the field through series like Play for Today and The Wednesday Play. Two of Clarke’s plays, 1977’s Scum and 1982’s Made in Britain, were searing dramas that told gritty stories full of violence, critiquing the need for borstal reform and the British education system, respectively.
Clarke made one of the ‘80s’ greatest social realist dramas, Rita, Sue and Bob, Too, while Leigh has made many terrific entries to the genre over the years, from Meantime and Life Is Sweet, to Naked, and Secrets and Lies. Other notable social realist dramas from the latter decades of the 20th century include Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa, Franco Rosso’s Babylon, Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette, Chris Bernard’s Letter to Brezhnev, Carine Adler’s Under the Skin, and Tim Roth’s The War Zone.
Following the resurgence of social realist dramas in the 1980s and 1990s, the emergence of figures like Shane Meadows and Andrea Arnold continued to keep the genre alive in the 2000s. With Meadows’ This Is England and Arnold’s Fish Tank, these films proved that British cinema’s strengths can be found in taking raw and honest – often painful – glimpses into the lives of those who make the country what it is. Issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality of course affect everyone all over the world, but the depiction of these themes in Britain – a country where class division has always been particularly prevalent – is often so unflinching and sharp, balancing tricky topics with a dose of humour to carry us through.
The past decade has seen social realism gain momentum in the country again, perhaps due to the fact that we’re enduring a cost of living crisis. Titles like Scrapper, Hoard, Ali & Ava, God’s Own Country, Bait, Bird, and How to Have Sex are illuminating the lives of modern working-class people on screen, particularly bringing into focus working-class women. Taking cues from the decades-worth of British filmmaking that has come before, these films bring the stories of underrepresented groups out from the margins and onto the big screen.
