Riassunto esame Letteratura inglese, Prof. Albertazzi Silvia, libro consigliato Letteratura inglese contemporanea, Bertinetti Roberto

Letteratura inglese II

Books

• Look Back in Anger, John Osborne, (1956)
• The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Alan Sillitoe, (1959)
• A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, (1962)
• A Taste of Honey, Shelagh Delaney, (1958)
• Lonely Londoners, Samuel Selvon, (1956)

29/09/2020

The spirit of 45: work together not only for the rich but for everyone. Reforms to overcome economic crisis.

Building of new houses (80% council housing), social welfare, free healthcare, urban development based on equality between country and city. For making all these things possible they had to make a lot of sacrifices: austerity to support reforms. The British people were supported in this effort by hope and strong sense of collectivism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvEoN0MDb6U&feature=youtu.be

And then why 1956?

First of all because in 1956 there were 3 major events that changed the face of Britain and British attitude towards politic and society:

• Evento 1: XX Congress of the Communist Party in Moscow (Stalin’s crimes). There were many people who had cherished the possibility of communist government or way of life also in Great Britain. It was a kind of model. This Congress contributed to destroyed this feeling.
• Evento 2: Russian invasion of Hungary. To stop the possibilities of the Russian government and USR.
• Evento 3: Suez Crisis. The channel of Suez was nationalized by the Egypt government. In December of 1956 the President of Egypt decided to nationalize the channel to go on with this power. France and Britain tried to retrieve the power of that channel (for money obviously). But the USA prohibited them to do so. So, it remained a part of the Egypt. This was the last part of the British power, nothing remained. France and Britain had the monopoly of the channel of Suez and this meant that every boat should paid an amount of money to France and Britain. Questo è crollato quando il governo egiziano ha deciso di nazionalizzare il canale di Suez. Da qui loro decidono di invadere il canale per riaverlo ma vengono fermati dall’ONU perché il canale è dell’Egitto. Perdita economica mostruosa e di immagine soprattutto per il fatto che il potere internazionale è passato agli Stati Uniti.

Then there are 3 cultural events that changed English culture:

• Evento 1: February, Free Cinema at Royal Festival Hall in London. Four young directors: documentary films that have been shot with poverty streams. Those films were very important because they were very different from what has been shot before, they didn’t obey to any rules (contents and structure). They have been talking about people never considered before in the British history (young people, common people). The English cinema at that time was especially centred on comedies with characters of the middle-class world and that’s why was impossible to find this theme and this people.
• Evento 2: May, Look Back in Anger at Royal Court Theatre in London. It deals with young people who cannot find their way in the society (the post war era). They were deluded, without hope. The protagonist of this book cannot find a good job for his studies which were not in a private University. He is angry. Very offensive in language. Because at the theatre were represented works of love affair of the upper class (for them these were the problems). It was a big success even though at the beginning was a scandal. In October in tv (important).
• Evento 3: August/September, Exhibition This Is Tomorrow at White chapel Gallery London. What is more important is that the exhibition was held at White chapel in the poorest zone of London at that time in 1956 (East), the most criminal zone (Jack the ripper). And those all young artists selected this area for this important exhibition.

What happens in between?

• 1947: Independence of India (“The Jewel of the Crown”).
• 1948: final year of British mandate in Palestine. The creation of the State of Israel, another part of empower that Britain lost.
• 1951: Tories win general elections. Probably British people were tired of those sacrifices and that’s why they elected the Tories part.
• Progressive “gentrification” of working class. Gentrification: the working class started mimic the upper classes, they want to become more similar to the upper class and start looking for all those things that the upper classes possessed. In this time starts consumerism. The increase of salaries led to the possession of those things for the middle class (imitation of the upper class).
• Mass culture, television, consumerism. Example: washing machine. They started to think they cannot live without these things, without possessing those things (that are not indispensable). This is the mass culture. A culture of the masses, low level culture, by television, magazines etc.
• American influence. The British people in this period (they lost their power) looked at the USA as a model. In tv programs and magazines coming from USA. How happy a family can be if they possess a washing machine or an electric oven. They discovered a colourful life of stars, American pinups, and they wanted to imitate them.
• Permanence of strong class division. Very strong but people of lower class have more money to spend, that’s all.

Cultural events 1947 – 1956

• 1947: London Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA)
• 1952: Independent Group (young ICA artists against hierarchy of art; against the canon; a new way of looking at reality). Rebelled against the idea of a canon, they didn’t want this kind of hierarchy, they tried to impose this new way to look at reality
• Intertwining of fine arts, popular (and mass) culture
• People who were in this Independent Group:

Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter Blake (painting, sculpture and collage)

Alice and Peter Smithson, architects

Nigel Henderson, photograph

<Parallel of Life and Art (1953) – Photo> by Nigel Henderson. There is no order in the way the artifacts were exposed. We can find all things which remind us everyday life, working life. The installation is life and all around is art. There are no title of the works and no info. No words. People were invited to stroll around the rooms and interpret life by themselves. Abstract painting which were difficult to interpret and read for people who were not used to them.

Work: “I was a Rich Man’s plaything” (1947) by Eduardo Paolozzi (born in Scotland, Italian father). The influence of USA, products etc. Coca-cola, pinup. Keep them flying (the plane): represents new world (ironic). Of course, this is ironic, making fun of traditional moral. All the elements of the new sensational feeling of the period, obviously ironized by the gun gives this sound POP. A world of illusion, fake of sentiment. Yet, this onomatopoeic sound (pop) will become later the term which indicate this kind of art.

Photo: by Nigel Henderson. A photograph of rubbish, pieces of glass, sheets of newspaper. He was a photographer who was inspired from the area he lived, to put the East at the centre of the scene. Abstract photograph. Show the creativity of the artist of the period. And also, in his “Streets” photo, he was taking pictures of people walking around in his area, especially of young people. Getting in touch with them, to understand their life, how they spend their free time, in another side of London. Because life is not just in Piccadilly Circus or other rich areas, and this is his way of showing reality.

30/09/2020

Towards a cultural revolution

• Young people: for the first time they are at the centre. The young people were considered just people preparing for the next step. From the end of the second world war to 1956 young people take the scene: life of the young people at the centre of documentaries.
• Common people: all those figures who never took the scene in British culture before. Working class people and the lowest class people, before considered not important. Ordinary people. They become protagonists.
• Popular art: there is an attention to the culture, to the people, popular culture. The aim is to create a new kind of art that is meant to be inspired by that world and the popular culture. Pop art: art created by artists for the people. Against the classical rules of classical art, they make collage, they put at the centre material of everyday life. Influenced by the American mass culture, people want to imitate the life they see from tv (junk food, pinups, etc.). This leads to the crisis of national identity, because before they were considered the most powerful empire in the world. They cannot recognize themselves after the war. Class division. Inizialmente la cultura pop ironizzava sul consumismo americano, per poi però diventare negli anni '60 una sorta di strumento pubblicitario per indurre bisogni nei giovani e quindi conformandosi al consumismo.
• Crisis of national identity: all England seems to die
• American consumerism and need of British way to culture: British people see all these material goods American people have in their houses and they have the desire to possess all of them. We need to remember that it was impossible to achieve all these without any efforts, because of the austerity period. Little by little thing changed, salaries were increased, and British people started to dream American life style. This means they were losing national identity for goods.
• “It was about wanting what you got, rather than going out and getting what you want” Karel Reisz: if you want to maintain British identity you had to deal with what you have already, take the maximum from what you got, not being consumerist and long for foreign goods or any kind of new goods.

1956

1. Free cinema

Film: “Rock around the clock”. Enormous success of rock and roll at that time in America. When it appeared at the Odeon in London, the cinema was full of young people that in a point started dancing. They ruined the cinema, vandalic acts, but it was not an act of offense or protest, it was the explosion of time changing. In 1956 a Britain has nothing to oppose to this rock and roll explosion. So, they took those American examples as model. Later, with Beatles, they will oppose this American style. Beatles mania. Beatles become more popular than American rock and roll (Elvis Presley). https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=My+Generation https://www.cinematographe.it/rubriche-cinema/focus/i-love-radio-rock-storia-vera/

Summary

• 1st - February 1956: 1 programme of Free Cinema (subjects: young people, common people, working class)
• May 1956 – Look Back in Anger by John Osborne (subjects: problem of graduates from red brick universities, class conflicts, generation gap, nostalgia of the Empire).
• August/September 1956: exhibition “This is Tomorrow”, White Chapel Gallery, London (pop art)
• October/November 1956 - Soviet invasion of Hungary
• October 1956/March 1956 Suez channel

All this leads to a new social realism

• In literature, cinema, theatre.
• Working-class characters and settings (province and not centre, working class and not upper class).
• Provincial settings (The North) not London.
• The representation of young people and teen-agers problems, especially in finding a proper job because of their studies (in brick universities, provincial universities) considered less titles than the graduates in the most prestigious university. Common problem of ordinary people. Upper class refused to take into account the lower class, working class. The critic William Somerset Maugham” who called “scum” (feccia) the graduates from the red brick universities.
• Ordinary people and the generation gap; reaction to the idea of looking like their own parents.
• Colloquial language, local accents. Actors speak in northern accent because they come from there, first time in English cinema that local accent is stressed. Unknown actors. They are not particularly handsome.
• No understatement: British humour is known to be offense without spelling it clear. On the contrary here, with the new social realism, everything is spelled out. If they want to describe something unpleasant, they do it.

Free cinema – manifesto

• No film can be too personal
• The image speaks: there is no need of long explanation or reflection.
• Sound amplifies and comments: what the representation represents
• Size is irrelevant: to make a good work of art (against Victorian age rules: 3volume long to be considered a nice work).
• Perfection is not an aim: Perfection doesn’t exist. If you run the perfection you lose yourself.
• An attitude means a style: the attitude of the writer/artist must coincide with his style.
• A style means an attitude: the way round.

The films of Free Cinema (first programme)

The first Free Cinema programme featured just three films:

• 1. Lindsay Anderson’s “O Dreamland” (1953), previously unshown, about an amusement park in Margate, Kent (short film)
• 2. Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson’s “Momma don’t allow” (1956), about a Wood Green (North London) jazz club (short film)
• 3. Lorenza Mazzetti’s “Together” (1956), a fiction based on a short story by Denis Horne about a pair of deaf-mute dockworkers in London’s East End. (50’ feature film)

Video in class: the short was very unusual for that time and also for the way was made, no comments, people speak for themselves. The author just wanted to denounce the impossibilities for those people to find something really worth. No opportunities for his own class that was the same of the one seen in the film. Scene: some caged animals almost sedated, electric chair and burning. Dramatic scenes. Weird laughter, almost frightening.

The reality after the war in England, “American way of life”: working and low-middle class people that go to this Amusement Park to enjoy in their free time. They spend their money (due to the increase of salaries) in this weird, sarcastic and ironic park. Almost the entire film is accompanied by the grotesque laugh of a horrible clown. In my opinion, first scenes have a lot of in common with "dime museums" that nowadays we can visit in some cities or countries around Europe. I think it reflects the human fascination for torture or pain (past against present). Throughout the short film we can appreciate typical American objects such as cigarettes (for working women), pin-up dolls or Barbies, Mexican hats, the Jukeboxes, also bingo or slot machines. The animals in their cages means a good example of the ferocious and depressive spare time (mass leisure). Fast food like hot-dogs or coffee (it has always been tea the traditional English drink), neon lights take part in this movie... And the alienated and curious faces of adults and children are scaring. (1st film)

05/10/2020

1st film: Creepy atmosphere represents the actual corruption of human identities in a society suffocated by western consumerism and social classes competition. The director, Lindsay Anderson, was one of the most important and active young intellectuals of the new left (a group). Very political films. The amusement of working class.

2nd film: the other two directors Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson they shot a film about the amusement of young people. In a suburb of London, we see working class young people going out during a weekend in a jazz club “Momma don’t allow” (la mamma non lo permette). It is the representation of a Saturday night in the suburb in London, first of all the important thing is that it is about young people. We see them in their workplaces and then preparing for the night at the club. After, we can say, they are decontextualized. In another context, different from the first (dressing theme). The directors are not patronising, they don’t show their judgement about this people, there are no comments. The image shows people which seems to be happy after their work and enjoying their free time. This film seems to suggest the gap between people who are in the movie and the previous generation, parents and children. There are no people from the old generation. There is this kind of music that at that time was something prohibited, something that the old generation looked as suspicious. Jazz clubs were born in the 50s throughout London and cities in the North. This is the most outdated film between the others. In the film there is a representation of a teddy boy (young boys who acted in a rebellion way against the society, they all came from the working class and they wanted to show the difference from the old generation and the reality they live in). Dressing in a different way, making petty crimes and acting in a fancy way and not in that way imposed by the rules. They could be vandals. In order to be noticed and proclaimed their difference. Not only with illegal actions but also with their style. This term indicated a certain category in Britain and then it has been spread all around the world. Teddy boys:

These young people have more money than the previous generation of young people. Starting from this period, the cultural industries become very interested in them. Market realized they are a good income because they spend money. This film seems to have detected the youth revolution. They are the young people of the working classes and they make the difference; they can spend money. It shows the barrier class.

3rd film: Lorenza Mazzetti’s “Together”. The longest of the three. Two characters, one stout (Edoardo Paolozzi) and one slim (the painter). The most poetic of the three films, it is not a documentary film but it is a real story. In the East land of London. Those two people are completely isolated from the rest of the society because of their handicap. People, instead of feeling empathy for those two unfortunate young people, they seem to be scared from them. And moreover, they are making fun of them. At that time, there were a lot of ruins where people lived and they were offended. No comments, just sound and noise of the city. Experiment to show diversity. 1956 is a year where another novel appeared “The lonely Londoners”. A different way of dealing a story. Another interesting thing of “Together” is that the director