Tony Richardson

 Tony Richardson




Look Back in Anger (1959)

A Taste of Honey (1961)



RANKED:


2. Look Back in Anger (1959)


When the John Osborne play "Look Back in Anger" debuted at London's Royal Court Theatre in 1956, it ushered in a new subgenre of British dramas called 'kitchen sink dramas.' When the play was adapted to film in 1959, these kitchen sink dramas began to flood British cinemas. Like the genre as a whole, "Look Back in Anger" centers on an angry young lower-class man whose bitterness and resentments over his economic standing leads to rage and violence. Although the film received mixed reactions at the time of its release, it is oft remembered for the neo-realist shift it left in its wake, allowing British filmmakers to capture the seething resentments that laid at the heart of British society - one that was completely overrun with economic disparity and social injustice. "Look Back in Anger" is not just a great Richard Burton picture, it was a film that ignited a film movement and genre that illustrated the bubbling anger of an entire nation.





1. A Taste of Honey (1961)


1959's "Look Back in Anger" and 1960's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" are both foundational films in the category of the British "kitchen sink drama." However, their scopes are limited to heterosexual men of the lower class. What Tony Richardson's 1961 film "A Taste of Honey" does is flip this notion on its head and completely expand the range of identity of its lower class characters. Not only does the film center on a teenage girl (as opposed to an 'angry young man'), it also features a mixed-raced relationship, a single mother, and an outcast homosexual. The very 'identity' of these characters are ultimately what trap them in this caste system, forcing them into compromising positions on the outskirts of comfort and privilege. This far more expansive observation of the lower class and its despair ultimately add new layers of dimensionality to the concepts of social displacement found in these 'kitchen sink' dramas. "A Taste of Honey" was a milestone film for these very reasons. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bitter Rice (1949)

Image
  Giuseppe De Santis' "Bitter Rice" Perhaps one of the more melodramatic Italian neo-realist films I've ever seen is Giuseppe De Santis' " Bitter Rice ." Despite its melodrama, the film is completely in line with the themes typical with neo-realist cinema. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starring his wife Silvana Mangano, the film would go on to be nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival, nominated for Best Story at the 1950 Academy Awards, and is included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978." " Bitter Rice " centers on Francesca and Walter, two small-time thieves who must hide from the law among the crowds of female rice workers working in the Po Valley. Francesca joins the workers and meets the overtly sexual and beautiful Silvana, who attempts to steal the alrea...
Read more

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Image
  Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" The famed Italian poet and director Pier Paolo Pasolini once said that Federico Fellini's 1960 masterpiece " La Dolce Vita " was too important to be discussed in the usual way one discusses a film. I absolutely agree. " La Dolce Vita " is not only a monolith in cinematic history - it set a new precedent for how films could be constructed. Its DNA lies in the very components of modern cinematic convention. The themes and narrative beats remain as relevant today as they were in 1960, lending the film a remarkable sense of timelessness. To call " La Dolce Vita " a masterpiece almost feels like an understatement.  The film departs from traditional narrative structure, unfolding instead through a series of interconnected episodes. Marcello Mastroianni stars as Marcello Rubini, a tabloid journalist who aspires to write literature. Navigating the glamorous yet hollow world of Rome's café society, he spend...
Read more

Quai des Orfevres (1947)

Image
  Henri-Georges Clouzot's "Quai des Orfevres" 1947's " Quai des Orfevres " was Henri-Georges Clouzot's first directorial effort after his controversial 1943 film " Le Corbeau ." Clouzot had been banned from filmmaking by the French government for his collaboration with a German film studio financing " Le Corbeau ." However, many didn't quite make the thematic connections with " Le Corbeau "'s anti-Nazi sentiment and felt that the film was critiquing France itself. One Clouzot's ban was lifted, he decided to adapt Stanislas-Andre Steeman's 1942 novel " L'egitime defense ."  Clouzot's film focuses on a married couple, Maurice Martineau and his theater performing wife, Jenny Lamour. After Jenny becomes acquainted with a sleazy businessman, Brignon, who promises her a film deal, the jealous Maurice goes to Brignon's home to kill him only to find him already dead. A police procedure initiated...
Read more