The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

[jdb1]

LLDR is my favorite foreign film, and it taught me very early on that Tom Courtenay is one of the screen's great actors. I agree with you: he is spot-on as a disaffected youth, and seems like the genuine article. In a way, his performance here is analgous to that of Montgomery Clift in The Search -- it's reported that many audiences then thought that Clift was a real GI because he was so natural in the role, and when I first saw LLDR, at age 13, I was convinced that Courtenay was a real street kid the director must have found somewhere.

The presentation of the story itself is quite interesting; although there is realism and angst, there is also a great deal of lightness and humor, just like in real life, gritty or not. This is a very small-scale movie that seems much larger than the sum of its parts. I see a great similarity of art and ethos between LLDR and Hard Day's Night.

What especially draws me to this movie is that I got just as much out of it the first time as I do now, only I get different things now. At that time, we in NYC were bombarded with b&w kitchen sink dramas and working class comedies from Britain. I was a young adolescent then, and most of what I saw of English cinema went right over my head. But not this one. I got it, I believed it, I retained it, and it hasn't lost any of its initial attraction for me.

[charliechaplinfan]

It's one of the only Angry Young Men films that I haven't seen. I love the genre and I do have LLDR, so why haven't I watched it? Who knows, I'll try to rectify and report back. I've purposely not read your full post to save something for the viewing.

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner tonight. Hmm, as an actor I can't take to Tom Courtenay, probably because he does inhabit his roles so well, as you've mentioned, it feels like a documentary and Colin Smith feels like a real disillusioned youth, so my guess is that he's a very good actor who I've only seen in roles that I've found disturbed.

I like the way Richardson filmed this, it does have a feeling of the '50s but also the feeling that it's going to break out into a more exciting time. The most interesting aspect to me is the social conditions they live in, it looks like a prefab, a house constructed during the war to cope with the housing shortage not intended for permanant residence. The poor father, worked to the bone to have his meagre death in service spent before he's cold, along with his bed being kept warm. I do feel for Colin's character, he's estranged from his mother because of her lover and attitude towards his Dad. Yet as much as I feel his need to rebel I'm just too sensible at this time in my life to appreciate the opportunity he threw away. It's great to rebel but in reality, he's rebelled once and found himself in borstal, he's offered a chance and throws it up. Is it possible I would have understood him more at an earlier age? I don't know, it really resonated with you Judith and I was hoping it would for me. I almost feel like I'm seeing this through my parents eyes, not the best perspective.

For me the angry young men films, they split into two sorts. The ones that have unsympathetic male characters, Richard Burton in Look Back in Anger, I'd waited so long to see this film and was dissappointed by Burton in it, he completely overplayed it for me but the girls made it. This Sporting Life, Richard Harris's character similar to Burton's perhaps worse, both men are brutes. The two angry young men I do like are Albert Finney in Saturday Night Sunday Morning and Alan Bates in A Kind of Loving, I'm not sure everyone would put Bates's portrayal in their but for me it qualifies because of time period and depiction of working life.

One of the big bonuses of these films is the clips we see of working life in Britain in the 1950's/60s. Did the USA make similar movies? This is the time of my parents youth and most of these movies were set in the industrial north, not so industrial now but we can still see it in our landscape and hear about it in our local history.

Wolud Laurence Harvey qualify in Room at the Top or does this precede the genre? Also what else are TCM playing in the genre?

[jdb1]

Needless to say, Ms. A, I have a different take on LLDR than you do. I very much enjoyed last night's broadcast and, after not having seen this movie for several years, I found that it has lost none of its appeal for me.

I think my primary difference of approach from yours here is that I don't agree that Colin was either really given a chance, or that he threw it away. Rather, I think what happened to him was a definite maturation process. He was smothering and chafing under the thumb of authority in most aspects of his life, and he took a stand for himself, made a decision that he knew very well was going to make things bad for him, but he stuck to it. The images flashing through his mind as he ran the race indicate to me how he recognized that there were no chances at all in his present life, and he decided he would rather be true to himself than knuckle under to those who he rightly realized hardly had his best interests at heart, but were, in reality, exploiting him. In the end, his own integrity and nerve were what distinguished him from the others, cockiness and attitude notwithstanding. Even if he did spend the rest of his life in menial work or on the dole, you know he would be a man who understood his own worth and had the strength of his convictions. I don't think his final gesture was foolish; I think it was heroic. And I think a bright and articculate young man like Colin might eventually find himself and have a productive, if not necessarily materially successful, life -- but a life on his own terms. He will probably always be lonely wherever he is, because he's not like those around him, and he refuses to be other than what he is.

There is, of course, also the analogy of coming of age in trying circumstances. Colin is smart enough to understand that his life is going nowhere, but not yet astute enough to know quite what to do about it. He is in a world of low expectations and little emotional support. He is very lucky to have met a nice girl who wants to be supportive, although she isn't yet mature or experienced enough to know how. He is indeed a lonely young man for so many reasons, but he finds an inner strength that allows him to go his own way, despite impediments placed by his peers as well as his superiors.

I really like the almost documentary way this movie is presented, and I like how the darkness and crowding of the city and the borstal (with overlapping dialogue) give way to quiet, and brighter lighting and wider spaces and nicer music when Colin is running. Long distance running is, after all, a lonely activity, but it's one in which Colin finds solace and freedom.

These changes in atmosphere are what remind me of Hard Day's Night. The underlit b&w bustle of the Beatles' professional world, contrasted with their few moments of freedom, like in the "Can't Buy Me Love" scene in an open field, and Ringo's "walkabout" scene along the river, where he meets a younger counterpart of himself. I think these scenes strongly echo Colin's ride in the stolen car, and his day at Skegness where he and Audrey confide in each other. I'd be surprised if LLDR wasn't one of Richard Lester's inspirational films.

[charliechaplinfan]

I completely see your view on Colin's predicament. I thought about it again last night, I found it very sad, sad because he hasn't been given a chance as he's been growing up, his mother now has no time to help him emerge into the world and has probably thrown him over now he's in borstal. I do see too that his stand could be seen as heroic. I just think I'm too practical a person, I'd like to think that in stopping runnig Colin will gain something back for himself, he might have momentarily gained his self respect but at one cost? Seeing him as Audrey sees him, I feel that's seeing the real Colin. The feeling I'm left with is the sadness for Colin and many others like him. In that respect the film is probably groundbreaking and a breathe of fresh air when it was first aired. I see the parellels to A Hard Day's Night, particularly in Ringo's walk.

[jdb1]

As for the question about whether there were similar films during this fime period in the US, I'd say yes, there were some, but not all that many, and a lot of those were probably independents. The US wasn't was not having economic troubles on the scale of Britain's at that time. In fact, it was a period of relative prosperity for us, which led us to focus more on material wealth, leisure time, etc. In addition, the fact that people were not having to scramble quite so hard to make a living meanat that we could turn out attention to national social problems than to individual monetary ones.

In fact, I can definitely remember that many of the kitchen sink and angry young man dramas of the late 50s and early 60s were mocked here as histrionic and self-pitying. We had gotten past that -- we thought of that kind of drama as belonging to the Depression era. Not that we were unsympathetic, but that we just didn't feel that kind of angst at that time, and we didn't get it. The atmosphere here was hope, not despair. (I am speaking very generally here about the US mindset of the late 50s and early 60s. Those of us who were alive then can probably remember that our families' economic circumstances were on the rise at that time.)

[charliechaplinfan]

I'd agree that those years were hard for Britain and the genre is a reaction to this poverty and it's the poverty, working class origins and locations are part of their charm, along with the great performances of some of our most talented leading men. I think the good ones in this genre are really memorable.

[jdb1]

I completely see your view on Colin's predicament. I thought about it again last night, I found it very sad, sad because he hasn't been given a chance as he's been growing up, his mother now has no time to help him emerge into the world and has probably thrown him over now he's in borstal. I do see too that his stand could be seen as heroic. I just think I'm too practical a person, I'd like to think that in stopping runnig Colin will gain something back for himself, he might have momentarily gained his self respect but at one cost? Seeing him as Audrey sees him, I feel that's seeing the real Colin. The feeling I'm left with is the sadness for Colin and many others like him. In that respect the film is probably groundbreaking and a breathe of fresh air when it was first aired. I see the parellels to A Hard Day's Night, particularly in Ringo's walk.

It's likely he will never stop running after something, because his life is a long distance run. The tragedy will lie in whether or not he discovers what it is he is running toward -- I think he already has a pretty good idea of what he is running from. He has, at the least, gotten to run in a open place, apart from the dreary and stultifying atmosphere of his life in Nottingham and the borstal and he has gotten to compete on an equal level with those he might never even come into contact with in his everyday life. The fact that he got to mingle with the upper classes while imprisoned is, in itself, rather symbolic to me. The borstal boys are like zoo beasts, being visited and condescended to by the public school boys. (Notice how an extra set of coathooks was wheeled in between the two groups, to frame the borstal boys like animals viewed through a cage.) I love Courtenay's at once wary, confrontational, bemused, and deferential body language when the rich kids come to visit. You ought to view this movie a few more times, just for Courtenay's performance. It really is remarkably real and skillful.

As for gaining one's self respect at cost, I think Colin is young and arrogant enough to weather that. At this point in his life, I don't think he cares about the cost. This will be one of many such setbacks in his life, and my impression is he will be able to handle them better and better as he goes along. After his idleness and directionlessness at home, he had the disclipline and toughness to get up at dawn every morning and run for miles. He wasn't just training himself for the race, I think he knew he was training himself for how he intuitively realized his life was going to play out -- long, arduous and lonely. I'd like to think he makes it.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'd like to think he makes it too and I will revisit the film again because it has puzzled me. Part of me wishes I'd seen this when I was young, my sensible head tells me everything he had gained would be thrown away because of his refusal to cross the line first. He has learned the valuable gift of having a hobby, a time to use that idle time. Hopefully this will see him through, that and Audrey as I see no hope for his mother.