INTRODUCTION
"There is always one moment in childhood when the door
opens and lets the future in." - Graham Greene 'The Power
and the Glory'
Growing up is something everyone is supposed to do however hard
it is. It is a universal theme and it is not surprising that many
remarkable films worldwide have been made on this subject and that
they are very popular with their audiences. Everyone would agree
that childhood and adolescence is an intense, exhilarating and magical
time but it can also be a time of pain and fear and confusion. Many
different feelings are experienced by the young growing-up - isolation
and connection, freedom and imprisonment, despair, self-awareness
and fulfilment.
The films examined in some detail explore a variety of aspects
of growing-up in different places at different times - Kes, , Stand
By Me, The Night of the Hunter, Rebel Without A Cause, and An Angel
at My Table. Whilst they are all films made by adults about children
and adolescents, they are all sympathetic to the point of view of
the young people involved. Many films about childhood and growing-up
are often about something else - the past, memory, loss of innocence
and nostalgia...Many films interpret and reveal the inner world of
childhood imagination, memory and dreams.
There are several ways in which directors choose to interpret the
theme of youth/young people in film. Some directors choose a Romantic
approach - they connect their hero or heroine to nature whether in
the form of a special relationship with a wild animal as in Kes or
in a celebration of the freedom a child can have in the country as
opposed to the city in films such as The Railway Children or Hope
and Glory. In this way they accentuate the idea of the innocence
of childhood. Other directors explore how childhood experience and
consciousness affect, even damage, the adult mind and personality
in films like 'Stand By Me' or 'The Go-Between'.
Children and young people can be used in film as symbols of hopes
and fears for the future. The teenage rebelliousness of Jim Stark
towards his parents in Rebel Without A Cause undergoes a change in
the course of the film and at the end of it we are led to believe
that peace, harmony and understanding will triumph and that they
will all be reconciled (or will they?). Being a child often means
being afraid of the dark, of ghosts, of the unknown and sometimes
of other people. Telling fairy stories is a way of exploring these
feelings and many young people enjoy mystery and fantasy as a form
of escape. A film like The Night of the Hunter allows the audience
to experience, even enjoy, their own terror and come to terms with
it when the film ends happily. Using young people in horror films
intensifies the fear because they are so much more vulnerable than
adults. Directors often base their films on their own lives 'The
Kid' (Charlie Chaplin), 'Radio Days' (Woody Allen), 'Au Revoir Les
Enfants' (Louis Malle) or that of other famous people. These films
can be fictional as in the film 'Shakespeare in Love' or close to
the truth as in 'An Angel at My Table' which is based on Janet Frame's
book about her overcoming severe mental illness in order to become
a writer. |
