TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES

Sport and cinema

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Tony Richardson
1962 - United Kingdom - 1h44

Screenings : wednesday 24 - 2:30 pm - Pathé - 2 - presented by Louis Mathieu - film teacher friday 26 - 10:30 am - 400 Coups - 1 - presented by Pierre Charpilloz - journalist

On a winter's evening in Nottingham, Colin Smith and his partner rob a bakery and make off with the till. Colin is arrested and immediately sent to borstal. The Governor soon recognises his talents as a long-distance runner. It is during these long, solitary runs that the young man escapes into daydreams and reviews the film of his past life, with its family sorrows and its joys in love.

In England, the New Wave was born when critics Tony Richardson and Karel Reisz met at Sequence magazine. They were joined later by Lindsay Anderson and John Schlesinger, and founded Free Cinema in 1955 with the documentary short Momma Don't Allow about North London jazz clubs. The young men criticised British cinema for not representing young people and their problems. Two years after the success of A Taste of Honey, Tony Richardson continued in his literary vein by adapting a novel by Alan Sillitoe, whose proletarian heroes are at the heart of his plots and whose novels are strikingly authentic in their depiction of working-class environments. To play Colin, Richardson called on Tom Courtenay, who went on to become one of the iconic actors of Free Cinema. His wiry physique and chiselled features immediately identified him with these awkward English youths. The book already had a strong connotation of social criticism, and we also find it here in this story of a young misfit who refuses to be taken in by a system responsible for his sporting failures through sport. “The last race gives us Colin's final kaleidoscopic escape, in which all the film's sequences jarringly converge, with the finish revealing a spirit which is finally at peace with itself. Rarely has there been a more sober and virulent call to rebellion than what we see symbolised by this concluding scene in which a disparaged Tom Courtenay blends in with the mass of other students, having chosen anonymity and individuality over the façade of glory and acceptance by all.” (Justin Kwedi; DvdClassik.com)

CAST AND CREW

Cast : Michael Redgrave, Tom Courtenay, Avis Bunnage, Alec McCowen, James Bolam, Joe Robinson
Screenplay : Alan Sillitoe
Cinematography : Walter Lassally
Editing : Antony Gibbs
Music : John Addison

Production : Woodfall Film Productions

French distributor : Park Circus