LOOK BACK IN ANGER (1958), dir. Tony Richardson
Beginnings of a Genre that was All the Rage.
The best thing about “Look Back in Anger” is Richard Burton, whose volcanic performance as Jimmy Porter set the bar for angry young men in Great Britain.
Like Malcolm McDowell in Lindsay Anderson’s “If…” (among other films in the “angry young man” genre released during the following decade), Jimmy isn’t thuggish as much as he is disaffected. His answer to the question of what he wants in life—“Everything… nothing…”—indicates a profound confusion about his own place in the universe. Though college educated, he lives in relative squalor. Though bestowed with artistic gifts, these traits haven’t helped him achieve much in the wider world. Perhaps Jimmy is just too lazy to apply himself, and prefers hurling invectives from the sidelines at others. At any rate, Jimmy’s life is his soapbox, from which he rails against the upper-class, popular culture, and everything in between.
For the most part, Jimmy’s audience consists of his wife, Alison (Mary Ure), and close pal Cliff (Gary Raymond). Cliff occupies the spare room in the couples’ flat, and works at Jimmy’s candy stand. A close friend, he often acts as peacekeeper when tensions between the Porters flare up. Usually, it’s Jimmy who goes too far, making one too many snide remarks about Alison’s family, or Alison herself.
On the morning of a particularly ugly incident, Jimmy is seething because his wife has written a letter to her parents. They happen to be old money-types who never approved of the marriage, and it incenses Jimmy that she maintains communications, when he has abandoned all civility. Jimmy makes relentless fun of them while Alison goes about her ironing, pretending to ignore him. This only makes him try even harder to get a rise out of his wife. Cliff tries to persuade his pal to back off. But that leads to rough horseplay, which causes Alison to burn her arm.
After Jimmy retreats to the nearby pub, following harsh looks from his wife, Cliff tries to comfort Alison. He mentions that he is thinking of abandoning their crazy household. In a moment of intimacy between friends (although it is implied that Cliff thinks of Alison more strongly than that), he asks why she doesn’t just give up on the abusive marriage, and leave Jimmy.
“I’m afraid,” Alison replies. After all, she isn’t sure her parents, whom she is estranged from, will take her back. Later, however, we find out more. Alison is pregnant, has been pregnant several months, and has yet to tell Jimmy. She has vacillated on the decision of letting him know, and now feels uncertain she wants to have the baby at all, since it would cement her bond to this angry young man. In desperation, Alison seeks the counsel of Helena Charles (Claire Bloom), a childhood friend who happens to have landed a role in the local play.
Helena—a prim, raven-haired beauty—presents a fine constrast to Alison, who possesses straw-blond hair and more earthly charms. Helena also appears to be the more stronger-willed of the two women. She refuses to be brought down by Jimmy’s snide remarks, although an attempt on his part for “a little fun,” crashing one of her rehearsals, nearly pushes her over the edge of good behavior.
Having witnessed the way Jimmy treats her, Helena desperately tries to convince Alison to leave him. Her main problem, however, is that she still finds herself attracted to the fire that burns incessently inside her husband. She relates the story of how they met—Jimmy walking into the dance at her old town, covered in motor oil, seemingly burning even then. While that reminiscence doesn’t change Helena’s opinion about how bad a husband Jimmy is, she admits that such an angry man must make life exciting. At this point, a strange look comes over Helena, which implies a possible weakness to the very trap she is trying to extricate her friend from.
Will Alison run away from Jimmy? Will Jimmy change his ways after finding out that he is going to be a father? Will Cliff really jump ship, leaving his two closest pals to their domestic strife? And ultimately, is Helena to play a larger role than enabler to all this?
Director Tony Richardson and screenwriter Nigel Kneale—with John Osborne providing additional dialogue for his adapted stage work—resolve everything in a relatively unsurprising fashion. More compelling are the insights into Jimmy, what motivates his contempt for religion, culture, even education. He was once the beneficiary of university training, but now, the way he uses erudite words in his rants seems like a deliberate attempt to bring them down, to make them vulgar.
So why is Jimmy full of rage? The answer, it turns out, falls into what Orson Welles cited as “pop psychology:” Like Charles Foster Kane, Jimmy Porter suffered a childhood trauma. He lost someone dear to him. Now he resists the love of those who would willingly give it, pushing them away with insults, sometimes unconsciously. But at the same time, nothing seems to make Jimmy sadder than the thought of one more friend going away. “The child is father to the man,” sayeth the poet Gerald Manley Hopkins. In his heart, Jimmy wants everything to be the way it was back when he was a little boy, back when he was happy.
But alas, the nature of life dictates that people must move on, must leave us, must change. The realization on Jimmy’s part—that people never stay, that nothing remains the same—fuels his rage at life itself. At a relatively young age, he already learned the inevitability of death. So now, at twenty-five, he firmly says to hell with earthly ambition, and to hell with love, money, art, and other earthly trifles (Basically, he adopts the whole “angry young man” thing).
Jimmy has stared into the abyss, and having not fallen in, turned away scarred. Only the appearance of a soul mate, worn down as much as him by despair and bitterness, can bring out his long-dormant sense of empathy. That is the only way Jimmy can ever change, and while such a fate has tragic implications, it also provides a strange sense of comfort when it finally comes along, and saves him.
Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)
The best thing about “Look Back in Anger” is Richard Burton, whose volcanic performance as Jimmy Porter set the bar for angry young men in Great Britain.
Like Malcolm McDowell in Lindsay Anderson’s “If…” (among other films in the “angry young man” genre released during the following decade), Jimmy isn’t thuggish as much as he is disaffected. His answer to the question of what he wants in life—“Everything… nothing…”—indicates a profound confusion about his own place in the universe. Though college educated, he lives in relative squalor. Though bestowed with artistic gifts, these traits haven’t helped him achieve much in the wider world. Perhaps Jimmy is just too lazy to apply himself, and prefers hurling invectives from the sidelines at others. At any rate, Jimmy’s life is his soapbox, from which he rails against the upper-class, popular culture, and everything in between.
For the most part, Jimmy’s audience consists of his wife, Alison (Mary Ure), and close pal Cliff (Gary Raymond). Cliff occupies the spare room in the couples’ flat, and works at Jimmy’s candy stand. A close friend, he often acts as peacekeeper when tensions between the Porters flare up. Usually, it’s Jimmy who goes too far, making one too many snide remarks about Alison’s family, or Alison herself.
On the morning of a particularly ugly incident, Jimmy is seething because his wife has written a letter to her parents. They happen to be old money-types who never approved of the marriage, and it incenses Jimmy that she maintains communications, when he has abandoned all civility. Jimmy makes relentless fun of them while Alison goes about her ironing, pretending to ignore him. This only makes him try even harder to get a rise out of his wife. Cliff tries to persuade his pal to back off. But that leads to rough horseplay, which causes Alison to burn her arm.
After Jimmy retreats to the nearby pub, following harsh looks from his wife, Cliff tries to comfort Alison. He mentions that he is thinking of abandoning their crazy household. In a moment of intimacy between friends (although it is implied that Cliff thinks of Alison more strongly than that), he asks why she doesn’t just give up on the abusive marriage, and leave Jimmy.
“I’m afraid,” Alison replies. After all, she isn’t sure her parents, whom she is estranged from, will take her back. Later, however, we find out more. Alison is pregnant, has been pregnant several months, and has yet to tell Jimmy. She has vacillated on the decision of letting him know, and now feels uncertain she wants to have the baby at all, since it would cement her bond to this angry young man. In desperation, Alison seeks the counsel of Helena Charles (Claire Bloom), a childhood friend who happens to have landed a role in the local play.
Helena—a prim, raven-haired beauty—presents a fine constrast to Alison, who possesses straw-blond hair and more earthly charms. Helena also appears to be the more stronger-willed of the two women. She refuses to be brought down by Jimmy’s snide remarks, although an attempt on his part for “a little fun,” crashing one of her rehearsals, nearly pushes her over the edge of good behavior.
Having witnessed the way Jimmy treats her, Helena desperately tries to convince Alison to leave him. Her main problem, however, is that she still finds herself attracted to the fire that burns incessently inside her husband. She relates the story of how they met—Jimmy walking into the dance at her old town, covered in motor oil, seemingly burning even then. While that reminiscence doesn’t change Helena’s opinion about how bad a husband Jimmy is, she admits that such an angry man must make life exciting. At this point, a strange look comes over Helena, which implies a possible weakness to the very trap she is trying to extricate her friend from.
Will Alison run away from Jimmy? Will Jimmy change his ways after finding out that he is going to be a father? Will Cliff really jump ship, leaving his two closest pals to their domestic strife? And ultimately, is Helena to play a larger role than enabler to all this?
Director Tony Richardson and screenwriter Nigel Kneale—with John Osborne providing additional dialogue for his adapted stage work—resolve everything in a relatively unsurprising fashion. More compelling are the insights into Jimmy, what motivates his contempt for religion, culture, even education. He was once the beneficiary of university training, but now, the way he uses erudite words in his rants seems like a deliberate attempt to bring them down, to make them vulgar.
So why is Jimmy full of rage? The answer, it turns out, falls into what Orson Welles cited as “pop psychology:” Like Charles Foster Kane, Jimmy Porter suffered a childhood trauma. He lost someone dear to him. Now he resists the love of those who would willingly give it, pushing them away with insults, sometimes unconsciously. But at the same time, nothing seems to make Jimmy sadder than the thought of one more friend going away. “The child is father to the man,” sayeth the poet Gerald Manley Hopkins. In his heart, Jimmy wants everything to be the way it was back when he was a little boy, back when he was happy.
But alas, the nature of life dictates that people must move on, must leave us, must change. The realization on Jimmy’s part—that people never stay, that nothing remains the same—fuels his rage at life itself. At a relatively young age, he already learned the inevitability of death. So now, at twenty-five, he firmly says to hell with earthly ambition, and to hell with love, money, art, and other earthly trifles (Basically, he adopts the whole “angry young man” thing).
Jimmy has stared into the abyss, and having not fallen in, turned away scarred. Only the appearance of a soul mate, worn down as much as him by despair and bitterness, can bring out his long-dormant sense of empathy. That is the only way Jimmy can ever change, and while such a fate has tragic implications, it also provides a strange sense of comfort when it finally comes along, and saves him.
Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)
Labels: ***1/2, 1958, Richard Burton, Tony Richardson
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