through the centre of a Northern industrial town, shooting extension of this tradition in the work of Tony Richardson. A Taste of Honey ALBERT HUNT buildings and statues from a low angle as if we were seeing them gliding past Jo’s eyes through the bus window. The Think of Look Back in Anger with its phoney opening camera-work is again arty and self-indulgent. It is also an sequence in the jazz club (a sequence which makes nonsense, echo of the sequence in We Are the Lambeth Boys in which incidentally, of Jimmy Porter’s isolation), followed by that It is hard to write objectively about films like A Taste of Honey. T he British film industry is so the boys, on their way home from Mill Hill, pass through the picturesque walk home through the dark streets, with Jimmy infantile that when an adult film does slip through it is tempting to forget about criticism and West End. Only Reisz was, of course, making a sharp from time to time blowing his trumpet; or think of the simply ram it between the teeth of the Carry On brigade. Let me begin, then, by welcoming A comment on the contrast between the England of West­ gratuitous atmospheric shots of the faces of the old men Taste of Honey just because it has been made. minster and the England only just across the river where the Jimmy and Helena pass in the park; or that calculated last boys live. In A Taste of Honey the only purpose of the shot of Jimmy and Alison, silhouetted on a footbridge at a All the same, if the long-promised revival in British cinema is ever to take place, we ought, I sequence is the creation of a vague “atmosphere” : on the station, lost in a swirl of steam. Or consider the opening of think, to be taking a long, cool look at those films which are “on our side.” What the cinema sound-track a group of children sings “The big ship sails The Entertainer, with Jean seeing off her brother who is needs at the moment is not a liberal nodding of the heads, but a serious critical analysis. Fifteen . .. ”, a song which, before the end of the sequence, is leaving for the Middle East from yet another railway station. years after Italian neo-realism, it is time to stop boggling at pictures of Salford; and three years taken up and orchestrated in a big way. When, as Jo and The whole sequence (which again takes place before the after the first production of Shelagh Delaney’s play the question that must be faced is how far Helen finally get off the bus, a handsome young negro credits) is shot at an angle. (Where have we seen that Tony Richardson has succeeded in finding a film language to communicate the play’s intensely appears from the top deck and helps Jo with the bags, before ?) personal vision. Shelagh Delaney’s work is a remarkable blend of freshness and maturity, and it is suspicion is confirmed. Shelagh Delaney’s swift and oblique against these qualities that Tony Richardson’s film needs to be judged. observation is to be replaced by a heavy-handed literalness, This is the style which imposes itself on the delicate structure with every point over-explained and the emotional truth of Shelagh Delaney’s play and transforms it into a turgid drenched in atmospherics. (Later, Richardson carefully drama of painful obviousness. Nothing must be left to the explains Geof: he is the first customer to whom Jo makes a imagination - we are not even spared the tastelessly em­ sale in the shoe-shop where we are shown her working. Shelagh Delaney’s approach to the theatre is based on a similarly unsentimental note. The Boy kisses Jo. “Don’t do barrassing scene in which Geof goes to the clinic and borrows Shelagh Delaney’s script becomes so perfunctory at this concern for truth and a distrust of the phoney. Her plays are that,” she says. “Why not?” he asks. “I like it,” she a doll. And the camera wanders drearily and predictably point as to suggest an understable lack of interest in the not explanations, but presentations. She presents a series of replies. There is a sudden fade-out, followed by music and from one picturesque location to another. whole idiotic contrivance). images of people - enjoying themselves, being lonely, wedding bells - Helen’s music and Helen’s wedding bells. quarrelling, in love - and the quality of her plays, that fusion And this is the last we see of the Boy in the play. Blackpool is there, of course, even though this means doing This opening sequence is, unfortunately, a useful example of of affection, toughness and affirmation which is so hard to violence to the relationship between Helen and Jo. When Richardson’s approach to cinema. The material is fresh, but Jo protests in the play about Helen leaving her, (“You should put into words, springs from her rigorous concern with the There is, in every scene, a feeling of immediacy. We don’t the language is stale and tired. And on closer investigation prepare my meals like a proper mother”), Helen replies, emotional truth of each image. Nothing is blown up, want to know where Jo met the Boy or Geof. What we are it turns out to be, not the language of a breakthrough, but the characteristically, “Have I ever laid claim to being a proper “dramatised” in the conventional sense of the word, but on interested in is the subtly shifting relationships we see on the language of all that is most orthodox in the British prestige mother?”, and goes. In the film, she lets Jo tag along, then, the other hand there is none of that self-conscious under­ stage. Was Jo’s father really an idiot? It doesn’t matter. film - the language of David Lean. guiltily, her conscience struggling with her selfishness, statement with which dramatists like Rattigan hide their What does matter is Jo’s immediate response to this story. lack of conviction. Instead, there is a simple and direct sends her home by bus. In the play, Helen has no conscience A Taste of Honey is written in a stage idiom that is com­ David Lean stands firmly in the tradition of British film- response to human experience. Not that the experience is and Jo needs no excuse for her actions: here, conscience and pletely fresh. A successful translation to the screen demands making. Extracts from his films are often offered to students itself simple. Shelagh Delaney is sensitive to the slightest excuse are provided, and the moral poise of the original an equally fresh film language. What is the language Tony as examples of the skill of the director. He is equally at changes of mood and feeling. Her dialogue captures with crashes into sentimentality - but meanwhile Richardson has Richardson has, in fact, used ? home with a wide range of material, from Noel Coward to astonishing precision the sudden switches of thought, the Dickens and H. G. Wells, precisely because he has nothing impulsive movements of the mind that make relationships The film opens with a long sequence before and during the personal to bring to his medium. He is a skilful translater alive and dynamic. The texture of her work is very close in RICHARDSON’S FIRST FEATURE: “ LOOK BACK IN ANGER’’ credits. It can be divided into three main parts - Jo at into the picturesque. feeling to that of Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye. There school playing netball, Jo and her mother escaping through is the same feeling of spontaneity, the same exploration of a window from a basement flat, and a long bus-ride to the Take, for instance, the climax of Brief Encounter, a classic immediate impressions, the same gaiety mingled with other side of the town, at the end of which the Black Boy is sequence of the British cinema. A woman and her lover are astringency. The plays are almost staged jazz: not improvised introduced as a stranger who helps Jo to carry the bags. about to part for ever. They sit in a station buffet. A it’s true, but arrangements in a jazz idiom. What is the purpose of this sequence ? The opening shots gossipy friend joins them, spoiling their last conversation. place Jo in her school environment, but much of the point is Presently, Alec leaves to go to another platform to catch his For example, the love affair between Jo and the Black Boy is lost because Richardson calls attention to the camera-work: train. There is a momentary diversion, and the heroine finds presented, not in the form of a logically developing story, but he makes the camera follow the ball itself, crazily, up, down, herself alone. She runs out on to the platform just as an in two brief statements, full of joy and affection and com­ round, across. express is announced. From the opposite platform, Lean pletely devoid of sentimentality. “I’ll be gone soon, too,” photographs her coming out of the buffet, then slowly tilts says the Boy. “What then ?” “My heart’s broke,” Jo replies, the camera. She closes her eyes, and the train rushes in and the Boy adds, “You can lie in bed at night and hear my The episode of the escape from the flat is a more serious front of her at a crazy angle. When the train has gone by, ship passing down the old canal.