Journal of Popular Film and Television ISSN: 0195-6051 (Print) 1930-6458 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjpf20 What was new in the british New wave? Re-viewing Room at the Top Barton R. Palmer To cite this article: Barton R. Palmer (1986) What was new in the british New wave? Re- viewing Room at the Top , Journal of Popular Film and Television, 14:3, 125-135, DOI: 10.1080/01956051.1986.9943948 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01956051.1986.9943948 Published online: 14 Jul 2010. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 13 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjpf20 Download by: [Purdue University Libraries] Date: 16 March 2016, At: 04:24 Downloaded by [Purdue University Libraries] at 04:24 16 March 2016 125 -----,---- - ---- -- -- - ---- 126 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television group of innovative and iconoclastic failure of artistic innovation in the through in the transition of British directors, among them Tony Richard­ New Wave: cinema from its established position son, Karel Reisz, and Jack Clayton. It as a supplier of escapist entertainment ... the films haveset out to investigate also saw provocative adaptations of a sociallandscape rather than to make to a new role as a more accurate mir­ fiction and drama that embodied a that discovery of a mediumwhich a di­ ror of social reality. A careful ex­ challenge to the status quo by accord­ rector such as Truffaut so rapturously amination of the film's construction ing a prominent place to working­ communicates. Our film-makers travel of social meaning, however, reveals class characters and concerns.4 Films as mass observers rather than as artists that its radicalism is confined to a dif­ prepared to turn the landscape upside such as Room at the Top (1959), down if it happens to suit their pur­ ferent concept of realism. On a deeper Lonelinessofthe Long DistanceRun­ poses." and more important level, the film ner (1962), and A Kind of Loving proves conservative and traditional. (1962) were made on the margins of New Wave filmmakers, it seems, For, although it deals with the issue of an industry that had long before de- failed to inaugurate a new formal tra­ getting ahead in a society no longer dition for British cinema. Did these ruled by a rigid sense of class demar­ directors, however, at least offer a cation, Room at the Top identifies as new and challenging social vision? a transgression of proper behavior The New Wave films John Hill, for example, has attacked and, worse yet, a betrayal ofauthentic were often huge box office what earlier critics usually faintly selfhood the success of its protagonist praised: the movement's representa­ in abandoning the poverty of his successes with an audience tion (however much dependent on working-class origins. Braine's novel that, apparently, was eager novels and plays) of a social landscape presents Joe Lampton's rise to the top for a different kind of that had, in the cinema, never previ­ of haut bourgeois respectability much ously been accorded a strong voice or more positively, and thus serves as a cinematic experience. telling image. Hill argues, however, useful background against which the that the New Wave, far from being film's quite different politics can be revolutionary, remained firmly within displayed. Before turning to a com­ the patriarchal constraints of the tra­ parison of Clayton's film with its ditional British film; therefore, veloped a very different concept of source, however, we need to consider the well-made film. These produc­ the breakthrough wasnot as important briefly both the multifaceted relation­ tions violated the conventional wis­ as has often been suggested and cer­ ship of a film text to the social dis­ dom of industry executives about the tainly cannot be accepted as an un­ courses that form its constituent parts problematically "Good Thing." 7 marketability of subjects such as so­ and the specific institutional con­ cial class, premarital sexuality, and straints that affected the production the flouting of authority. When they With such criticisms in mind, we of Room at the Top and whose func­ were finally given a national release, might well agree with Tony Aldgate tioning reveals much about the film's however, the New Wave films were and Jeffrey Richards that, since reception by a British audience in the often huge box office successes with "much of the heady optimism inher­ late 1950s. These preliminary consid­ an audience that, apparently, was ent in that era's strain of journalistic erations will help us define the "new­ eager for a different kind of cinematic cliches has dissipated," it is "time to ness" of the New Wave more pre­ experience. attempt a reassessment of . the cisely and also dismiss what has been Downloaded by [Purdue University Libraries] at 04:24 16 March 2016 Even at the time, however, some 'new wave' in general.?" often wrongly advanced as a reason critics suggested that what the New As Hill implies, the most important for the movement's failure to be more Wave directors were offering was question that such a reassessment innovative and politically radical: the hardly new. Calling the movement an must pose and answer relates to the presence of film censorship in Britain. "abortive renaissance," Peter Gra­ social functioning of the New Wave. What is the role of media like film ham, for example, declared that: How radical and innovative was the in modern culture? In an influential portrait of British life in these films? theoretical article Stuart Hall argues If one judges these films as films, rather than interpretations on film of It is my intention here to offer a par­ persuasively that media products such certain themes in books, it soon be­ tial answer to this general question by as films perform three related but dis­ comes apparent that the Britishsceneis discussing one of the movement's in­ tinct functions. The first task is "the scarcely more fertile than it was,say, at fluential and acclaimed early texts: provision and the selective construc­ the time of the Ealing comedies some Jack Clayton's Room at the Top, an tion of social knowledge, of social ten years ago." adaptation of John Braine's bestseller imagery, through which we perceive Echoing Graham's implicit com­ about social mobility and discontent the 'worlds,' the 'lived realities' of parison of British directors with their in postwar Britain. others." But the cinema or television more radical French contemporaries, Observers at the time generally con­ does more than select what is fit for Penelope Houston also discovered a sidered Room at the Top a break- representation; a second function is to British New Wave-Room at the Top 127 Joe (Laurence Harvey) and Alice (Simone Signoret) are contained by the shabby homeiness of working-class existence. unacceptable contradiction by the es­ tablishment of a utopian (or, some­ times, dystopian) space where the an­ tinomies of a text's social raw materi­ als may be effectively closed up or off. 10 In short, if representation calls attention to what is, the narrative establishes what it means. Thus, as we shall see, the evolution of a different notion of "realism" does not neces­ sarily signal any radical change in a text's relationship toward the "neu­ tral and integrative coherence of pub­ lic opinion." New discourses, such as the discontent of the working-class angry young man, can be readily ac­ commodated within traditional orders of meaning through the evaluative dy­ namics of the storytelling process. Hall's model, of course, makes no insure that this "social knowledge ... of a world through representation, its provision for the description of the is ranked and arranged within the intention to connect with the specta­ mechanisms that give such evaluative great normative and evaluative classi­ tor's notion of the vraisemblable. dynamics their ordering force. We fications, within the preferred mean­ What kinds of social knowledge are must remember that, in speaking of ings and interpretations." At the final provided, moreover, furnish an im­ the "meaning" of a film, that "pro­ stages of this process "what had been portant key to the text's rhetorical in­ duction and text are articulated made visible and classified begins to tent, its stance toward effects such as through the 'machine' of social and shape into an acknowledged order." "realism" or "escapism." In other historical cinematic conventions and This order, Hall suggests, never di­ words, any alteration in the specific constraints." The notion of author­ rectly represents "real unities," such kinds of social knowledge made avail­ ship is of limited (but still important) as class and exploitation, but is a con­ able by a textual tradition signals not use in any assessment of the shaping struction similar to the "neutral and only a different attitude toward the forces of such institutions, for these integrative coherence of public opin­ "real" (aspects of which are now in­ "cannot be seen necessarily to corres­ ion," a representation, in short, of cluded or excluded from representa­ pond to a maker's personality or 'in­ ideology in its global, Althusserian tion), but also a different compact be­ tentions' nor likewise to his or her Downloaded by [Purdue University Libraries] at 04:24 16 March 2016 sense." tween producer and consumer about social and political beliefs." \I Like the structuralist Marxism on the purpose of such provision. As we As far as the New Wave is con­ which it is obviously based, Hall's shall see, the new "realism" of films cerned, the most important institu­ schemedoes present some drawbacks, like Room at the Top must be under­ tional constraint was the British most notably a monolithism that stood in this dual sense.