The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (film)

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a British film director Tony Richardson of the drama from the year 1962.

Action

At the beginning of the film we see the 18 -year-old Colin Smith, who runs a desolate country road somewhere in rural England along.

He was arrested for burglary in a bakery and ends up in a prison for young offenders. There he takes part in a rehabilitation program of the Governor, which also belongs Athletics. As it turns out, the Smith is a talented runner, he is instructed by the Agency Director to participate in a competition with a " Public School ". In case of winning, Colin would be released early, but he has to defeat the reigning champion in long distance running.

During the daily training, Colin come more memories of situations from his past come to mind. He remembers the death of his cancer-stricken father and the wasteful manner in which he claimed the 500 -pound life insurance for potpourri. More memories tell of a weekend trip with friends to the sea and it was stolen with his arrest.

"Running has always been a big thing in our family, especially running away from the police ," he is quoted at the beginning of the film. As the film is understandable that Colin has so far only used his talent to escape the accesses to the police.

In a further reminder will be aware that Colin has no intention of an honest consumer to be watching TV in the room in which his father died. In this room, he burns a bill from the life insurance policy of his father and is thrown out also out of this room due to lack of obedience to the new boyfriend of his mother.

After further memories of the long-awaited contest begins. All the hopes of the Director are to Collin. This looks clear in the lead, but gives up just before the finish. Thus, Smith protested, as in previous scenes, against the pressure to conform to the Company and its bigoted moral principles.

Criticism

" An outstanding work of British " Free Cinema ": Precise environmental studies, in which the social causes of crime are clear, connect to the rebellious attitude of the English post-war youth. "

Bosley Crowther praised in the New York Times, also in the underlying short story by Sillitoe as practiced intention of the film, the conclusions from the situations and circumstances shown not to pretend, but to let the viewer draw itself. A notable example is the mental drawing of the parents in the film. Difficult for American ears, however, is the spoken dialect in the film.

" Sillitoe, Richardson and Lassally have any significant in its own way share in the brief flowering of the English film in the early sixties ... Here the act of poetry is outshone, without changing the substance of aggressive social criticism is falsified. "

"English film of high artistic skill. From 16 to recommend. "

Follow

Among other films such as Room at the Top, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is referred to as one of the first films of the Free Cinema. The shape of the flashback technique was often used later in other films, as well as in This Spring Life.

1962 in film Screenplay Alan Sillitoe Film score John Addison Walter Lassally Joe Robinson (actor)
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