I think that the film 21Up and the series as a whole is a very ambitious project that films a concept that hasn't really been documented in this fashion before. Recording the lives of many different people and how they turned out is something that is usually only scene in science experiments so it's interesting to see this concept turned into a documentary film. It makes it easier to understand and relate to the people involved in these types of projects.
This film sets itself apart from other documentaries as its an extremely long term project. It takes a bunch of different “storylines” and puts them together for comparison. Although these stories are not necessarily related, the filmmakers successfully interview them by having these people come together and share their experiences with each other. This documentary series also feels very natural as a result of the way it was filmed. There is little involvement of the filmmakers as opposed to films such as Man on Wire and Grizzly Man. This film also feels natural because its composed mostly of footage of the subjects lives, conversations, and opinions without outside influence.
Watching 21Up was an interesting experience as I had never seen anything of the sort before. It was fascinating to see how much the children had changed over the years, not just in fashion and personal style, but in opinions and personality. 21Up was far more complex than the previous films in the series because the children's differences became more and more apparent as they grew up and went in their own directions.
21Up gives a very interesting perspective to social, political, and economic issues at the time. Topics like divorce, women's roles in society, and poverty were very prevalent. Hearing the opinions of young people on the cusp of adulthood was fascinating. The interviewees seemed to be influenced by what they believed they should think as adults, while their childhood thoughts and opinions seemed to still shine through.
21Up, and the series as a whole, is an interesting idea to have explored. The idea of creating what is essentially a biography that is there for the past, present, and future is very unique and admirable. It is a project that I'm glad exists. However, I am equally interested in the realistic consequences of such a thing, such as fallout with ex-participant Charles Fernaux. Additionally I am interested by the backlash that it was manipulative in it's portrayal as the director attempts to "play god", which I understand.
21up was a very interesting documentary mostly because of how unique it was. I have seen interviews with children growing but most focused on the children in a relatively short amount of time. We all wonder how some people were as kids or what brought a person to where they are now, and the documentary explores that in a compelling way.
I enjoyed the casual feeling of the interview and documentary as a whole. There were no extravagant measures taken in shooting the film nor did there seem to be any focus other than on their lives. The questions were casual yet probing, eliciting interesting answers that were not overedited or stylized. Beyond the attraction of such a long term project 21up was compelling because it preserved the feeling that we were truly seeing into the lives of the 21 year olds.
There's a sense of grandiose cultural significance with the very concept of the Up series as a whole. The mere notion of documenting the entire succession of even one person's life, let alone 14, makes a truly fascinating endeavor to witness. It's as if the filmmakers were attempting to create a time capsule keeping a snapshot of the entire human experience. It takes an artist to come up with that sort of lifelong commitment.
And witnessing a glimpse into both these peoples lives and the project as a whole was certainly fascinating. No holds were barred, not even to make the people likable. Some were genuine class elitists, some were crude, some simply envious. But I also can't help but see the flaws in the system as well. For one is the simple factor of who these people are; having only one person of color in fourteen, as well as an overall leaning towards the upper middle class and above, even to make a point on class, leaves much of the human experience lost. I also can't help but notice how the creators would lean a little too hard into filmmaking at times. We can't help finding narrative in our work, but at times one needs to wonder if this filmmaking urge might be counterintuitive to the core of the movie.
21 Up was a unique documentary from the others we’ve watched in that it is part of a series dedicated to studying the human condition. Personally, I felt the movie was a little hard to grasp, since some of the contextual references in 21 Up came from the previous two movies. But from what I saw of the clips from the other movies in 21 Up, it was amazing to see how much these kids had changed, and I loved hearing about the experiences that came from their different perspectives of life.
I love the idea of the Up Series, and I think it was so successful because it was the first of its kind. Most of us are aware of the fact that our own expectations about what our lives may become and what we ourselves actually grow up to be can differ greatly. To get a glimpse of how other people’s lives are affected by this change was a radical thing to be documented at the time, and still is. As Luqman mentioned earlier, science experiments have been done before that track the growth of people, but they only focused on specific medical aspects. This is the first time such a long-term project has focused almost entirely on the social aspect of growing up. The fact that there have been other spin-off series of the Up Series speaks to the success of this project.
After watching 21 Up, I was very interested by the way that the entire project documented the lives of the subjects. Although the documentary primarily focused on the lives of each participant at the time it was filmed, I liked that it also included interviews from the earlier installments of the series. Even though we did not watch the 7 Up or 14 Up, the inclusion of these interviews allowed us to see the development of each participant, which I believe is the main objective of the series.
In the interviews of the characters as young children, they were clearly from different social and financial classes, but they all seemed alike in their ambitions and general outlooks on life. However, at age 21, it becomes much more apparent how their different backgrounds have affected their lives and personalities. Many of the participants have taken different paths than they believed they would when they were first interviewed at 7 years old. I think that, aside from providing a record of each subjects’ lives, the documentary series serves as a commentary on the class structure in the UK at the time. Some of the characters have become more jaded and cynical over time as they began to realize the barriers that they would have to overcome to achieve the goals that they set for themselves. Overall, I think that 21 Up was very successful in displaying the ways that external factors can influence the development of our personal traits and views.
The concept of the Up series is uniquely brilliant. While the project is based off the differences between socioeconomic background, that is not what it turns out as. It becomes uniting, rather than separating and contrasting which is what the original approach seemingly wanted to lean towards. Rather than a documentary series highlighting class differences, it becomes about the human condition as a whole.
The idea is purely fascinating, but the execution isn’t. The film 21up relies completely on dialogue, which is not necessarily a bad thing, except the sound quality is at times dreadful. There is no organization. Interviews segway from one to another with seemingly no purpose. If the editing was more deliberate, the film would be much more of a success in telling the stories of the fourteen young adults.
21Up was an interesting film series unlike any I have ever seen. The concept of documenting the lives of a group of children and continuously checking up on them to see how they're doing years later is a unique experience for the viewer. We get to see how these children develop into adults and face hardships and unfavorable circumstances as a result of growing up and reaching adolescence. The topic of class also becomes more prevalent as the subjects transition from naive, childish kids into real world adults living real world lives. Some of the subjects are wealthier, others are poor, and it is fascinating to witness how their class affects them in many aspects of their lives including socially. The documentary exposes the human condition as a whole in a sort of heartbreaking way as the viewer becomes somewhat attached to the subjects and feel empathetic towards them as they grow up.
The longterm project is extremely unique as a whole and it does draw the viewer in and makes them want to continue watching the series in order to see how these subjects moved on in their life. It is quite fascinating to see the goals these subjects have set for themselves as children and then see how they execute those goals and if they met them or not. The series as a whole documents these peoples' lives and consequently speaks on the class structure in the UK and how external factors affect peoples' lives.
The UP series comes across as a scientific venture more so than it does a cinematic venture. Unlike other documentaries, which rely on any number of forms of narrative flow, the UP series (specifically 21UP) seems to simply run down the line of the subjects and spend about fifteen minutes interviewing them and/or providing a small amount of backstory. While this does not make for a particularly fascinating cinematic experience, it does present the information at hand in a precise and clear fashion.
I think I like the idea of the UP series more than I like the actual presentation thereof. With a project as grand in scope as this, one would think that the planning of the production of the films would match the planning of the concept as a whole. However, the film feels disjoint, the audio is spotty at best, and continuity between shots (especially when transitioning between interviews) feels almost nonexistent and poorly planned. About halfway my viewing of 21UP, I found myself googling the outcomes of the subjects in this and future UP films, which I think indicates my lack of investment in the UP series as a set of films. I find that the UP series is a unique and interesting science experiment, but it does not hold up from a cinematic perspective.
Personally, I feel that the 21Up series was a great idea. I really tend to enjoy documentation of time passing and watching people grow up; I almost find it fascinating. I feel like the audience may feel the same as well, explaining its success. It is all the fun and satisfaction of knowing someone long enough to see them grow without the wait (only if you’re watching in present day). Also, if you watch it at a point in time where you could binge watch multiple films in a row, it kind of satisfies that itch that’s left when you watch something with a cliffhanger.
This film series kind of reminds my of the film Boyhood in a way because it showcases the people growing up in “real time”, but the only difference is that Boyhood is fictional, where as 21Up is in a non-fictional documentary format. But I personally feel that both groups of films provide that satisfaction of seeing someone grow. Sometimes when I’m watching films I often wondered what certain actors will look like when they grow up or what they looked like as a child and with these films, these questions are already answered. I also find that it’s a lot easier to immerse yourself in the film when you can clearly see that this 5 year old character is the same person as this 17 year old character, just in the future; when films use different actors to portray the same thing, it could get a little confusing.
I think that the film 21Up and the series as a whole is a very ambitious project that films a concept that hasn't really been documented in this fashion before. Recording the lives of many different people and how they turned out is something that is usually only scene in science experiments so it's interesting to see this concept turned into a documentary film. It makes it easier to understand and relate to the people involved in these types of projects.
ReplyDeleteThis film sets itself apart from other documentaries as its an extremely long term project. It takes a bunch of different “storylines” and puts them together for comparison. Although these stories are not necessarily related, the filmmakers successfully interview them by having these people come together and share their experiences with each other. This documentary series also feels very natural as a result of the way it was filmed. There is little involvement of the filmmakers as opposed to films such as Man on Wire and Grizzly Man. This film also feels natural because its composed mostly of footage of the subjects lives, conversations, and opinions without outside influence.
Watching 21Up was an interesting experience as I had never seen anything of the sort before. It was fascinating to see how much the children had changed over the years, not just in fashion and personal style, but in opinions and personality. 21Up was far more complex than the previous films in the series because the children's differences became more and more apparent as they grew up and went in their own directions.
ReplyDelete21Up gives a very interesting perspective to social, political, and economic issues at the time. Topics like divorce, women's roles in society, and poverty were very prevalent. Hearing the opinions of young people on the cusp of adulthood was fascinating. The interviewees seemed to be influenced by what they believed they should think as adults, while their childhood thoughts and opinions seemed to still shine through.
21Up, and the series as a whole, is an interesting idea to have explored. The idea of creating what is essentially a biography that is there for the past, present, and future is very unique and admirable. It is a project that I'm glad exists. However, I am equally interested in the realistic consequences of such a thing, such as fallout with ex-participant Charles Fernaux. Additionally I am interested by the backlash that it was manipulative in it's portrayal as the director attempts to "play god", which I understand.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete21up was a very interesting documentary mostly because of how unique it was. I have seen interviews with children growing but most focused on the children in a relatively short amount of time. We all wonder how some people were as kids or what brought a person to where they are now, and the documentary explores that in a compelling way.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the casual feeling of the interview and documentary as a whole. There were no extravagant measures taken in shooting the film nor did there seem to be any focus other than on their lives. The questions were casual yet probing, eliciting interesting answers that were not overedited or stylized. Beyond the attraction of such a long term project 21up was compelling because it preserved the feeling that we were truly seeing into the lives of the 21 year olds.
There's a sense of grandiose cultural significance with the very concept of the Up series as a whole. The mere notion of documenting the entire succession of even one person's life, let alone 14, makes a truly fascinating endeavor to witness. It's as if the filmmakers were attempting to create a time capsule keeping a snapshot of the entire human experience. It takes an artist to come up with that sort of lifelong commitment.
ReplyDeleteAnd witnessing a glimpse into both these peoples lives and the project as a whole was certainly fascinating. No holds were barred, not even to make the people likable. Some were genuine class elitists, some were crude, some simply envious. But I also can't help but see the flaws in the system as well. For one is the simple factor of who these people are; having only one person of color in fourteen, as well as an overall leaning towards the upper middle class and above, even to make a point on class, leaves much of the human experience lost. I also can't help but notice how the creators would lean a little too hard into filmmaking at times. We can't help finding narrative in our work, but at times one needs to wonder if this filmmaking urge might be counterintuitive to the core of the movie.
21 Up was a unique documentary from the others we’ve watched in that it is part of a series dedicated to studying the human condition. Personally, I felt the movie was a little hard to grasp, since some of the contextual references in 21 Up came from the previous two movies. But from what I saw of the clips from the other movies in 21 Up, it was amazing to see how much these kids had changed, and I loved hearing about the experiences that came from their different perspectives of life.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of the Up Series, and I think it was so successful because it was the first of its kind. Most of us are aware of the fact that our own expectations about what our lives may become and what we ourselves actually grow up to be can differ greatly. To get a glimpse of how other people’s lives are affected by this change was a radical thing to be documented at the time, and still is. As Luqman mentioned earlier, science experiments have been done before that track the growth of people, but they only focused on specific medical aspects. This is the first time such a long-term project has focused almost entirely on the social aspect of growing up. The fact that there have been other spin-off series of the Up Series speaks to the success of this project.
After watching 21 Up, I was very interested by the way that the entire project documented the lives of the subjects. Although the documentary primarily focused on the lives of each participant at the time it was filmed, I liked that it also included interviews from the earlier installments of the series. Even though we did not watch the 7 Up or 14 Up, the inclusion of these interviews allowed us to see the development of each participant, which I believe is the main objective of the series.
ReplyDeleteIn the interviews of the characters as young children, they were clearly from different social and financial classes, but they all seemed alike in their ambitions and general outlooks on life. However, at age 21, it becomes much more apparent how their different backgrounds have affected their lives and personalities. Many of the participants have taken different paths than they believed they would when they were first interviewed at 7 years old. I think that, aside from providing a record of each subjects’ lives, the documentary series serves as a commentary on the class structure in the UK at the time. Some of the characters have become more jaded and cynical over time as they began to realize the barriers that they would have to overcome to achieve the goals that they set for themselves. Overall, I think that 21 Up was very successful in displaying the ways that external factors can influence the development of our personal traits and views.
The concept of the Up series is uniquely brilliant. While the project is based off the differences between socioeconomic background, that is not what it turns out as. It becomes uniting, rather than separating and contrasting which is what the original approach seemingly wanted to lean towards. Rather than a documentary series highlighting class differences, it becomes about the human condition as a whole.
ReplyDeleteThe idea is purely fascinating, but the execution isn’t. The film 21up relies completely on dialogue, which is not necessarily a bad thing, except the sound quality is at times dreadful. There is no organization. Interviews segway from one to another with seemingly no purpose. If the editing was more deliberate, the film would be much more of a success in telling the stories of the fourteen young adults.
21Up was an interesting film series unlike any I have ever seen. The concept of documenting the lives of a group of children and continuously checking up on them to see how they're doing years later is a unique experience for the viewer. We get to see how these children develop into adults and face hardships and unfavorable circumstances as a result of growing up and reaching adolescence. The topic of class also becomes more prevalent as the subjects transition from naive, childish kids into real world adults living real world lives. Some of the subjects are wealthier, others are poor, and it is fascinating to witness how their class affects them in many aspects of their lives including socially. The documentary exposes the human condition as a whole in a sort of heartbreaking way as the viewer becomes somewhat attached to the subjects and feel empathetic towards them as they grow up.
ReplyDeleteThe longterm project is extremely unique as a whole and it does draw the viewer in and makes them want to continue watching the series in order to see how these subjects moved on in their life. It is quite fascinating to see the goals these subjects have set for themselves as children and then see how they execute those goals and if they met them or not. The series as a whole documents these peoples' lives and consequently speaks on the class structure in the UK and how external factors affect peoples' lives.
The UP series comes across as a scientific venture more so than it does a cinematic venture. Unlike other documentaries, which rely on any number of forms of narrative flow, the UP series (specifically 21UP) seems to simply run down the line of the subjects and spend about fifteen minutes interviewing them and/or providing a small amount of backstory. While this does not make for a particularly fascinating cinematic experience, it does present the information at hand in a precise and clear fashion.
ReplyDeleteI think I like the idea of the UP series more than I like the actual presentation thereof. With a project as grand in scope as this, one would think that the planning of the production of the films would match the planning of the concept as a whole. However, the film feels disjoint, the audio is spotty at best, and continuity between shots (especially when transitioning between interviews) feels almost nonexistent and poorly planned. About halfway my viewing of 21UP, I found myself googling the outcomes of the subjects in this and future UP films, which I think indicates my lack of investment in the UP series as a set of films. I find that the UP series is a unique and interesting science experiment, but it does not hold up from a cinematic perspective.
Personally, I feel that the 21Up series was a great idea. I really tend to enjoy documentation of time passing and watching people grow up; I almost find it fascinating. I feel like the audience may feel the same as well, explaining its success. It is all the fun and satisfaction of knowing someone long enough to see them grow without the wait (only if you’re watching in present day). Also, if you watch it at a point in time where you could binge watch multiple films in a row, it kind of satisfies that itch that’s left when you watch something with a cliffhanger.
ReplyDeleteThis film series kind of reminds my of the film Boyhood in a way because it showcases the people growing up in “real time”, but the only difference is that Boyhood is fictional, where as 21Up is in a non-fictional documentary format. But I personally feel that both groups of films provide that satisfaction of seeing someone grow. Sometimes when I’m watching films I often wondered what certain actors will look like when they grow up or what they looked like as a child and with these films, these questions are already answered. I also find that it’s a lot easier to immerse yourself in the film when you can clearly see that this 5 year old character is the same person as this 17 year old character, just in the future; when films use different actors to portray the same thing, it could get a little confusing.