A KIND OF LOVING

UK, 1962, 112 minutes, Black and White.
Alan Bates, June Ritchie, Thora Hird.
Directed by John Schlesinger.

A Kind of Loving is the first feature film by John Schlesinger who won the Oscar for Midnight Cowboy (1969) and whose films cover the range of Billy Liar and Darling to Far From the Madding Crowd and Sunday Bloody Sunday. Films in America include The Day of the Locust and Marathon Man. The film reflects the social and local interests of British film-makers and writers in the early 60's and the film is related to films made of the works of John Osborne, Alan Sillitoe and John Braine. This film relies on its Yorkshire atmospheric way of speaking and acting, and provincialism.

Alan Bates, who has been so successful on screen and stage, was at the beginning of his film career. Thora Hird, notable for comic roles on television, is excellent as the heroine's mother. There is a grim 'realism' about the treatment of man-in-the-street type characters and the problems of everyday living.

1. The significance and tone of the title? As portrayed? How apt?

2. Comment on the film as a piece of British film-making in the 60's. The use of locations, local people, accents and atmosphere, the black and white photography and its sense of realism? The popular music of the time? How successful were these ingredients? Their impact in their time for authenticity, for today?

3. How were the themes. and the characterisations tied to a particular time and a particular place? or how universal were the characters and their predicaments? What does the film have to say to a wider audience than the British?

4. The importance of the credit sequence? The portrayal of the ordinary routine of marriage, the photos, the peoples' comments, the family? What atmosphere for the film did this create? The contrast with the later registry office marriage? The contrast with the happy ending?

5. How realistic was the film in its estimation of people, their strengths and weaknesses, society, social pressures, real life? How optimistic was the film about people? How pessimistic?

6. Comment on the type of modern society presented in the film: the people and their life in the city, the materialist overtones of their life, the humdrum nature of life, the bit of romance? The ordinary values of society work, family, relationships, the role of men and women? The portrayal of life in the towns, at work, typist pool, the cafeteria, the dances etc.? How much was the film a world of draftsmen, typists and their families? The possibility of audiences identifying with this kind of world? How well then could this film communicate its themes?

7. How was Vic a representative of the modern young mana modern young everyman? His place in his family, his looking after people at the wedding, the humdrum nature of his work, his ambitions? Being one of the boys, the usual sex-talk? The attraction for Ingrid, the flirting, the growth in love? His discovering that he liked her and disliked her? What was the nature of his relationship with her, how much liking and love? The importance of their going out together? Their relationship and pressures? The importance of her pregnancy and exerting of pressure on him? Should he have married her? Were the options made clear to him? The nature of the wedding and the atmosphere? Moving in with Ingrid's mother, her pressurising and nagging and its effect on Vic? His seeking advice of his sister and father? Their reactions to him and the effect on him? His taking a stand and moving Ingrid out from the home? How did this make a man of him? What values did Vic stand for? What incidents best illustrated this: the initial bus ride and the borrowing of the money, the going to the pictures, walking out, the father's band concert etc?

8. How typical a young girl of this society was Ingrid? Initially seen as pretty and attractive, the’ talk of the bus, her continual chatter, her falling in love with Vic? Her attitudes towards sex and curiosity? The pressuring on her part for sexual fulfilment? The pregnancy and the marriage? The discovery of her attraction to her mother and her imitation of her mother's attitudes? Her selfishness? The importance of the loss of the child? Was there a future for her with Vic? Did these difficulties make her grow up?

9. Vic's family: the ordinariness of their lives, audiences' understanding this family, their example for Vic, his brother-in-law and Christine and her support, his parent's support, the surprise of their turning against him at the end? Were they as understanding as they should have been? What should they have done? or did they do the right thing?

10. The importance of Ingrid's mother? Ingrid's standards because of her mother, her possessiveness, love, her pressurising her daughter, her nagging, her constant criticism of people ("these people"), her pressure on Vic, her turning Ingrid against him, her fussiness in the house, buying clothes, her reaction to Vic's abuse of her and his being sick etc? How typical of this kind of woman was she? what insight into this kind of character?

11. What insight into the nature of men and women, their relationships did the film give? What understanding of marriage: its importance, social consequences, the nature of love and sentiment, the lasting value of marriage? The insight into crises and the options of husband and wife?

12. How impressive a social dram was this, techniques, themes?