Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
On my media plate lately, has been the Up Series; a time lapse documentary centered around the lives of 15 children. The children were filmed and interviewed at the age of 7 in the year 1964. To posture themselves critically at that time, the producers selected children from varying economic backgrounds in England, but in contemporary terms they more narrowly selected white males as the majority.
The ideation for the film came from a Jesuit maxim “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”. This notion is the foundation of the film and to carry forth its implications the producers set the film in time by re-interviewing and filming these children/people every 7 years. So the fold out of the program is 7 Up, 14, Up, 21 Up…and the most recent being 49 Up. What ensues for the viewer is an odd mix of emotions and perspectives. Mortality and maturity are prominent in the rapid changes we see while watching lives go by and develop in snippets of 7s. This pace is compeletly furious even compared to our own jolting experience of time. The paradoxical nature of the self is also evident as you see great change and unbending sameness that emerges in each life.
Could the saying be true that at the age of 7, I was essentially who I am? This question becomes beautiful and ponderous. Mentally floating back to 7 isn’t as easy as watching a film of yourself, yet the stray sensations and sense of personal action and interest might be more concrete furnishings in our present livelhood than we give place to. The looking back strangely helped me locate current facets of purpose and interest in my own work and occupation. Childlikeness seems to strike again as the apparent method for seeing truth and facing adult dilemma.
Filed under: film
