6/28(Tue) 56 up & social class (Host:Linda)

[lindafun]

“ 56 UP “ is a documentary film which has followed the lives of 14 British kids from a variety of social backgrounds since 1964, when they were seven years old. The director took a snapshot of the 14 participants every seven years until they were 56 years old. The original hypothesis of the film was that class structure is so strong in the UK that a person’s life path would be set at birth. Most of the children from the working class remained in those circles.



56 UP~ trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppK4RWjQoDg





56 UP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIGQgL8p8dI





Session I:

Q1. Nick is the only one that breaks the class barriers and moves up to upper class. How possible do you think the upward mobility can be achieved?

Q2. Do you think people from the upper class have more privileges than others? Or do you think people in the lower class would have stronger will compared to those in the upper class?

Q3.Suzy married a lawyer and lives a prosperous life. Do you think a happy marriage plays a key role in people’s life, especially for woman?

Session II

Oprah’s life story

http://www.therichest.com/expensive-lif ... d-success/


Q1. Oprah grew up poor but turns out to be successful now, which is a good example of class mobility. Do you have any other examples?

Q2. What are the reasons that make them move up to a higher social class? Education, determination, or others? Do you think marriage is also a good way of upward mobility in social class? Such as the case of princess Diana, though she has little interest in it.

Q3. On the other hand, there are still a majority of working-class people who struggle to make ends meet and remain in the circle. Why? Is it an individual choice or class-based inequality?

Q4. Think 3 of your “best” friends, are they in the same social class as you are? Do you think people tend to hang out with friends in the similar class levels?




********************************************************************************************************************************************
Agenda:
6:45 ~ 7:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
7:00 ~ 7:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
7:50 ~ 8:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
8:10 ~ 8:25pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:25 ~ 9:05pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
9:05 ~ 9:25pm Summarization (20 mins)
9:25 ~ 9:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements ********************************************************************************************************************************************
聚會日期：列於該貼文主題內
聚會時間：當天請準時於 6:45 pm 到達 ~ 約 9:30 pm 左右結束
聚會地點：丹堤濟南店
地址、電話：台北市濟南路三段25號 地圖 (02) 2740-2350
捷運站：板南線 忠孝新生站 3 號出口
走法：出忠孝新生站 3 號出口後，沿著巷子(忠孝東路三段10巷)走約 2 分鐘，到了濟南路口，左轉走約 2 分鐘即可看到。
最低消費： 80 元


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[Rock]

Wow! Great topic. It's something that we've never talked about. Good job.

[Michael-liu]

Yes! Awesome topic! Amazing documentary that took 49 years to follow up participants. Unbelievable!

[Kooper]

How authentic can a film depict lives of ordinary people in Britain? The best answer so far goes to the UP documentary series. It shot lives of 14 British people, at seven year interval, for 49 years. In the first episode, subjects were just seven-year old pupils. Now they have all turned fifty. The degrees of authenticity that the films have achieved no doubt shame the so-called reality shows of modern times.

Though having been viewed as epic, the series also inevitably demonstrates limitation of documentaries. The shooting itself, more or less, intruded interviewees’ everyday life and even impacted their life path in the long run. Just imaging that every seven years we get interviewed, reviewed and judged by the public over whether we stick to our childhood dreams, end up as successful or as life losers as anticipated, how won’t we get motivated, or discouraged otherwise, trying to live up to our potential?

As the series has become more well-known and more influential, there has been subjects trying to use the films to serve their own needs; one of the subjects, a case in point, returned to the documentary after bailing out for 28 years with an attempt to promote his music band; another subject tried at least two times in later episodes to revise the image he was portrayed by the film maker early on.

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Here are some reports on the documentary series:

WHAT “56 UP” REVEALS
'Disillusioned’ 7 Up boy who criticised Thatcher returns to the documentary series after a 28-year gap
The British Class Divide, on a Personal Scale http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/movie ... eries.html
Michael Apted, Aging With The '7 Up' Crew http://www.npr.org/2013/07/26/205760044 ... -7-up-crew
'56 Up' is 'more optimistic' than director Apted expected http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2 ... s/2959135/