Written in 1958 against the backdrop of the Cold War it tells the tale of the mundane nature of working-class life in a Northern English town, Nottingham, and features an anti-hero Arthur Seaton. Middle-class Czech émigré Reisz’s own background was worlds away, yet his first feature allows the material to speak for itself, while Finney’s performance electrified audiences and the film industry alike.įour decades later, Nottingham provided the setting for the films of another chronicler of British working-class life, Shane Meadows, including TwentyFourSeven (1997) and This Is England (2006). This is Alan Sillitoe's first book and probably the most well known. The pithy dialogue in Nottingham writer Alan Sillitoe’s adaptation of his own novel remains eminently quotable, but it’s the diligent and sympathetic direction by former documentary-maker Karel Reisz that creates an authentic atmosphere for the story of a would-be rebel forced to compromise. All the rest is propaganda.” When no-nonsense lathe operator Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney) voiced his world view, British cinema had never heard anything like it before. “Put working-class life on screen, bluntly and without condescension.”
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