Tony
Richardson made the brilliant A taste of honey, one of the best films about
growing up I know of. It’s head-spinning in its bitter-sweet depiction of
family tensions and rejection of stupid social mores. The Distance of a Long Distance Runner is almost equally good and
in a similar way, it is a splendid film about being young, about not ‘maturing’
in a conventional sense – the main character resists the tiredness and
facileness of adult life. Basically, this is about creating one’s own space, a
space of freedom.
Colin (chilly acting by Tom Courtenay) ends up in a reform school after having robbed a bakery. He is from a working-class family, and his father has just died. His mother is a cold woman, but also a sad, fumbling creature. The reform school does its utmost to live up to the ideas of the Empire; the boys are to become docile, hard-working, healthy men. Some of the teachers are bullies. The teacher of physical education has decided that Colin is a promising long-distance runner and sets out to make him a star runner who wins the important race with another school. Colin is skeptical, but it turns out that long-distance running is a space of freedom, so he seems to submit to that suggested path. He meets some friends in the school, and also with these friends, he finds a loophole. They go out to town, and meet girls. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is for the most part a bleak film about adult alienation from joy and a sense of being alive. But Colin's running bears the promise of another life, close to nature, where he does not need to succumb to the shady ideals of the British Empire. The small circle of friends and its youthful play is filmed with a similar ease; the characters are allowed a small break, and all of them are well aware that it is only a very limited space of freedom. This mini-zone is starkly contrasted by the school's order and joyless routines - in one prominent scene, we see dutiful and not so dutiful boys howling 'Jerusalem'. A problem with the film is that it never settles where it seeks to be in the territory in which realism borders parody. Nonetheless, Richardson does a good job in describing a person who does not want to fit in, or win, for that matter. One could say that this film is about class hatred. The school system it depicts seems to be about creating perfectly obedient citizens and workers. The future looms ahead full of worry and angst. The answer seems to be a little private sphere that one can save for oneself, untouched by a society of dignity and hard work.
Not only does this film have some good acting and lots of good lines (it is based on short story) - the cinematography marks the shift from the drably modernist school to the lonesome runner's contact with nature.
Colin (chilly acting by Tom Courtenay) ends up in a reform school after having robbed a bakery. He is from a working-class family, and his father has just died. His mother is a cold woman, but also a sad, fumbling creature. The reform school does its utmost to live up to the ideas of the Empire; the boys are to become docile, hard-working, healthy men. Some of the teachers are bullies. The teacher of physical education has decided that Colin is a promising long-distance runner and sets out to make him a star runner who wins the important race with another school. Colin is skeptical, but it turns out that long-distance running is a space of freedom, so he seems to submit to that suggested path. He meets some friends in the school, and also with these friends, he finds a loophole. They go out to town, and meet girls. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is for the most part a bleak film about adult alienation from joy and a sense of being alive. But Colin's running bears the promise of another life, close to nature, where he does not need to succumb to the shady ideals of the British Empire. The small circle of friends and its youthful play is filmed with a similar ease; the characters are allowed a small break, and all of them are well aware that it is only a very limited space of freedom. This mini-zone is starkly contrasted by the school's order and joyless routines - in one prominent scene, we see dutiful and not so dutiful boys howling 'Jerusalem'. A problem with the film is that it never settles where it seeks to be in the territory in which realism borders parody. Nonetheless, Richardson does a good job in describing a person who does not want to fit in, or win, for that matter. One could say that this film is about class hatred. The school system it depicts seems to be about creating perfectly obedient citizens and workers. The future looms ahead full of worry and angst. The answer seems to be a little private sphere that one can save for oneself, untouched by a society of dignity and hard work.
Not only does this film have some good acting and lots of good lines (it is based on short story) - the cinematography marks the shift from the drably modernist school to the lonesome runner's contact with nature.
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