Talk:Look Back in Anger (1959 film)

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Look Back In Anger is based on the English concept of the "Angry Young Man" of the 1940s: a young man of the lower classes with little or no education or promising future who is angry at his position in society and blames the middle and upper classes for his predicament. The film with Richard Burton, while the first major production to show Burton as an actor in a leading role, and which catapulted him into stardom, is not a true representation of the play by John Osborn. The play is not a story of a menage a trois between Jimmy, Alison and Helena, but a slow uncovering of Jimmy's anger and the reasons for it. Alison is his placid middle class wife - a foil for the lower class Jimmy and his anger. Helena is a protective friend Alison's and a brief titillation for Jimmy who, in spite of his anger and disaffection for the middle and upper classes, which he vents against to everyone who will listen, has aimed his affection at two middle class girls as a "lesson" to them. This includes Helena (with whom he nearly comes to blows because she understands and mocks his background, but remains impervious to his temper because of her sense of humor). Helena is also a foil for Alison who meekly accepts Jimmy's tirades. Jimmy eventually remains faithful to Alison with one concession: their love must remain in the realm of the imagination, while his anger remains a part of reality. One of Jimmy's best outbursts of lower-class frustration at of his upper-middle class opponents is when he describes Alison's brother, in part, as a "chinless wonder from outer space". Jimmy's marriage to Alison and his casual affair with Helena are a part of his open display of hostility to the upper-middle classes; he flaunts his careless lower class morality which he believes is "honest" and attacks what he considers the artificial and dishonest morality of the upper-middle class.

The most ironic part of the play, which is meant to keep the audience in a state of suspense after the play has ended - if there is really an end -and hoping that Alison's father (who makes an appearance when Alison leaves Jimmy, briefly), will return and take his gentle, overworked and now poor woman home to her warm, middle class existence for good, is the "bears and squirrels" metaphor. Jimmy never apologizes for his temper, his anger, his dalliance, or his insults of Alison, her family, her father and Helena. In the end there is simply the implication that it will all continue and that somewhere Jimmy, the angry young man, and his young wife, will find satisfaction and hope in the idea that they have each other. There is also the faint suggestion that Jimmy is right and that the Upper-middle classes ARE to blame for his predicament.

"Look back in Anger" is a peculiarly British play, as is the concept of the angry young man, and even though the film attempts to "Americanize" the plot by making it about the three characters - Jimmy, Alison and Helena in a love triangle - the play is not about this, and to make it so is to diminish its importance in the long British lexicon of analytical and socially relevant dramas.71.196.86.130 (talk) 14:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Jimmy's famous description of Nigel is "Brother Nigel -- the straight-backed, chinless wonder from Sandhurst." And I think you miss a point about Jimmy. He is, in fact, educated -- he identifies as working class by choice. Cheers. --El Ingles (talk) 13:22, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Jimmy in the film was not just educated but a university graduate, which in 1950s Britain was a very small category, with speech free of regional or working class traits. His failure to find a career suiting his training and abilities was not from social exclusion but from choice. Hors-la-loi 23:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hors-la-loi (talk • contribs)

Cast

The article doesn't mention who plays who. I think it would be kinda handy if it did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.131.61.10 (talk) 22:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Remedied. --El Ingles (talk) 00:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Locations

Market Scenes are referenced as having been filmed in Debtford. My understanding was always that these scenes were filmed in Romford Market (was brought up there in the 1950's) and this is the location given at imdb.com . Anyone got any further information about this. 88.117.78.208 (talk) 02:22, 18 March 2014 (UTC)