Up (film series)

Did You Know?

• The first film was directed by Paul Almond, with Michael Apted serving as a researcher.
• The premise was taken from the Jesuit motto 'Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man'.
• The 1998 edition, 42 Up, was broadcast on BBC One but still produced by Granada Television.

Participants

The series begins in 1964 with a group of twenty children at the London Zoo, where the narrator says they were brought together for the first time. Fourteen of them are followed: Bruce Balden, Jackie Bassett, Symon Basterfield, Andrew Brackfield, John Brisby, Peter Davies, Susan Davis, Charles Furneaux, Nicholas Hitchon, Neil Hughes, Lynn Johnson, Paul Kligerman, Suzanne Lusk, and Tony Walker. They were selected to reflect Britain’s social classes in the 1960s, with Apted later saying he was told to find children at the extremes. No long-term contract existed because the show wasn’t planned as a series. For later installments, participants are paid for each appearance and get equal shares of any prize money. Each subject is filmed over about two days, with the interview lasting over six hours. Apted later regretted including only four women. Andrew Brackfield came from a pre-preparatory school in Kensington alongside Charles and John. At seven, he said he read The Financial Times, later admitting he was just repeating his father’s answer. All three knew their planned prep schools, public schools, and universities, with two naming specific Oxbridge colleges. Andrew studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, became a solicitor, and is the only Kensington boy to appear in every film. He and his wife, Jane, are most pleased with their children and their relationship.

Critical response and accolades

The Up series has earned significant acclaim, with Roger Ebert describing it as "an inspired, even noble, use of the film medium" and placing it among his top ten films. Yet it has also drawn criticism from ethnographers and the participants themselves over its editing. Mitchell Duneier observed that director Michael Apted could imply cause-and-effect links between a subject’s past and present that may not be real. Apted admitted this, noting that in 21 Up he assumed Tony would end up in prison and filmed him in risky areas accordingly, and that he prematurely depicted Nick’s marriage troubles. He called his "tendency to play God" with the interviews "foolishness and wrong". In 21 Up, female participants objected that questions focused only on domestic life, marriage, and children, ignoring politics. Rebecca Mead wrote in The New Yorker that Apted could be "unbearably patronizing," especially toward working-class women, but also noted that subjects have pushed back. In 49 Up, Jackie confronted Apted for decades of underestimating her, a moment Mead called exhilarating and a vindication for Jackie. In 1984, 28 Up made Ebert’s list of the ten greatest films ever. Apted received an Institutional Peabody Award in 2012 for the series. The British Film Institute ranked 28 Up 26th on its 2000 list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. In 2024, the Broadcasting Press Guild named Up the most influential show of the previous 50 years, as chosen by leading British TV writers.

Influence

The series has directly affected participants' lives; they often report being recognised in public. In 56 Up, Tony recounted giving a ride to Buzz Aldrin and being surprised when a passerby asked him, not Aldrin, for an autograph. Participants' views on involvement vary: John called the programme a 'poison pill', while Paul's wife credited it with keeping their marriage together. Apted noted that between 42 Up and 49 Up, the rise of reality television changed how subjects discussed their contribution. The producers engineered some interactions: Paul and Nick were flown back to England for filming of 35 Up and 42 Up respectively; Paul was flown back again for 49 Up and visited Symon; Symon and his wife were flown to Australia to visit Paul in 63 Up. Bruce offered Neil temporary shelter before 42 Up, allowing Neil time to settle in London; despite Neil's eccentricities during his two-month stay, they remained friends, with Neil later reading at Bruce's wedding. In 56 Up, Suzy and Nick were interviewed together, having become friends through their shared rural upbringing. The original hypothesis was that class structure in the UK would set a person's life path at birth. The producer once considered having three children step forward and narrate 'of these twenty children, only three will be successful', but the idea was not used. Class immobility held in most cases, though Tony appeared to become more middle class. Apted regretted not accounting for feminism, resulting in fewer girls and no selection based on possible careers.

Similar documentaries

The "Up" film series concept has been realized in multiple countries. A multinational example is Geneviève Bailey's I Am Eleven (2012), which includes participants from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. In Australia, Gillian Armstrong created a series tracking three girls and later women from 1975 through 2009, with installments titled Smokes and Lollies (1975), 14's Good, 18's Better (1980), Bingo, Bridesmaids & Braces (1988), Not Fourteen Again (1996), and Love, Lust & Lies (2009). Belgium's contribution is Jambers, a two-part documentary by TV journalist Paul Jambers for Flemish public television, following secondary school students in Kapellen from 1980 to 1990. Canada produced several projects: Robbie Hart and Luc Côté of the National Film Board made Avoir 16 ans (1992) and Avoir 32 ans (2010); Hélène Courchesne and Nicole Tremblay of Société Radio-Canada created Du premier au dernier baiser (2003); and Janis Lundman and Adrienne Mitchell of Back Alley Film Productions made Talk 16 (1991) and Talk 19 (1993). In the Czech Republic, Helena Třeštíková directed René, a single-episode portrait of one man filmed over two decades starting in the late 1980s. Denmark's Årgang 0 (Generation 0) by TV2 (2000) follows children born in the year 2000 from birth onward. France has Michel Fresnel's Que deviendront-ils ? (1984–1996). Germany offers two series: Winfried Junge's Die Kinder von Golzow (1961–2006), set in East Germany and later unified Germany; and Detlef Gumm and Hans-Georg Ullrich's Berlin – Ecke Bundesplatz (1985), which follows individuals and families in hour-long episodes broadcast across four seasons on 3sat.