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The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

Posted By: Someonelse
Date: 18 Jul 2011 13:41:28
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
DVD9 | ISO | NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | HQ Scans (Cover + Disc) | 01:44:56 | 4,96 Gb
Audio: English AC3 1.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Drama, Sport | Won BAFTA Film Award | UK

One of the key "angry young man" films which helped define the British "Kitchen Sink Drama" style of the late 1950's and early 60's, this story centers on Colin Smith (Tom Courtenay), a bitter young man from a working-class family. Uninterested in school and determined not to follow his father into factory work, Colin and his friend Mike (James Bolam) make their pocket money through petty crime, until they're arrested after the robbery of a baker's shop and sentenced to Borstal (British reform school). The Governor of the school (Michael Redgrave) takes a keen interest in Colin, but he cares less for his rehabilitation than his gifts as a broken-field runner; Colin finds himself torn between the need to please his captors and his determination not to play along with what he sees as a corrupt system. The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner was the first film for Courtenay, whose performance earned him the "Most Promising Newcomer" prize at the 1962 British Film Academy awards.

IMDB
DVD Beaver

Bearing all the hallmarks of the British New Wave (and owing a sizable debt to the French New Wave), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner captured the bitterness and resentment that characterized the "angry young man" in the British post-war landscape. Relentlessly grim and uncompromising in its condemnation of the ruling class, the film and its hero are at times hard to take. But if the film is threatened by self-righteous tendencies, it is ultimately redeemed by genuine rage and defiance. When Colin throws the Borstal's race against the public school boys, he aims a well-placed slap to the face of the establishment, and it resounds with stinging accuracy. Making his striking screen debut as Colin, Tom Courtenay became another of the rising number of film actors whose unconventional features did not conform to the glamorous standards of pre-war cinema; rough and surly, his face was perfect for communicating the barren hopelessness intrinsic to New Wave portrayals of the oppressed working class. Rather than simmer with pre-meditated rage, he just doesn't care, and his rebellion, when it comes, seems wrought more out of a sneer than a shout. The silent, unforced anger of Colin's actions is disquieting, capturing the all-encompassing disgust that marked a new generation of young men who, after looking back in anger, faced the future with nihilistic abandon.
Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

What I find most interesting about The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner is its refusal to be in any way sentimental about Colin's plight. There's no question that the film is a story of social and political protest, as seen through the eyes of a psychically wounded, angry young man (if you'll forgive me using that term). And we do feel sympathy for Colin. But it's a trap of his own making, as well as society's, and we're never asked to excuse his behavior, or even necessarily buy into his way of thinking. That's why his final act in the film is so emotionally satisfying. Refusing to cross the finish line when he's tens of yards ahead of the next person, while smiling at the enraged, infuriated governor, Colin has committed an act of self-destruction that will very probably cost him dearly in his subsequent treatment at the borstal.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

"Quitting" has always been an abhorrent, dirty word in American culture, but Colin's refusal to run, framed by the film's insistence that the establishment must be, if not changed then at least challenged, becomes a personal statement of stubborn individualism – ironically, perhaps the most valued personal trait in American culture. He has no other way to strike a blow at his perceived oppressors, than to stop short of the finish line, and smirk at the expectant, then slowly horrified, governor. To society and the authority figures who control it (earlier, Colin stated they should all be lined up and shot – because that's what they'd like to do to him), Colin is nothing, and British society at the time offered precious little opportunity for a person like Colin to advance. With few economic opportunities, coupled with a rigid class system that allowed little or no upward movement, Britain was clearly failing people like Colin. And he knows this; his defiant refusal to run is the only way he can express any outrage over his seemingly hopeless situation, while still showing the establishment – the governor – that the individual will always have the final say when it comes to their own destiny.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

Gritty, harrowing, downbeat, and yet at the same time, curiously hopeful and ultimately triumphant, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner is director Tony Richardson's best film, and a powerful statement on an individual's place in an indifferent, even malevolent society. I highly recommend The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.
Excerpt from Paul Mavis's Review on DVD Talk
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

It was considered chic among cinephiles in the 1960s to denigrate British stage and film director Tony Richardson, but on balance he was responsible for as many important British films in these years as anyone else. One of the best of the British Angry Young Man films, THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER concerns Courtenay, an ill-educated youth who is sentenced to a reformatory after robbing a bakery. The borstal's governor, Redgrave, a great believer in the rehabilitative powers of sports, is delighted to learn that Courtenay is a natural distance runner and encourages him to train for a big meet with a local public school, promising him special privileges in exchange for a victory. Most of the film is taken up with Courtenay's training, during which he flashes back to the events and relationships that have brought him to this point in his life. When the big race finally arrives, Courtenay easily outclasses his competitors, but at the finish line he shocks the governor with an unexpected act of defiance. Adapted by Alan Sillitoe from his own short story and masterfully directed by Richardson, this poignant film was also the auspicious film debut of Courtenay, whose excellent performance earned him the British Academy's Most Promising Newcomer award.
TV Guide
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

The final New Wave kitchen sinker from Woodfall Films - system stirrers of Saturday Night And Sunday Morning - Tony Richardson's 1962 borstal drama still strains at the leash after all these years. By their very nature, reissues invite reappraisals, and what was once an underdog now emerges not just as a supremely entertaining winner but one of the key British films.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

Elaborating on Alan Sillitoe's short story, the movie bustles Tom Courtenay's terse loner Colin Smith into correctional facility Ruxton Towers. Smith's jagged interaction with both the screws and his fellow inmates immediately circles him as an antisocial liability, but when Michael Redgrave's priggish governor enters Ruxton into a cross-country contest with a public school, Smith's athletic prowess wins him some unexpected freedom.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

In between dynamic running sequences (lensed with vitality by Walter Lassally), flashbacks slowly dripfeed details of Smith's background, a grim-oop-North deadend of charred dreams and petty crime. And with race-day nearing and Smith a dead-cert, the internal simmer begins to overboil, and manifests itself in a quite extraordinary act of defiance.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

Despite some black wit, bitter irony's the flavour here - but the aftertaste is exhilarating thanks to Courtenay's surly magnetism and a climax guaranteed to have you both punching the air and rolling your eyes. Ultimately, Richardson's pot-shots at consumerism and class have lost some urgency, but the nihilistic, punky buzz packs an immortal wallop. Classic.
Total Film
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

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