British director Michael Apted made a James Bond vehicle, 1999's The World Is Not Enough. But his claim to a place in cinema history rests on a much different franchise — the Up series. Starting with 7 Up in 1964, the series has followed a group of 14 Brits in seven-year intervals. Paul Almond directed 7 Up, with Apted working on it as a researcher, but the latter took the helm of the series with 14 Up. Beginning as a fairly modest short made for British TV (which has always funded the project), it went on to catch worldwide acclaim. The series’ initial idea came from the Jesuit saying, “Give me the child until he is 7, and I will give you the man.”
Apted says that with 21 Up, he realized the films were moving from the personal to the political. 63 Up — which arrives at the Belcourt this week — simultaneously captures two areas of change: the aging and physical decline of its subjects (one of whom is suffering from throat cancer), and the sense that the U.K. itself is declining. Brexit keeps arising as a topic of conversation. Apted's first subject, Tony, began working as a cab driver, but the current gig economy has decimated the ability of such men to maintain a middle-class living. He participated in a protest with 4,000 other cab drivers and says the rise of Uber has cut his income by a third.
63 Up moves from brief profiles of one subject to the next, drawing on imagery from their entire lives in chronological order to contrast it with their present selves. Apted chooses to follow Tony with Andrew, a lawyer from a wealthy background who claimed in 7 Up that he read The Financial Times. (At that young age, he came across as an obnoxious brat spouting his parents’ beliefs, though he seems to have mellowed now.) 63 Up never uses editing to put Tony and Andrew together, but the juxtaposition shows how a working-class man is still struggling while an upper-middle-class one is doing well.
At least half of 63 Up consists of clips from earlier films in this series. This is necessary to allow uninitiated spectators an entry point, as well as an aide de mémoire given the long gaps between the films' releases. But the retrospective content winds up making this film feel like scrawling on an old chalkboard. The series’ subjects have always been honest about the effect that the films had on their lives; one claims he was angered by it but kept participating only to promote his rock band. Despite the film's 150-minute runtime, it's well-paced, even as Apted seems to feel the need to sum up its subjects’ entire lives in an average of 10 minutes. At this point, the project might have been better were it a little shorter, or expanded into a longer TV series.
A telling difference between the 1960s and '70s and our times turns up in a way that may be completely unintentional. 7 Up organized the children at a visit to a zoo together. As teenagers and young adults, the films’ subjects were interviewed in groups. They’re now filmed speaking alone at home, sometimes acknowledging Apted’s presence and calling him “Michael.” This change in surroundings is subtle but says something larger about the decline of the idea of Brits belonging to a larger community.
The longest section of 63 Up deals with Neal, who may have the most dramatic life of any subject. He points out that his experiences contradict the idea that a child is fully formed at 7. He showed early promise, but has since struggled with homelessness and mental illness. He was able to turn his life around, becoming an Anglican minister and politician, but he has always lived as an adult on the edge of poverty. His ambition as a writer remains frustrated.
One of this series’ subjects died before this film was made, and it remains to be seen if Apted — who is now 78 — will direct a 70 Up. 63 Up rhymes oddly with The Irishman, another elderly director’s exercise in moving backward and forward in time. But if Scorsese’s film plays as an anguished testament to self-doubt and late-life questioning, 63 Up concludes with an ellipsis rather than a period.
