Written summary of http://www.theguardian.
Period films are aiming to not simply 'look cool' but to contextualise and analyse, to foster or confront nostalgia and even explain why we became the adults we are now. It's a big task and timing is a crucial factor in the chances of success. The 90's rave culture was notoriously difficult to pin down, however it has been attempted within 1999's Human Traffic. It depicts Justin Kerrigans portrayl of a group of 'weekenders' whose clubbing E-enhanced nights show the highs and comedowns of early 90's Cardiff nightlife. The difficulty in producing British youth subculture is that they have to be produced and released within a time that is still relevant to the film. This often means that films have to made with certain haste, in which the quality and content or meaning behind it can slip. It has been said however that if the film has a great script and is beautifully executed it will always work.
Any director who attempts a period film focused on something as fleeting and emotive as youth will go through certain difficulties similar to that of Sid and Nancy director Alex Cox who came to resent his film as he was too close personally and temporally to effectively process what it all meant (a mere eight years). According to Stuart Cosgrove a cultural historian and Channel 4's director of creative diversity the ideal time to leave is around thirteen years. This leaves a significant amount of time to pass between the height of the experience you're seeking to capture and the release of the film. The youth have time to grow up and move on with their lives, yet still be young enough to yearn for their past youth. Our own youth reboots when adult milestones such as marriage, parenthood and mortages first hit us and financial and familial responsibility begins to weigh.
Period films are aiming to not simply 'look cool' but to contextualise and analyse, to foster or confront nostalgia and even explain why we became the adults we are now. It's a big task and timing is a crucial factor in the chances of success. The 90's rave culture was notoriously difficult to pin down, however it has been attempted within 1999's Human Traffic. It depicts Justin Kerrigans portrayl of a group of 'weekenders' whose clubbing E-enhanced nights show the highs and comedowns of early 90's Cardiff nightlife. The difficulty in producing British youth subculture is that they have to be produced and released within a time that is still relevant to the film. This often means that films have to made with certain haste, in which the quality and content or meaning behind it can slip. It has been said however that if the film has a great script and is beautifully executed it will always work. Any director who attempts a period film focused on something as fleeting and emotive as youth will go through certain difficulties similar to that of Sid and Nancy director Alex Cox who came to resent his film as he was too close personally and temporally to effectively process what it all meant (a mere eight years). According to Stuart Cosgrove a cultural historian and Channel 4's director of creative diversity the ideal time to leave is around thirteen years. This leaves a significant amount of time to pass between the height of the experience you're seeking to capture and the release of the film. The youth have time to grow up and move on with their lives, yet still be young enough to yearn for their past youth. Our own youth reboots when adult milestones such as marriage, parenthood and mortages first hit us and financial and familial responsibility begins to weigh.
Many nostalgia films about youth focus on mythologised movements that are easily identifiable through music, fashion and haircuts. There is an importance of establishing a link between the era covered in the movie and the social concerns nagging at its present-day audience. "This is England did have a clear resonance with the time it came out" "This is England has so much truth and so much wit those kids could have been wearing bin-liners and it would have hit home" - Carlton. Jobson saw first-hand the undying embers of punk passion by reforming his band The Skids in 2007. He believes a sedentary middle age merely fuels the desire to recapture that brief moment of freedom and invention that youth once provided. he says "It's not the legacy of the music or the work that's important, it's the frienships, the joy that we experienced together when we were really fucking happy, that moment in our lives when we suddenly found out who we were- that's what people want to return to, and you can't blame them for that" As it is in this case, sometimes the film is about the writer or director looking back for meaning to explain or justify the person they are now"
Nostalgia and period films can help us remember both the highs and lows of our history. An example of a particular low would be Good Vibrations a film about the Undertones manager and Northern Irish punk scene. Nostalgia works differently here. No one wants to look back and be fond of that dark tortured time of Belfast in the seventies. But this film shows how youth transcends everything, these bands (The Clash, The Undertones) lived through a terrible time and yet "what did they write about? Girls. Because despite everything they were still young"
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