If you missed class on Monday, we started watching the British documentary, 49-Up, which is a series of films that started in 1964, when the filmmakers chose a bunch of 7-year olds to interview about what they thought about life, love, and society. They then decided to follow up with these kids every 7 years to watch them grow and develop. Well, in this documentary they're now 49, and the film shows clips of them at all different ages before interviewing them again at 49. We don't have time to watch them all, so we watched 3 interviews today, and will watch another 3 on Wednesday. On Friday we'll do an in-class writing response based on it, which will play into your Paper #2 assignment, which I'll give you on Friday (it will also ask you to use Humans of New York, so don't get rid of the book!).
Here are some ideas from the documentary to consider as you watch:
* Does a child's social class (rich, poor, divorced, etc.) determine what kind of adult they become? Do divorced children get divorced? Do poor kids stay poor? Do rich kids become happy?
* What things seemed to make the kids happy at 7 and 14? Did they change dramatically at 49? Were they the same 'kids'?
* Why do you think so many of the people interviewed have the same challenges and troubles in their 30's and 40's? Why, especially, does marriage become problematic at this age?
* Why are so many of them reinventing themselves or trying new things in their 40's? And why does one of them, Jackie (the second interview we watched on Monday) want to go back to school and basically, "do my entire education over again?"
* What do many of the people interviewed seem to think has been lost over the past 30 years? How has society changed the most for them? What do they miss in the England from their past?
* All the kids had kids of their own by their 30's, and most had more than one. Do you think this is typical of people today? Or was it more expected of people born in the 1950's (as they were)?
* What differences do you see between people growing up in England as compared to America (or elsewhere)? Can we relate to their ups and downs?
* Why does it seem like their children often have it harder than they did? Why might fewer of their kids becomes as successful as independent as they are?
* Why might many of them also be more active and involved parents than their parents were?
* How do these people seem to define success? Is it the same way we do? Could we call them all successful? Why or why not?
* Do you think a documentary like this gives a fair picture of who these people are and what their lives are like? Why does Jackie (the second interviewer from Monday) get so angry at Michael, the director? What does she accuse him of?
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