The growth in popularity of Netflix has been a real boon to documentary fans. With some 1000 docs on offer, deciding what to watch can be a bit daunting. I want to suggest that you give a try to the 7 Up Series. I can't guarantee that every single person reading this will love it. But, honestly, if you don't at least give it a shot, you might rob yourself of one of the most unique film experiences possible.
This series of films manages to be simultaneously a great achievement in documentary entertainment and a genuine contribution to sociological insight. It wasn't included on our list of the top 5 of the best documentaries on Netflix only because it really is in a different category.
It's the difference between a great gangster film, like The Godfather or Goodfellas, and a great long arch TV gangster series, like the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. It's a totally different kind of experience. The latter is slower, much more nuanced, and requires patience to allow it to unfold.
It was 1964, the very threshold of what has come to be called the 60s, when British TV producers brought together 14 children from a diverse range of backgrounds for purposes of making a documentary on them. At least, it was the relevant diversity from the perspective of the producers, at the time: primarily diversity in gender, race and economic background.
There was an overt premise underlying this 1964 program: the expectation was that the show was providing a glimpse of Britain in the year 2000. The less obvious but equally vital assumption was that these kids' backgrounds would direct the course of their lives into the future. The conclusion of the 1964 installment promised to drop in on these 14 sometime in the 21st century, to see how things had turned out.
However, a young researcher who worked on that original 1964 show would later go on to have a successful career as a film director. Michael Apted, who has a resume that stretches from the Chronicles of Narnia to James Bond, recognized a greater opportunity, here. Seven years later, he returned to the 14 subjects of the original show, to see what had happened in their second seven years of life. And he's gone back every seven years since.
At the time of writing, the newest installment has recently been released; in the U.S. it was in January 2013. In this installment, the kids of 1964 have turned 56 years old. It is a strange and compelling journey for those with the patience and curiosity to see it through.
As you might imagine, not everyone considers it compelling television. Critiques complain that it's too slow and too mundane. It's not unfair to observe that these 14 people are not especially more fascinating than the people most of us know through friendship and acquaintance. So why bother watching a TV show when you could just watch your friends, as it were?
For those who get it, though, that's kind of the point. The series turns the mundane into the special simply by turning the spotlight upon it. The heroism, humor and tragedy of all our small lives are revealed through the experience of these 14 people, growing into adulthood.
When you think about it, what we have here is the original reality TV show. The difference is that in contrast to the circuses going by that name, today, this reality touches something that is deeply, and at times heartbreakingly, real. Those who have become hooked on the series inevitably come to feel personal attachment with some of the kids-adults as their struggle through their own personal life challenges.
At the heart of the whole enterprise, though, is a bit of a paradox, which I'm never quite clear about how aware of it the documentarians are. The notion that it captures real lives; the original assumption that socio-economic origins would be charted through the years as determining life choices, this whole founding fabric seems peculiarly blind to the impact of the observer principle.
The observer principle is fashionably, though actually rather mistakenly, associated with a physicist named Heisenberg. People who make this association usually reveal ignorance about what Heisenberg was doing and what he actually discovered. Nonetheless, one is not in need of sub-atomic physics to appreciate the potential impact upon human behavior by one's being aware of being observed.
Though it's less famous and trendy, the appropriate reference here is actually the Hawthorne experiments, conducted at a Western Electric plant in the 1920-30s. The sociologists studying the behaviors of the plant workers finally came to recognize that the very experience of being studied was changing the workers' behaviors.
People who are being observed, and know that they are being observed, will tailor their behavior for the impression they want to make upon the observers. Such it would seem is human nature. We can never know, of course, how the lives of these 14 people might have been different, what other kinds of choices they might have made, what other directions their lives might have taken due to those different choices, if they weren't (and didn't expect to be) visited every 7 years by television crews. I can only say that intuitively it seems obvious to me that there would indeed have been different choices and maybe even life outcomes.
Pondering that conundrum may well be the most intriguing thought to reflect upon while watching those 14 youngsters making their way through life in this remarkable documentary.
This series of films manages to be simultaneously a great achievement in documentary entertainment and a genuine contribution to sociological insight. It wasn't included on our list of the top 5 of the best documentaries on Netflix only because it really is in a different category.
It's the difference between a great gangster film, like The Godfather or Goodfellas, and a great long arch TV gangster series, like the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. It's a totally different kind of experience. The latter is slower, much more nuanced, and requires patience to allow it to unfold.
It was 1964, the very threshold of what has come to be called the 60s, when British TV producers brought together 14 children from a diverse range of backgrounds for purposes of making a documentary on them. At least, it was the relevant diversity from the perspective of the producers, at the time: primarily diversity in gender, race and economic background.
There was an overt premise underlying this 1964 program: the expectation was that the show was providing a glimpse of Britain in the year 2000. The less obvious but equally vital assumption was that these kids' backgrounds would direct the course of their lives into the future. The conclusion of the 1964 installment promised to drop in on these 14 sometime in the 21st century, to see how things had turned out.
However, a young researcher who worked on that original 1964 show would later go on to have a successful career as a film director. Michael Apted, who has a resume that stretches from the Chronicles of Narnia to James Bond, recognized a greater opportunity, here. Seven years later, he returned to the 14 subjects of the original show, to see what had happened in their second seven years of life. And he's gone back every seven years since.
At the time of writing, the newest installment has recently been released; in the U.S. it was in January 2013. In this installment, the kids of 1964 have turned 56 years old. It is a strange and compelling journey for those with the patience and curiosity to see it through.
As you might imagine, not everyone considers it compelling television. Critiques complain that it's too slow and too mundane. It's not unfair to observe that these 14 people are not especially more fascinating than the people most of us know through friendship and acquaintance. So why bother watching a TV show when you could just watch your friends, as it were?
For those who get it, though, that's kind of the point. The series turns the mundane into the special simply by turning the spotlight upon it. The heroism, humor and tragedy of all our small lives are revealed through the experience of these 14 people, growing into adulthood.
When you think about it, what we have here is the original reality TV show. The difference is that in contrast to the circuses going by that name, today, this reality touches something that is deeply, and at times heartbreakingly, real. Those who have become hooked on the series inevitably come to feel personal attachment with some of the kids-adults as their struggle through their own personal life challenges.
At the heart of the whole enterprise, though, is a bit of a paradox, which I'm never quite clear about how aware of it the documentarians are. The notion that it captures real lives; the original assumption that socio-economic origins would be charted through the years as determining life choices, this whole founding fabric seems peculiarly blind to the impact of the observer principle.
The observer principle is fashionably, though actually rather mistakenly, associated with a physicist named Heisenberg. People who make this association usually reveal ignorance about what Heisenberg was doing and what he actually discovered. Nonetheless, one is not in need of sub-atomic physics to appreciate the potential impact upon human behavior by one's being aware of being observed.
Though it's less famous and trendy, the appropriate reference here is actually the Hawthorne experiments, conducted at a Western Electric plant in the 1920-30s. The sociologists studying the behaviors of the plant workers finally came to recognize that the very experience of being studied was changing the workers' behaviors.
People who are being observed, and know that they are being observed, will tailor their behavior for the impression they want to make upon the observers. Such it would seem is human nature. We can never know, of course, how the lives of these 14 people might have been different, what other kinds of choices they might have made, what other directions their lives might have taken due to those different choices, if they weren't (and didn't expect to be) visited every 7 years by television crews. I can only say that intuitively it seems obvious to me that there would indeed have been different choices and maybe even life outcomes.
Pondering that conundrum may well be the most intriguing thought to reflect upon while watching those 14 youngsters making their way through life in this remarkable documentary.
About the Author:
If you're a big time documentary aficionado, you'll want to check out Mickey Jhonny's work at the Best Documentaries on Netflix site. Also, for some good fun, have a look at his Top 5 List for all time Best Zombie Movies .
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