Reel life: The mesmerizing saga of "56 Up"

In-between those seven-year intervals, Apted's been busy making other movies -- blockbuster movies. He directed Sissy Spacek in her Academy Award-winning performance in "Coal Miner's Daughter." He directed "Gorillas in the Mist," too - nominated for five Oscars. He even did a James Bond film, "The World Is Not Enough."

But it's these relatively small-budget, seven-year retrospectives that Apted considers his life's work -- and tough work it is.

After all, it's not just weddings and birthdays that he marks. Take Neil, for example.

Neil at 7: "When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut, but if I can't be an astronaut, I think I'll be a coach driver."

By the time Neil was 14 he was planning for college, but by 21 he had dropped out and was working on a construction site.

When Apted found him at 28, Neil was homeless, wandering the English countryside. Apted was sympathetic, but he pressed ahead with sometimes piercing questions.

Interviewer: "Do you worry about your sanity?"
Neil at 28: "Um . . . other people sometimes worry about it. . . . As I said, I can sometimes be found behaving in an erratic fashion."

"It's very tough," Apted told Cowan. "Sometimes I've asked questions, and I've watched the film with an audience and the audience gasps, and I think, oh my God, sometimes I think I may have gone too far."

In the end though, Neil found his footing. By 42, he ran and was elected to his town's council. By 56, he had even become a lay minister in his church.

But having his life's stumbles exposed hasn't been easy for him, or any of the "Up" series participants.

Interviewer: "Do you have a girlfriend?"
Nick at 7: "I don't want to answer that, I don't answer those kinds of questions."

Form the start Niuck was a bit reluctant. At 14 he didn't even look at the camera. By the time Nick was 21, he told Apted on camera he didn't much like the interrogation every seven years: "It's just that the limitations of such things as what the audience requires, and the time, don't allow it to be a real study."

Still, Nick has never backed out. Over the years we've watched his move to America, become a professor at the University of Wisconsin, get married, have a son, get divorced, and get married again.

Apted's sometimes uncomfortable questions never stop.

"I mean, he's not deliberately setting out to be mean to us," Nick told Cowan. "But you know, making good TV is absolutely his top priority."

"Have you told Michael how painful it is?"

"Oh, he knows!" Nick replied.

As he looks back, does he regret doing it? "No, I don't. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, you know, it would be kind of pathetic to opt out of it. Even if it's painful, it's interesting and it's important."

Not all of them dislike the process. From the beginning, little Tony seemed to relish it.

Tony at 7: "I wanna be a jockey when I go up! Yeah, I want to be a jockey when I grow up!"

He was a rough-neck kid from London's East End, who did indeed become a jockey. But by 28 he had traded his horse in for a London cab, which is where we found him.

"I'm very lucky to have that documentation of my life," Tony told us.

Not that he's had an easy go of it. In "42 Up," he admitted -- on camera -- to having an affair.

Tony at 42: "I'm not proud at all to say this, but situations that arise that I've had regretful behavior at various times."
Wife: "You got caught and that was it."

"My wife wasn't very happy in the fact that, you know, it came out," Tony said. "And I was wrong. But my wife and I are now real strong again."

Apted says he'll keep the series going as long as everyone is willing, and healthy. The thought of anyone dying, he says, is too much to bear.

"People say, how will I deal with it? Well, I just don't know. I don't know how I'd deal with it until I have to. Hopefully I won't have to deal with it. Hopefully I'll go first."

His goal: to keep doing it until his film family are in their 80s. Apted will by then be nearly 100.

"I figured out when I do 84, I'll be 99. So that could be a nice swan song, shouldn't it?" he laughed.

For more info:

• "56 Up" (First Run Features)
• Tony Walker (The "Up" series)

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[ErikMichielsen]

Apted and his work filming the Up Series is the fundamental inspiration behind what I created with Capture Your Flag, a career documentary interview series that interviews 60 up and coming professionals every year to learn the work, family and relationship inputs into an aspirational career journey.

Like Apted, I find the stories of these individuals working their way through the journey - vs. those who have ascended to the top - endlessly more interesting and approachable to the world.

Our goal with the series is to leave behind a legacy of Near Peer Learning that helps break down the barriers that exist in between learning from our peers and learning from experts. By showcasing his stories across time as well as across individual, Apted has been instrumental to helping us take the leap into an initiative - now in Year 4 - that is grounded not in immediate payoff but rather in longer term contribution to how we learn.

Erik Michielsen
Founder
@captureyourflag

[voxpopulus]

"Mike Leigh films" Michael Apted and Mike Leigh are two very different filmmakers. Michael Apted's series was initially made for UK television.

[mad_608]

Many of these are available on Youtube. That's where I've watched most of them. They are also available on Netflix if you are signed up for that.

[walelia417]

Sometimes news stories collide. Watching this fascinating story on 56 Now, my heart cracked even further, as all I could think of were those precious children in Sandy Hook who will never, never have the chance to live out THEIR life stories, whatever they may have been.

Valerie Foster, Gilbert, AZ

[Transatlantique]

Why is it I am only learning about this now? These people are only 6 years older than me. Where have they been running these films for anyone to know about it? Its annoying and insulting to find out about this so late, and to find out I have to pay a king's ransom to get the DVDs and see all of them. Its probably not that interesting to be worth that much money, and just a load of narcissistic navel gazing on the part of the director.

[mad_608]

Check out Youtube - 7 Up through 35 Up are there. These are also on Netflix.

[marychgo]

The "Up" films were always seen in the U.S. as "art house" films, so they didn't appear in the moviehouses that show action flicks and blockbuster star vehicles. If you live in a town that doesn't have a theater that specializes in foreign and independent movies, the "Up" films probably didn't come to your town.

But there WAS lots of discussion of these Mike Leigh films in the press, both newspapers and magazines with strong arts sections, from The Atlantic and The Nation to Rolling Stone and GQ. Anyone seriously interested in film probably knew about them....

[voxpopulus]

"Its probably not that interesting to be worth that much money, and just a load of narcissistic navel gazing". Don't bother then. Your loss.