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Bookmark this pageSt Ann's (1969)
Director: Stephen Frears
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The St Ann's district of Nottingham has two cinematic associations. In 1899 it was the birthplace of Alma Reville, future writer and wife of Alfred Hitchcock; and almost a lifetime later, after the place had become a sodden, peeling slum and its narrow Toytown streets were being demolished brick by brick, Stephen Frears, leading-British-director-to-be, then the merest tyro, showed up to record an anomaly, as it seems in retrospect - the poverty-stricken '30s still persisting alongside the swinging '60s. Frears' directorial tone (lucid, unsentimental, unassertive) is displayed here already fully formed, ensuring that the piece has hardly dated at all, except for the style of deprivation being recorded.Author: BBa
User reviews of this film
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- Peter said...
- Posted on Jan 05 2008 18:01 I have viewed this film several times now having been lucky enough to have acquired a 16mm print. It is difficult to remember that we are watching something made only 40 years ago rather than post first World War. All the interviewees speak lucidly and with dignity and in a manner that would be hard to find in an equivalent population today. The pace is unforced and one feels all contributors, inclcuding the Sociologists, are left to present their own views rather than the directors. Shown in schools today this film could generate hours of discussion. The Public Laundry scenes are an eye opener and amazing. The weakest sequence in my view would be the scenes and interview in the primary school.. I look forward to having an excuse to show it to friends again. I believe there has been a follow up.
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- Karen said...
- Posted on Aug 23 2007 22:58 Anyone know how, when or where I can get to see this flm? Lived in St Anns untill 1969
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