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 is simultaneously a work of entertainment and sociological research. 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.
If you're a fan of the gangster story, you can appreciate the difficulty in attempting to compare a great, one off, film like The Godfather or Goodfellas, with an equally great long arch TV serial like the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. There is a completely different experience involved. The long story arch reveals itself more slowly, with more detail and nuance. This is the nature of the difference between this series and your standard documentary.
The 7 Up series was inaugurated in 1964, at the dawn of Beatlemania and the beginning what we've come to call the 60s. British TV producers came up with the idea to collect 14 children from diverse backgrounds, representing British society. Their diversity was in their gender, race and economic condition.
There was an explicit premise to that first doc; the idea was that it provided a look into the future. The guiding assumption of the show's framing was that the diverse life conditions of the children would determine their life outcomes in the future. At its end, the show promises to catch up with the 14, then adults, in the next millennium.
However, there was a young researcher on that original installment who was to go on to have an extremely successful career as a film director, working on a range of material stretching from the Gorillas in the Mist to 007. Michael Apted had a different idea about the potential of that project begun in 1964. Instead of waiting for the 21st century, he took his cameras back to catch up with the kids seven years later, when they where 14. And he's gone back every seven years ever since. The result has been one of the most extraordinary cinematic documents of all time.
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.
Whether it is compelling television is of course a matter of opinion. Some viewers complain either that nothing happens or that it's all simply too mundane. These people are no more interesting than me and my friends. Why would we want to watch a TV show about ourselves when we can just be ourselves and see it live, as it were?
For the fans of the series, however, such criticism seems to be entirely missing the whole point. What is remarkable about this series is the transformation of the mundane into the sublime by turning the spotlight upon it. The heroism and humor, the small personal triumphs and tragedies of all our lives, are somehow dignified and ennobled as we watch these 14 people struggle through their own lives.
It is a matter of fact that this really is the original reality TV show. There is though a world of difference between it and the circuses that go by that name, nowadays. The 7 Up series truly does get at something profound, moving and at times heartbreakingly real. The aficionados of the series almost invariably come to feel deep personal attachment to one or more of the 14. They've become part of our lives.
There is though another level to all this that I think makes the series even that much more fascinating. An odd irony seems to me to run through the entire enterprise. The core idea that real lives are being documented; the original premise about socio-economic origins unfolding more or less directly into later life outcomes, all seems premised on overlooking the effect of the observer principle.
The observer principle is often, and I might add mistakenly, attributed to the physicist Heisenberg. There's no need though of a confused idea about sub-atomic physics to recognize that knowing their being watched will have an effect on how people act.
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.
Being observed, and more importantly, awareness of being observed, changed the actions of the observed and so the results of the observation. It is of course impossible to know how the lives of these 14 people might have been different if they weren't (and didn't expect to be) visited every 7 years by television crews. It hardly seems far fetched, though, to imagine that some choices might have been different.
In some ways, even more that the genuinely moving story of the 14, coming of age, it is that conundrum which most intrigues me as I watch the series. It is a remarkable document that reveals almost as much about the hubris of the filmmakers as the lives of their subjects.
This series is simultaneously a work of entertainment and sociological research. 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.
If you're a fan of the gangster story, you can appreciate the difficulty in attempting to compare a great, one off, film like The Godfather or Goodfellas, with an equally great long arch TV serial like the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. There is a completely different experience involved. The long story arch reveals itself more slowly, with more detail and nuance. This is the nature of the difference between this series and your standard documentary.
The 7 Up series was inaugurated in 1964, at the dawn of Beatlemania and the beginning what we've come to call the 60s. British TV producers came up with the idea to collect 14 children from diverse backgrounds, representing British society. Their diversity was in their gender, race and economic condition.
There was an explicit premise to that first doc; the idea was that it provided a look into the future. The guiding assumption of the show's framing was that the diverse life conditions of the children would determine their life outcomes in the future. At its end, the show promises to catch up with the 14, then adults, in the next millennium.
However, there was a young researcher on that original installment who was to go on to have an extremely successful career as a film director, working on a range of material stretching from the Gorillas in the Mist to 007. Michael Apted had a different idea about the potential of that project begun in 1964. Instead of waiting for the 21st century, he took his cameras back to catch up with the kids seven years later, when they where 14. And he's gone back every seven years ever since. The result has been one of the most extraordinary cinematic documents of all time.
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.
Whether it is compelling television is of course a matter of opinion. Some viewers complain either that nothing happens or that it's all simply too mundane. These people are no more interesting than me and my friends. Why would we want to watch a TV show about ourselves when we can just be ourselves and see it live, as it were?
For the fans of the series, however, such criticism seems to be entirely missing the whole point. What is remarkable about this series is the transformation of the mundane into the sublime by turning the spotlight upon it. The heroism and humor, the small personal triumphs and tragedies of all our lives, are somehow dignified and ennobled as we watch these 14 people struggle through their own lives.
It is a matter of fact that this really is the original reality TV show. There is though a world of difference between it and the circuses that go by that name, nowadays. The 7 Up series truly does get at something profound, moving and at times heartbreakingly real. The aficionados of the series almost invariably come to feel deep personal attachment to one or more of the 14. They've become part of our lives.
There is though another level to all this that I think makes the series even that much more fascinating. An odd irony seems to me to run through the entire enterprise. The core idea that real lives are being documented; the original premise about socio-economic origins unfolding more or less directly into later life outcomes, all seems premised on overlooking the effect of the observer principle.
The observer principle is often, and I might add mistakenly, attributed to the physicist Heisenberg. There's no need though of a confused idea about sub-atomic physics to recognize that knowing their being watched will have an effect on how people act.
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.
Being observed, and more importantly, awareness of being observed, changed the actions of the observed and so the results of the observation. It is of course impossible to know how the lives of these 14 people might have been different if they weren't (and didn't expect to be) visited every 7 years by television crews. It hardly seems far fetched, though, to imagine that some choices might have been different.
In some ways, even more that the genuinely moving story of the 14, coming of age, it is that conundrum which most intrigues me as I watch the series. It is a remarkable document that reveals almost as much about the hubris of the filmmakers as the lives of their subjects.
About the Author:
If you're a big time documentary fan, you'll want to follow 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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