Every Day Except Christmas

Last updated

Every Day Except Christmas
Every Day Except Christmas (1957 film).jpg
Opening title card
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Produced by Karel Reisz
Leon Clore
Narrated by Alun Owen
Music byThe Happy Wanderers
Production
companies
Graphic Films
Ford of Britain
Release date
  • 1957 (1957)
Running time
37 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Every Day Except Christmas is a 37-minute documentary film filmed in 1957 at the Covent Garden fruit, vegetable and flower market, [1] which at that point was still located in central London. It was directed by Lindsay Anderson and produced by Karel Reisz and Leon Clore under the sponsorship of Ford of Britain, the first of the company's "Look at Britain" series. [2] [3] It was filmed by Walter Lassally.

Contents

Every Day and other short, mostly documentary films made within two or three years, reflected the concept of Free Cinema, [4] films which were "free" in the sense that they were made outside the traditional structure of filmmaking. [5]

The film received a BAFTA nomination for Best Documentary; and won the Grand Prix at the Venice Festival of Shorts and Documentaries. [6] [7] [8]

Synopsis

Opening with a title card dedicating the film to about seven or eight of the drivers/loaders and market workers whom we'll meet as the film progresses, Anderson establishes the rituals of the daily routine; the loading of the lorries, the post-midnight drive through the deserted country and city streets as, voice over, the BBC Light Programme's announcer says goodnight, signs off, and the national anthem "God Save the Queen" plays. "All these roads leads to Covent Garden" says the narrator, dramatist Alun Owen, and then there follows a montage of the market workers slowly beginning their night's work, work which they do 364 days a year. As the "streets are stirring", the vegetables and flowers begin to arrive and stalls are gradually set up; the overall pace of the editing picks up as the activity increases and the rhythm of night establishes itself.

Up to this point, the rhythm of the film parallels that of the activities it portrays; the steady pace of the loading and arrival at Covent Garden gives way to a faster pace of editing as Anderson carefully establishes mood and feeling by focusing on the activities of several of the individual workers who are introduced to us by name. There is some casual bantering, some jokes, some time for a cup of tea, but it's mostly steady work. A montage of shots follows and it establishes the routine: flower and vegetable boxes are being opened and set up, their contents exposed for the buyers, lorries are unloaded, deliveries are being made to the stallholders until, finally all is ready.

So Every Day proceeds by respecting the dignity of the market workers and their roles in the rhythm of the market's operations. Then the pace slows again: it's time for a breather before the buyers arrive. This time Anderson allows his camera and the pace of his editing to focus on many of the individuals relaxing; these include not only the market workers, but the "night time habitués" of the market cafes where they can get a cup of tea, have a chat, snooze a bit, and prepare themselves for the next phase.

By 4 a.m. the market is empty, the streets are empty; the camera pans across silent rows of flower and vegetable stalls. We wait. "Daylight brings traffic back to the market" says the narrator, and the mood quickly changes. It's suddenly busier, noisier, and the film's rhythms reflect this. The familiar sound of the BBC Home Service announcer's "good morning" at 6.30am is heard against the arrival of many of the corporate buyers, those from the large store chains. By 7am business is brisk, and this is reflected in the many voice-overs we hear with snippets of conversation, orders being taken, porters given instructions, all the natural sounds of market activity placed over a montage of constant movement. Then, as movement is "steadily outwards" there is a sequence of porters (originally, we are told, all were women; only one remains, Alice, an elderly woman) with boxes of all sorts, many mounted on their heads, moving the produce and flowers out to waiting lorries and larger barrows.

As the market activity slows by about 8am, once again the film's pacing reflects a quieter time in the workers' day. Cafes are busy again and older female flower sellers, around since Queen Victoria was on the throne, we are told, look for bargains as we hear their chatter about the old days when every man wore a flower. "By 11am there's nothing left" and loading of big lorries going out into the country is well under way. In a montage of loaded lorries leaving the market (not surprisingly, perhaps, a few of which are made by Ford) the activities have come full circle: the market's day ends where it began, and film comes to an end with a review of the faces of the market workers to whom the film is dedicated.

Critical reaction

As noted by critic Christophe Dupin: [7] "The film evokes what Anderson has called the 'poetry of everyday life' and has the best lyrical qualities of the wartime films of Anderson's idol Humphrey Jennings."

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Film editing</span> Creative and technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking

Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film which increasingly involves the use of digital technology. When putting together some sort of video composition, typically, you would need a collection of shots and footages that vary from one another. The act of adjusting the shots you have already taken, and turning them into something new is known as film editing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of the Soviet Union</span>

The cinema of the Soviet Union includes films produced by the constituent republics of the Soviet Union reflecting elements of their pre-Soviet culture, language and history, albeit they were all regulated by the central government in Moscow. Most prolific in their republican films, after the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, and, to a lesser degree, Lithuania, Belarus and Moldavia. At the same time, the nation's film industry, which was fully nationalized throughout most of the country's history, was guided by philosophies and laws propounded by the monopoly Soviet Communist Party which introduced a new view on the cinema, socialist realism, which was different from the one before or after the existence of the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of the United Kingdom</span>

The oldest known surviving film was shot in the United Kingdom as well as early colour films. While film production reached an all-time high in 1936, the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, during which the directors David Lean, Michael Powell, and Carol Reed produced their most critically acclaimed works. Many British actors have accrued critical success and worldwide recognition, such as Audrey Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Vivien Leigh, Glynis Johns, Maggie Smith, Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Ian Mckellen, Joan Collins, Judi Dench, Julie Andrews, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Peter O’Toole and Kate Winslet. Some of the films with the largest ever box office returns have been made in the United Kingdom, including the fourth and fifth highest-grossing film franchises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lindsay Anderson</span> British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, and film critic (1923–1994)

Lindsay Gordon Anderson was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for his 1968 film if...., which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival in 1969 and marked Malcolm McDowell's cinematic debut. He is also notable, though not a professional actor, for playing a minor role in the Academy Award-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. McDowell produced a 2007 documentary about his experiences with Anderson, Never Apologize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victoria Wood</span> British comedian (1953–2016)

Victoria Wood was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director. Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Covent Garden</span> District in London, England

Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

<i>This Sporting Life</i> 1963 British film by Lindsay Anderson

This Sporting Life is a 1963 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. Based on the 1960 novel of the same name by David Storey, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award, it recounts the story of a rugby league footballer in Wakefield, a mining city in Yorkshire, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life. Storey, a former professional rugby league footballer, also wrote the screenplay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Williams (animator)</span> Canadian-British animator (1933–2019)

Richard Edmund Williams was a Canadian-British animator, voice actor, and painter. A three-time Academy Award winner, he is best known as the animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) -- for which he won two Academy Awards—and as the director of his unfinished feature film The Thief and the Cobbler (1993). His work on the short film A Christmas Carol (1971) earned him his first Academy Award. He was also a film title sequence designer and animator. Other works in this field include the title sequences for What's New Pussycat? (1965) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), title and linking sequences in The Charge of the Light Brigade, and the intros of the eponymous cartoon feline for two of the later Pink Panther films. In 2002 he published The Animator's Survival Kit, an authoritative manual of animation methods and techniques, which has since been turned into a 16-DVD box set as well as an iOS app. From 2008 he worked as artist in residence at Aardman Animations in Bristol, and in 2015 he received both Oscar and BAFTA nominations in the best animated short category for his short film Prologue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachel Roberts (actress)</span> Welsh actress (1927–1980)

Rachel Roberts was a Welsh actress. She is best remembered for her screen performances as the older mistress of the central male characters in both Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and This Sporting Life (1963). For each, she won the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress. She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for This Sporting Life. Her other notable film appearances included Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Yanks (1979).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karel Reisz</span> British filmmaker

Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker and film critic, one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the best-known films he directed are Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), a classic of kitchen sink realism, and the romantic period drama The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch cheese markets</span>

Dutch cheese farmers traditionally take their cheeses to the town's market square to sell them. Teams (vemen) of official guild cheese-porters (kaasdragers), identified by differently coloured straw hats associated with their forwarding company, carried the farmers' cheese on barrows that weighed about 160 kilograms. Buyers sampled the cheeses and negotiated prices using a ritual system, called handjeklap, whereby buyers and sellers clapped each other's hands and shouted out prices. Once a price was agreed, porters carried the cheese to the weigh house (Waag) and weighed the cheese on a company scale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">London Transport Museum</span> Transport museum in Covent Garden, London

The London Transport Museum (LTM) is a transport museum based in Covent Garden, London. The museum predominantly hosts exhibits relating to the heritage of London's transport, as well as conserving and explaining the history of it. The majority of the museum's exhibits originated in the collections of London Transport, but, since the creation of Transport for London (TfL) in 2000, the remit of the museum has expanded to cover all aspects of transport in the city and in some instances beyond.

The British New Wave is a style of films released in Great Britain between 1959 and 1963. The label is a translation of Nouvelle Vague, the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others.

Free Cinema was a documentary film movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s. The term referred to an absence of propagandised intent or deliberate box office appeal. Co-founded by Lindsay Anderson with Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson and Lorenza Mazzetti, the movement began with a programme of three short films at the National Film Theatre, London on 5 February 1956. The programme was such a success that five more programmes appeared under the ‘Free Cinema’ banner before the founders decided to end the series. The last event was held in March 1959. Three of the screenings consisted of work from overseas filmmakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Grigsby</span> British filmmaker

Michael Kenneth Christian Grigsby was an English documentary filmmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Head-carrying</span> Method for humans to carry a burden

Carrying on the head is a common practice in many parts of the world as an alternative to carrying a burden on the back, shoulders and so on. People have carried burdens balanced on top of the head since ancient times, usually to do daily work, but sometimes in religious ceremonies or as a feat of skill, such as in certain dances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Koyambedu Wholesale Market Complex</span> Perishable goods market complex in Chennai, India

Koyambedu Wholesale Market Complex (KWMC) is one of Asia's largest perishable goods market complex located at Koyambedu, Chennai. The market complex is spread over an area of 295 acres (1.19 km2). Inaugurated in 1996, the complex consists of about 3,100 shops, including more than 1,000 wholesale shops and 2,000 retail shops. Of these, 850 are fruit shops. It abuts the Poonamallee High Road and Nesapakkam Road and can be easily accessed from all parts of City. In Phase I, a wholesale market for perishables was developed in an area of around 70 acres (280,000 m2) by constructing 3,194 shops. The market has two blocks for vegetable shops and one each for fruit and flower shops. In Phase II, a textile market and in Phase III, a food grain market have been planned to be developed in the complex.

Ian Martin is an English comedy writer. Martin was a writer for the BAFTA-winning BBC series The Thick of It. He was famously hired as "swearing consultant" in 2005 by the show's creator, Armando Iannucci, for Series 1 of the political satire and went on to become a full member of the writing team. He won an Emmy for his writing across five series of Veep and was BAFTA nominated for co-writing The Death of Stalin.

<i>Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie</i> 2023 documentary film

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie is a 2023 American documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about the life of actor Michael J. Fox and his struggle with Parkinson's disease. The film premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, and was then released on May 12, 2023, on Apple TV+.

References

  1. "The ambivalent legacy of Free Cinema – Socialist Review". Socialist Review.
  2. "Every Day except Christmas". BFI Player.
  3. Aitken, Ian (4 January 2013). The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. Routledge. ISBN   9781136512063 via Google Books.
  4. "a term coined by critic and film-maker Lindsay Anderson ( if.... , O Lucky Man! ), when he, Karel Reisz ( Saturday Night and Sunday Morning ), Tony Richardson ( A Taste of Honey , The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner ) and Lorenza Mazzetti screened a programme of their short films at the National Film Theatre on 5 February 1956."
  5. Tate. "'Making History: Exhibition guide, section 2, Free Cinema' – Tate".
  6. "BAFTA Awards". awards.bafta.org.
  7. 1 2 See screenonline below
  8. Whitebrook, Peter (21 October 2015). John Osborne: anger is not about... Oberon Books. ISBN   9781783198764 via Google Books.