THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER: the angriest angry young man

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER has much to say about class and alienation in early 1960s Britain and they can all be summed up in one moment which encapsulates the contradictions of the subject matter so powerfully it sent shivers down my spine.

The inmates of Ruxton Towers Borstal are being 'entertained' with a concert staged by a small group of well-meaning but hopelessly inappropriate amateur performers. Having endured a bird caller and excruciatingly off-key light opera the vicar asks the audience to join him in singing "that fine old hymn you've heard so often in chapel 'Jerusalem." It's a hymn so inextricably bound up in notions of empire, patriotism, authority and everything else that the inmates have no use for that I expected to hear a silent response, but as director Tony Richardson's camera pans back and forth across the audience every member is not only singing lustily but is also word perfect. And no one more so than the protagonist, Colin Smith (Tom Courtenay)whose rebellious contempt for the established order has landed him in the borstal.
Smith is not a particularly exceptional youth. Growing up the eldest son in a working class family in 1950s Nottingham, his experiences have given him a very bitter view of life and he's determined not to follow in his father's footsteps, working as a factory labourer for £9 ($15 approx) a week and dieing prematurely and painfully from cancer largely unloved by a wife (Avis Bunnage) who's already got her fancy man lined up and ready to move in. Smith knows what he's against but not what he's for, other than committing petty crimes and romancing Audrey.

When he lands in Ruxton Towers the Governor (Michael Redgrave) finds that something positive for Smith to focus on - cross-country running. Smith shows a natural talent for the discipline and the Governor wants to use it to win the challenge cup when a team of his borstal boys takes on a team from a nearby public school. The Governor's an old school man who believes that hard work and discipline can turn his charges into productive members of society and his patronage elevates Smith to a new status among his fellow inmates, but it's not clear whether the troubled young man has genuinely bought in to the Governor's philosophy on life.
It would be easy to see the Governor as a relic of the pre-war past, impotently railing against the advances in his profession which now dismiss his approach as hopelessly outdated and ineffective but it's nowhere near as simple as that. Director Richardson and writer Alan Sillitoe have created a far more complex world which acknowledges that the Governor's authoritarian paternalism is no longer relevant but also recognises that there's no immediately viable alternative available when all that the next generation (Smith) has to offer is negativism. And while the film is certainly on Smith's side it's as critical of the shortcomings of the working class as it is of the upper class.
As representatives of their respective socio-economic categories, Redgrave and a very young Courtenay are superb, demonstrating a subtle understanding of Sillitoe's writing and the complexities it encompasses.
The kitchen sink drama style of British theatre and cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s produced a glut of angry young men. Courtenay's Colin Smith is perhaps their most effective representative making THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER a truly compelling and thought-provoking piece of cinema.