Bill Douglas’ Trilogy – The Limits of Social Realism
Abstract
Bill Douglas’ film trilogy (My Childhood, My Ain Folk, My Way Home) tells the story of the director, and is a film version of his memoirs of a traumatic childhood. By returning to the places, people and events of his childhood, Douglas creates a documentary transfer - each shot documents a scene that is engraved in his memory. The work is deeply personal, and combines a highly subjective narrative with elements associated with social realism. The trilogy is both a story of a boy from a poor mining town and an accusation of an unjust social order that condemned this boy to a life that took one form rather than another. The author attempts to find an answer to the question whether the formula of social realism and extreme subjectivity of narrative are not mutually exclusive. The answer may lie in the artistic take on social cinema, that manages to reconcile these apparent contradictions.
Keywords:
Bill Douglas, social realism, autobiographyReferences
Caughie John, Don’t Mourn - Analyse: Reviewing the Trilogy, w: Bill Douglas. A Lanternist’s Account, red. E. Dick, A. Noble, D. Petrie, BFI, London 1993, s. 201-202.
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Authors
Karolina Kosińskakwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
Absolwentka kulturoznawstwa (specjalność filmoznawcza) w Instytucie Sztuk Audiowizualnych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Pracę magisterską dotyczącą form buntu w kinie brytyjskim obroniła pod kierunkiem prof. dr. hab. Tadeusza Lubelskiego w 2002 roku. Pracę doktorską na temat postaci androgynicznej w brytyjskim filmie i kulturze popularnej obroniła w 2008 roku (promotor: prof. dr hab. Andrzej Pitrus) również w ISzA UJ. Od 2003 roku redaktorka „Kwartalnika Filmowego”.
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Copyright (c) 2011 Karolina Kosińska
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