INTERVIEW: Michael Apted checks in with 63-year-old subjects for latest ‘UP’ film
Photo: 63 UP, directed by Michael Apted, features Tony, a cab driver. Photo courtesy of Film Forum press site / Provided with permission.
As far as enterprising cinematic directors, Michael Apted is right near the top of the list, sitting alongside Richard Linklater. While the latter filmed Boyhood over more than a decade, Apted has been checking in with the same documentary subjects for more than 50 years.
The celebrated director’s latest installment in the so-called UP series is known as 63 UP, and it’s currently playing New York City’s Film Forum and around the nation. The project began in 1963 when Paul Almond and his team set out to document a set of 7-year-olds, examining the intricacies of their life and showcasing their stories on British television. Every seven years since, Apted, a researcher on the first installment, has made another documentary, revisiting those 7-year-olds, who are now 63-year-olds. The documents stand as a remarkable testament to how life is lived and how the camera lens is about to find so many fascinating angles.
“I started it as a researcher on 7 UP when I was 22, and I’d always been interested in this kind of stuff because I had a double wishlist in what I wanted to do, which is do both drama and documentary,” Apted said in a recent phone interview. “I had a little help because the director [Paul Almond] was Canadian and didn’t know much about the English education system or anything like that, so I was kind of close with him on all that sort of stuff. He left Granada [Television] when the second one came up, and they asked me if I’d do it. And I was barely a child, so I said, ‘Of course, yes, absolutely.’ And from then on, here we are.”
In between his seven-year episodes, Apted doesn’t check in too much with his subjects. They are living their real lives, and he doesn’t want to spoil the surprise of seeing where they have ended up at the next seven-year interval. And his characters have taken many surprising journeys along the way, all of them providing a lens to view the UK’s society, economy and class system.
“If one of my movies comes to London, I’ll have a special screening for them, but I don’t interrogate them between times,” Apted said. “I pick up from where we were and all that. I’ve got my producer on it who keeps a bit in touch with them, but I don’t want to do that because I thought it would wreck it all. … I didn’t want to get all these stories every year and then find myself with tons and tons of material that I can’t possibly use all the time, and it gives me perspective in their seven years — what’s been important, what wasn’t important.”
Apted said that too much documentary material would make the editing process too onerous, so he self-edits by simply focusing on the updated elements of their story. To him, what happened three years ago is less interesting than what their narrative says about them today, when the cameras are rolling.
“I have a researcher who keeps an eye on things, maybe checks it and see how he / she is,” he said. “No one has a very detailed interview with them, except the ones we do on the seventh year.”
Looking back at the variety of installments (21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56), Apted has considered the theme of luck and how it can change someone’s life. However, the director found that eventually luck runs out, and the UP series is after reality, no matter how it might come to the subjects.
“Every seventh year they have to, as it were, kind of figure for themselves what has been important for them,” said the director, who is also known for The World Is Not Enough in the James Bond franchise and Coal Miner’s Daughter. “Otherwise I think if I was doing that for every year that I had, it would be madness. I would be dead by now trying to figure it out. It’s bad enough figuring it out when I’ve only got at the most 20 minutes of their seven years as well as all the other stuff to put in. It would force me into getting hysterical I would think if I had so much to put in that I think the audience would get fed up. … We thought seven years we should stick with that. We’d never go outside it, even if someone dies. We don’t break into the program and announce it. We announce that they had died at the next of the seven years that we do with them.”
One of the most charismatic of Apted’s subjects — someone the director said is the star of the series — is Tony, a jockey-turned-cabbie, according to press notes. Apted is convinced that Tony will always be all right in life.
“He’s so clever the way he handles himself,” the director said. “I share quite a lot with Tony, which is where we grew up. We both grew up near the middle class. We both grew up really with the culture of East London, so that makes me very warm and interested in him because he could have been me. … I had certain breaks that he never had in education and stuff like that, so that must I think influence me. He is obviously my biggest star. He and Neil are the stars really, so I’ve got to make sure I deliver them because I think they are the stars to people who have a ready attachment to it. You expect him to be good. You expect him to be charming and a little bit frank and all this sort of stuff. If he’s having a bad time or whatever, then I may have to go again with him.”
Despite obstacles along the way, the entire series has given Apted a lot of creative satisfaction. When the director started to build his filmic career he realized that he likes to jump back and forth between documentary and fiction movies. The UP series allows him every seven years to stay fresh in the nonfiction world.
“I like doing them both, but they both have their problems,” Apted said. “Doing a documentary doesn’t have the problems of having a script written for you. … Getting a script is always a big problem. A lot of people have a voice in it, but I don’t have that with this one. I mean, people will take a look at it and say that bit is too long or blah, blah, blah, but everything I shoot is a contender to be in it, if you know what I mean. But when you’re doing a drama, which is a very expensive movie, you can’t just go and say look I’ve got a five-hour film. You have to take some responsibility.”
Each time a new piece of this puzzle is released, Apted is asked whether he wants to return to these subjects in seven years time. Will there be a 70 UP? It’s a nice round number for sure.
“I’m nearly 80 for God’s sake,” he said with a laugh. “Good heavens, Michael, you say, I thought you were only 25. I think there will come a time when I won’t be able to handle these kind of films — movies or complex documentaries. I don’t want to get to the stage when I can’t handle it. Believe me when I realize that, I won’t do anymore. Nothing’s worse than seeing people trying to extend their careers when they’re really clearly not in control of it. I must be near that period anyway because I’ve been doing it for 60 years. … It would be great if I did do another one, but if I can’t do another one, I think I’ll be at ease about it. I think we’ve done so much more with this kind of film than anybody ever conceived, so I’m not in a race with people — I don’t think.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
63 UP, directed by Michael Apted, is now playing New York City’s Film Forum and other theaters around the United States. Click here for more information and tickets.
