The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)'s comments

Do you want to let us know what you think? Just login, after which you will be redirected back here and you can leave your comments.

Torgo

I liked the naturalistic cinematography, but had the audio have to be so lo-fi? Most movies from the early 1930s have better sound recording. Weird.

1 year 9 months ago

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a beautiful anti-authoritarian film that's a complete opposite to Chariots of Fire, which I'd just recently bailed out of after 20-30 minutes. Instead of posh college boys with high ideals running to sweeping music in beautified cinematography, this 1962 film takes us to a reform school, its headmaster's ambition, to have one of his boys win in a cross-country race against a local private school, and Tom Courtenay's rebellious new pupil/inmate Colin Smith might be the key. For all his rebellious talk though, he might fall under the spell of the privilege heaped upon him because of his athletic ability (a form of indoctrination), but running ahead of the pack - and this is where the poetic title comes in - gives one a lot of time to think, reflect and analyze. On practice runs, flashbacks show us Smith's working class family life, and how he got sent to reform school, sequences that evoked Truffaut's 400 Blows, and ultimately, Smith stands indomitable, not buying what you're sellin' guv'nor... A massive F U to the establishment, great stuff.

3 years 10 months ago