Poems like Philip Larkin's and W.H. Auden have traits of society thinking critically about modern governments because they were written just a little time after people realized, goverments didn't know what they were doing and that is probably why they don't sound very modernist and they use profanity and even though they do not talk directly about this, its clearly there. They may not have the deepness or complexty of T.S Elliot's poems or poems from the lost generation but I loved them a lot for being sad, depressive, realistic but mostly for having low expectations and being a bit left-field.
"Man hands on misery to man"
Philip Larkin, This be the Verse
Mass observation
This project, even though it could be useful for many things, is quite wrong. People can't go about recording people's conversations and infiltrating peoples lives and then telling all about it. I bet it wasn't publicly known untill after it was done and still caused a bit of a stir. They might be interesting to read (which they are) but there is no way people agreed completely to be spyed on and written about. At least Charles Madge had the decency to write poems which weren't about the project, unlike Humphrey Jennings, who didn't even try to disguise it by naming his films 'Listen to Britain' and such.
Postwar American Realist Fiction
Stories about life in the suburbs and in fact suburbs in real life are full of shallow and underrated lives of high-middle class people who used credit cards for everything and paid off in years. I have never seen a story which develops in a suburb which is all happy or perfect (as suburbs are supposed to be) they all involve afairs, debt, suicide, frustration and shallow and meaningless lives of measuring up the zeitgeist. Its entertaining al right, but sad and eye-opening as well.
Italian Neorealism / American Postwar Film
There is no getting away from the fact that the italian movies look and sound very interesting and good. But as always, something plannes and though out carefully works out better than something made out of spite and improvisation. It probably was new and I'm not saying they are bad, but they probably can't measure up to a well made planned film with better lights, professional actors, sets and everything like the ones made by american postwar directors and they are in fact. The production of The best days of our lives looks by a long way much better than the italian. Although, these films (italian neorealist) are by far away much more realist which probably caught up quickly because of the outburst of realism after WWII,
Cinema Verite
I think this has gone far to the other end. It is very extremely realistic but it doesn't give that joy or archieve the same effect because it is just too much too close to a documentary. They are not as interesting as a documentary, they are not as interesting as a film and it might only be apparent but what they have created here is a boring film which doesn't quite fit anywhere.
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