- 8/30/2024
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00:00Remember when we were young, I'm in the prime of my youth and I'll only be young once.
00:26Yeah, but you're going to be stupid for the rest of your life.
00:29That summer, that one last dance, that one last day of childhood before we had to grow
00:37up.
00:38How do you capture that moment forever?
00:41Take a boy or a girl on a journey to find out who they are.
00:49They fight with their parents, are inspired by a teacher and make friends they'll remember
00:56forever.
00:58First love, first fight and first steps into a new and uncertain world.
01:07All played out to the soundtrack of your life.
01:14In this series, I'm looking at some of cinema's most enduring genres from the rom-com to the
01:18horror film.
01:19I'm exploring the conventions which underwrite the movies we love the most and examining
01:24the techniques filmmakers use to keep us coming back for more.
01:28And tonight, I'll show you what makes the perfect coming-of-age movie.
01:44Of all the genres in this series, coming-of-age movies are perhaps the most personal.
01:49Personal for the filmmakers who may be putting their own life stories up on screen and personal
01:54for us because so often those stories reflect our own experiences.
02:00These films deal with characters on the cusp of something, struggling through that netherworld
02:04between childhood and adulthood.
02:06The best of them capture the authentic feeling of growing up and that has universal appeal.
02:20Coming-of-age films cross borders from Miami to Cumbernauld, Tehran to Brighton and the
02:32real magic of these movies is that they can make us share the experience of characters
02:36with whom, on the surface, we have very little in common.
02:46For example, one of my own favourite coming-of-age movies is an obscure American B-picture from
02:51the 1970s called Jeremy.
02:54The film is an oddity, a cheap indie pic shot on 16mm.
02:58It stars a young Robbie Benson, now best known as the voice of Beast in Disney's Beauty and
03:03the Beast.
03:05Benson plays Jeremy, a music student in New York who falls in love with a dancer played
03:11by Glynnis O'Connor.
03:13But their romance proves all too fleeting, as her parents decide to move away from New
03:17York, tearing the young lovers apart.
03:21I first saw Jeremy as the supporting feature to the Charles Bronson western Break Heart
03:26Pass.
03:27I was about 12 years old, never had a girlfriend, never been to New York and had no expectation
03:32of ever going to a music academy, but it didn't matter.
03:36The film struck a chord, it touched my soul and it broke my heart and it stayed with me
03:41ever since.
03:42Oh, gee, I'm sorry.
03:54I was equally struck by John Singleton's 90s breakthrough picture Boys in the Hood, a story
03:59of young African-Americans facing up to a crisis of fatherhood in a world stricken with
04:03poverty, crime and guns, despite the fact that I grew up in Finchley and have no experience
04:09of life in any hood.
04:35Boys in the Hood uses the classic elements of the coming of age genre, a distinctive
04:41time and setting, a young hero trying to find his place in the world, a father figure, a
04:50first crush, a gang of buddies, moments of fun and the music to go along with it, and
05:00a loss of innocence, a crisis that forces the characters to grow up.
05:09The point is that whatever the specifics of culture or gender, the best coming of age
05:14movies take a universal truth we all understand and then repackage it with different music,
05:19fashions and slang or different racial, sexual and social tensions.
05:25Whether they're post-war European auteurs or the most recent awards winners, filmmakers
05:32have a particular fascination with these stories.
05:36They can make movies about what they know best, perhaps even recapture their own youth
05:41and reflect on some of the most profound questions of all our lives.
05:51The protagonists of coming of age movies range across sex, sexuality, class, ethnicity, nationality,
05:58but they're all on a quest for identity.
06:00If I had one day when I didn't have to be all confused and didn't have to feel that
06:15I was ashamed of everything, if I felt that I belonged someplace, you know, then...
06:25Okay, Christine?
06:27Lady Bird.
06:28Is that your given name?
06:29Yeah.
06:30Why is it in quote?
06:31Well, I gave it to myself.
06:33It's given to me by me.
06:35Okay.
06:36Take it away, Lady Bird.
06:38Even Harry Potter, a coming of age hero for kids growing up in the 21st century, spends
06:43eight films working out if he fits the label he'd been given as an 11-year-old.
06:47You're a wizard, Harry.
06:48I'm a what?
06:49A wizard.
06:50And a thumping goodnight wager, once you trade up a little.
06:51No.
06:52You've made a mistake.
06:53I mean, I can't be a wizard.
06:54I mean, I'm just Harry.
06:55Just Harry.
06:56Sometimes, a film will be explicitly built around a character's search for identity.
07:23Take The Breakfast Club, which cemented writer-director John Hughes' reputation as the auteur of
07:29the 80s teen movie.
07:31Although Hughes' hit has recently been the subject of some uncomfortable reassessment
07:35regarding its gender politics, it was seen at the time as the quintessential coming of
07:40age movie, in which a group of high schoolers spending a Saturday in detention are forced
07:45to question who they are.
07:47All right, people, we're going to try something a little different today.
07:51We are going to write an essay of no less than a thousand words, describing to me who
07:59you think you are.
08:00Is this a test?
08:02Think about the voiceover that bookends The Breakfast Club.
08:05It may be cheesy, but it sets out its stall.
08:07Here are a group of teenagers being labelled by adults, when they don't even know how they've
08:11labelled themselves yet.
08:13You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms and most convenient definitions.
08:21You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case.
08:27For all its era-specific pop culture trappings, the music, the clothes, the attitudes, The
08:34Breakfast Club is cut from timeless coming of age cloth, telling a story about its young
08:39misfits' search for identity.
08:44This is a key theme of coming of age films, the idea that who you are is up for grabs,
08:49and if you don't decide for yourself, others will try to decide for you.
08:53We can see it in movies from the 1955 classic Rebel Without a Cause, to the 2017 Oscar winner
08:59Moonlight.
09:02On one level, Moonlight could be described as a film about poverty, drug dealing and
09:07hardscrabble lives in the toughest areas of Florida.
09:10Hi, Mum.
09:11Uh-uh, you cannot be here tonight.
09:14I got company coming.
09:16Found somewhere for you to be.
09:22Yet thanks to the brilliance of co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney and director Barry Jenkins,
09:26both of whom drew on their own personal experiences, Moonlight becomes something quite different,
09:32a beautiful and universal tale of finding one's own identity.
09:38This central theme is spelled out to the young hero by a father figure, drug dealer Juan.
09:44At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you're gonna be.
09:52Can't let nobody make that decision for you.
09:58A kaleidoscopic gem, Moonlight uses three different actors to focus upon three distinct
10:03periods of its subject's life.
10:06Barry Jenkins makes clear that this is a film about finding who you are by titling each
10:10act with the three different names and identities the protagonist assumes, Little, Chiron and
10:17Black.
10:19Lending heartfelt voice to characters who've previously been silenced or sidelined, it's
10:24an astonishingly accomplished work, a coming of age movie which returns time and time again
10:29to the same repeated question.
10:31It's a question we first hear when Chiron's a frightened child worried about his life
10:36and sexuality.
10:37And just as that letter to Mr. Vernon bookends The Breakfast Club, so that question returns
10:43in the final act of Moonlight, when the now-grown Chiron is reunited with the man he fell in
10:48love with as a boy.
10:49Who is you, man?
10:52Who, me?
10:54Yeah, nigga, you.
10:57Sandman in France.
11:00That car.
11:02Who is you, Chiron?
11:05I'm me, man.
11:08I can try and be nothing else.
11:10The search for identity is made explicit in Moonlight, with the script giving clear voice
11:14to its characters' uncertainties and questions.
11:17But sometimes those questions don't have to be spoken.
11:20They can be raised through visual motifs which tell the audience all they need to know about
11:24a character's search for themselves.
11:27It's no surprise that so many young protagonists are seen running, or cycling, or hitting the
11:36road for a journey of self-discovery.
11:40Sometimes those characters find themselves driving round in circles.
11:45Sometimes they're just trying to negotiate the emotional traffic.
11:48That's the way. Relax position. Break.
11:52That's the way.
11:55Come here, you.
11:57Was that an emergency stop?
11:59Emergency stop, unsimulated, yes.
12:03Hi, Mike.
12:05He makes me feel better when you call me Dad, Gregory, or Pop, or something.
12:08He makes me feel better when you call me Dad, or Father.
12:11Or perhaps they're just utterly becalmed, like Dustin Hoffman,
12:15iconically floating on a lilo in The Graduate.
12:19I would say that I'm just drifting here in the pool.
12:23Why?
12:25Well, it's very comfortable just to drift here.
12:28But whether the hero is drifting or trying to escape, it's essential that we establish
12:33the world of their story.
12:39From the streets of Barnsley in Ken Loach's Quez,
12:43to Tehran in Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parano's Persepolis,
12:47the settings of truly great coming-of-age movies make the unfamiliar seem familiar.
12:52Iron Maiden.
12:54How much do you want for it?
12:5650.
12:5760.
12:5850.
12:5960.
13:0050.
13:0150.
13:03Whether it's a long hallway, a small town street...
13:06Hey, see you, Janice!
13:08..or a family dinner table, the best of these films make us feel
13:12that this is where we live, at least for the duration of the movie.
13:16Where are you?
13:18In a show! Watch the show, stupid!
13:20Pass!
13:22But you can't detach where these stories take place from when they take place.
13:27Coming-of-age movies are, by their nature, set in the past.
13:32More so in the past than in the past of the filmmaker's experience,
13:35because teenagers themselves don't usually get to make movies.
13:39So even if the target audience is teens, in general,
13:42these films are made by adults looking back at their past,
13:45often with a hefty dose of nostalgia.
13:48Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows, made in 1959,
13:52has become one of the most influential films of the genre.
13:56The title refers to a French idiom for raising hell,
14:00and it's a description of a misunderstood adolescent.
14:11This semi-autobiographical coming-of-age classic
14:14was Truffaut's first film.
14:16He wanted to depict adolescents not with nostalgia,
14:19but as the painful experience it really is.
14:24Look at the opening sequence.
14:26Shot from a car driving through the streets of Paris,
14:29we see the tower as being always just out of reach, hidden behind buildings.
14:35Then, as Truffaut's screen credit appears,
14:37there's a moment when our goal is attainable.
14:41And then it's gone, receding in the rear-view mirror.
14:46Truffaut is battling a conundrum
14:48with which the makers of coming-of-age films have always wrestled,
14:51the tension between authenticity and nostalgia.
14:54You can see it again in the iconic shot which ends the film.
14:58The lead is looking straight to camera, challenging and real.
15:01Then the freeze frame, a child frozen in time,
15:04becoming a nostalgic image.
15:08Childhood turns into a photograph, something to look back upon.
15:17When making her Oscar-nominated coming-of-age movie Lady Bird,
15:20Greta Gerwig said that she wanted to offer a female counterpart
15:24to films like The 400 Blows,
15:27acknowledging the influence of Truffaut
15:29alongside other genre milestones like George Lucas' American Graffiti.
15:37Larry, how long will this hold us?
15:39I don't know.
15:40Lady Bird is a female-centred film made by a woman
15:43at a time when Hollywood finally seems to be waking up to feminism.
15:47It feels very much of the moment.
15:51But in the same way that American Graffiti asked,
15:54where were you in 62, Lady Bird asks, where were you in 2002?
16:00The protagonists of American Graffiti and Lady Bird
16:03are of different sexes and come from different decades.
16:06But both are eager to leave the West Coast small towns
16:09where they grew up and head east to become writers.
16:12And both films are loosely based on the teenage years of their directors
16:16and are set when Lucas and Gerwig were 18.
16:20What did you say? Wait, what did you say?
16:22Can I get your number? We were looking to set up some more gigs down there.
16:25Definitely.
16:29It's my parents' number.
16:32You don't have a cell phone?
16:33No.
16:34Good girl.
16:35Gerwig has said that she was interested in how personal life and history intertwine
16:40because often in films they're portrayed as if they happen in distinct arenas.
16:45And although they're largely kept in the background,
16:48Lady Bird is littered with references to the major historical events of the era,
16:52from 9-11 to the economic crisis,
16:55flagged up on school notice boards and on the TV news.
17:00Your father doesn't have a job.
17:04He lost his job.
17:05Do you need him to come in here and explain that to you?
17:10Part of the appeal of both Lady Bird and American Graffiti
17:13is that they speak to the audience's experience of youth
17:17who are working hard to recreate their director's experience.
17:21Greta Gerwig did this by immersing her cast and crew
17:24in the detritus of her adolescence,
17:26giving them copies of her high school yearbooks
17:28and showing them round the sights of her hometown.
17:33And it's the ability to convey a sense of authenticity,
17:36the idea that this could have happened to you,
17:38that can make or break a coming-of-age film.
17:42Arguably the most important choice a director makes
17:45when creating a film in this genre is who to cast.
17:50Coming-of-age films have the potential to make actors into icons.
17:54Think of James Dean or even the Brat Pack actors
17:57who dominated the 80s teen market.
18:00I can't believe that I'm actually here.
18:02Pretty bad, yeah?
18:04Yeah, it's pretty bad.
18:06Of course, the younger your cast, the more challenges there are.
18:09By definition, most stars of coming-of-age movies
18:11won't be seasoned professionals.
18:13They'll be younger performers.
18:15Directors often have no choice
18:17but to go by their instincts when casting.
18:19Steven Spielberg famously cast Henry Thomas to play Elliot in E.T.
18:23after an audition in which the young actor started crying
18:26at the idea of having his alien friend taken away from him.
18:30Well, he's mine and he lives with me and he likes me
18:34and he wants to stay here.
18:37He likes it here.
18:39Well, we wouldn't hurt him or anything.
18:41All we want to do is talk to him.
18:43But I don't want you to take him away.
18:46An audition which reduced those watching it to tears.
18:50OK, kid, you got the job.
18:52LAUGHTER
18:54For some directors, the risk of being stuck with a bad choice
18:57is even higher.
18:59Think of Richard Linklater
19:01casting the six-year-old Ellical Train as Mason,
19:05the central character in Boyhood,
19:07a film that was to be shot over 12 years.
19:10Linklater didn't let his cast watch the footage of their performances
19:14for more than a decade.
19:16Happy birthday!
19:18By which time Coltrane could barely remember himself at age six.
19:24This really is the extreme
19:26of trying to capture the authentic nature of growing up,
19:29capturing it as your actors literally get older.
19:33Other filmmakers have done the same thing over a series of films.
19:37Truffaut cast the 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud in The 400 Blows
19:41and the two of them were then bound together
19:43in a string of subsequent films
19:45featuring the same character, Antoine Doinel.
19:52And then there are the cast of the Harry Potter movies
19:55who grew up with their audiences right before our eyes.
19:58But Boyhood is particularly daring
20:00because the whole journey is there in one film.
20:02How old are you?
20:0415.
20:06And the real genius of this movie is that while watching it,
20:10you simply forget about the head-scrambling logistics of the project.
20:14Instead, we focus upon the characters themselves,
20:17undistracted by the changing faces and fashions of the world in which they live
20:21or by the risks which Linklater took in mounting this project in the first place.
20:27Maybe it's that sense of risk that has encouraged many directors
20:31from Satyajit Ray to Ken Loach
20:33to look beyond the standard casting routes.
20:39Rather than pick a child actor,
20:41why not go to the kind of place your film is set and find real people?
20:46Thomas Turgus was discovered in a youth club
20:49for pupils with attendance issues.
20:51Shane Meadows spotted something in his manager's office
20:55Shane Meadows spotted something in his manor
20:57which perfectly fitted the misfit at the centre of This Is England.
21:03Andrea Arnold frequently uses a mix of seasoned actors and first-time performers
21:07to add an extra layer to her films.
21:10For her London set coming-of-age story Fish Tank,
21:13she cast newcomer Katie Jarvis
21:15after her assistant spotted Jarvis having a row with her boyfriend at a station.
21:19Don't mind me, girl. Carry on.
21:21I was enjoying it.
21:24But she paired her with Michael Fassbender.
21:30You making eggs?
21:32No.
21:34What's the water for, then?
21:38I'm making tea.
21:40OK.
21:45I'm a friend of your mother's.
21:48You dance like a black.
21:50It's a compliment.
21:52And what would you like?
21:57For 2016's American Honey, Arnold went to the Florida beaches
22:01where teenagers partied to find her star, Sasha Lane.
22:06Lane was on spring break when Arnold approached her,
22:09just weeks before filming began.
22:12American Honey follows a group of adolescents
22:15on a road trip around America selling magazines.
22:19Many of the cast had no previous acting experience,
22:22but by ensuring that they travelled together, just like their characters,
22:26Arnold created a group dynamic
22:28which allowed her to capture plenty of unplanned improvised moments
22:32which generated a documentary-like sense of authenticity.
22:37But behind that seemingly casual verite realism,
22:40there are plenty of precisely orchestrated artistic decisions in American Honey.
22:46Cinematographer Robbie Ryan shoots in the squarer Academy Ratio,
22:50which has been Arnold's signature since Fish Tank.
22:53But here, his superb use of the 4x3 frame
22:56makes the image seem taller rather than narrower
22:59than more commonplace widescreen formats.
23:03There's a lot of sky in American Honey,
23:06a sense of expansiveness that marries shallow focus close-ups
23:10of pierced and tattooed skin with breathtaking vistas
23:14that seem to sweep upwards towards the stars,
23:17suggesting new horizons opening up for the teenage heroine.
23:23This kind of attention to technical, stylistic detail
23:26frequently gets overlooked in coming-of-age movies,
23:29which are more often praised by critics for their engaging performances
23:33or quotable dialogue.
23:35But the way a story is framed is every bit as important as how it's played.
23:40In The Florida Project, Sean Baker uses a choreographed visual style
23:44to conjure a child's sense of wonder.
23:48Buildings and trees seem particularly large
23:51because of the angle from which they're filmed
23:54and the way they fill the screen.
23:56Shooting on both digital and 35mm,
23:59cinematographer Alexis Zabe captures these weird widescreen vistas
24:03in bright, day-glow colours,
24:05lending a cartoonish atmosphere to this child's-eye view of the landscape
24:09around Florida's Disney World.
24:13But he also finds heart-stopping beauty in the image of a tree,
24:17which the six-year-old heroine significantly loves
24:20because it's tipped over and it's still growing.
24:25In her 1999 film Rat Catcher,
24:27Lynne Ramsey takes us visually into a child's imagination.
24:31James lives in a Glasgow housing scheme during a bin strike,
24:34so when he catches a bus to a half-built estate
24:38on the edge of a wheat field,
24:40it's a massive contrast to his regular life.
24:45The framing of these shots of James climbing into the field
24:49gives the impression of him climbing into a painting.
24:54Filling the frame with just gold and blue,
24:57Ramsey captures the feeling of being completely lost in the moment.
25:03But of all the cinematic devices which take us back in time,
25:07none is more powerful than music.
25:17So many great scenes from coming-of-age movies
25:20play out to a jukebox soundtrack,
25:22it's little wonder that pop music has become
25:25one of the fundamental building blocks of the genre.
25:31What's interesting, though, is how the use of pop music in movies
25:36has changed over the decades.
25:40When pop music was first used in movies in the 50s,
25:43in films like The Blackboard Jungle,
25:45it was used to evoke a sense of nowness,
25:47to locate the movie at the cutting edge of contemporary culture.
25:54Throughout the 50s and 60s, filmmakers turned to musicians
25:57like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley or The Beatles and Pink Floyd
26:00to give their films pop culture cachet,
26:03from beach party films of Annette Funicello
26:05to youth exploitation classics like Easy Rider.
26:09But then, in the 70s, something strange happened.
26:20While films like Saturday Night Fever
26:22continued to cash in on contemporary chart success,
26:25others started to use pop to evoke a bygone age,
26:29to bring something back from the past.
26:33Film producer Steve Woolley once observed,
26:35pop music in movies is like a knife,
26:37you twist it and nostalgia comes pouring out.
26:41As far as Woolley was concerned, pop music could be used
26:44like wallpaper, covering over any anachronistic cracks
26:47in set design, dialogue or hair and make-up.
26:51This was a truism understood by George Lucas
26:54when he made American Graffiti.
26:56Having written his script to a jukebox selection of tunes,
26:59Lucas ensured that the film's soundtrack
27:02didn't need much of the heavy lifting
27:04when it came to evoking memories of 1962.
27:08That's why Wolfman Jack's radio show is such a constant presence.
27:16Why'd you do that?
27:18I don't like that surfing shit.
27:21Rock and roll's been going downhill ever since Buddy Holly died.
27:25The soundtrack reflects the importance of music to teenagers.
27:30The music we hear is played in real situations
27:32where the characters can hear it,
27:34on car radios or at school dances.
27:37It's a constant soundtrack to their lives,
27:40and it transports the audience right back to the era.
27:49All right, baby, here we go with another call out of the station.
27:55Since George Lucas demonstrated how well
27:57a nostalgic jukebox soundtrack could work,
27:59it's been exploited by producers on both sides of the Atlantic
28:02to conjure specific eras.
28:04From the British classic Quadrophenia,
28:06based on the Who's 60s set rock opera...
28:10What's this rubbish thing?
28:12Where'd he say he'd gone?
28:17..to Richard Kelly's 80s set cult classic Donnie Darko...
28:27Music has the power to connect the audience to the characters,
28:30but it also has the power to connect the characters to each other.
28:37In Moonlight, the intimate childhood relationship
28:40between Chiron and Kevin is rekindled
28:42because Kevin hears a song that sparks a memory
28:45and makes him phone Chiron after years apart.
28:49The scene takes place in a diner,
28:51as we saw in American Graffiti,
28:54the location for so many American coming-of-age movies.
29:01Crucially, there's a jukebox in the diner,
29:04and Kevin puts on the Barbara Lewis track Hello Stranger,
29:07a song which somehow helps these two men, who have become strangers,
29:11rediscover the intimate friendship they shared as kids.
29:15It seems like a mighty long time...
29:21Is it mere coincidence that director Barry Jenkins,
29:24a very cine-literate filmmaker,
29:26chose a disc from the same period in which American Graffiti is set?
29:31Now, that connection might not be conscious,
29:34but on the level of emotion and mood,
29:36it seems to bind Moonlight
29:38to Lucas's wellspring of cinematic nostalgia.
29:42MUSIC PLAYS
29:51So, the time and place is set,
29:53the main characters have been established
29:55and the right music's playing in the background.
29:57What could possibly go wrong?
29:59Well, in the case of coming-of-age movies,
30:01conflict is always lurking just around the corner,
30:04most often embodied in the form of adults.
30:12You should just go to City College, you know, with your work ethic.
30:15Just go to City College and then to jail,
30:17and then back to City College,
30:19and then maybe you'd learn to pull yourself up
30:21and not expect everybody to...
30:23SCREAMS
30:25For every child or stunted adolescent
30:27at the centre of the coming-of-age movie,
30:29there's a grown-up who helps define them,
30:31either by inspiring or understanding them,
30:33or giving them something to revolt against.
30:36Sometimes, parents embody a wider cultural conflict.
30:40There was a scout from America there today,
30:42and he's offered me a place at a top university,
30:45with a free scholarship and a chance to play football professionally.
30:51And I really want to go.
30:54And if I can't tell you what I want now,
30:56then I'll never be happy, whatever I do.
31:00You let her leave her sister's wedding to go to a football match!
31:05In Rebel Without a Cause, a coming-of-age movie,
31:08which is also one of the first mainstream teen movies,
31:10it all comes down to the particular psychology of Jim Stark's family.
31:15Throughout his 1955 classic,
31:17director Nicholas Ray continually flags up
31:19the disconnected family dynamic with visual clues.
31:23The film was made when the very idea of the teenager was being born,
31:27and the red jacket worn by James Dean as Jim
31:30would become an icon of teen angst,
31:32its bright colour in sharp contrast
31:34to the drab adult world around him.
31:38According to the film's publicity,
31:40Dean's Jim Stark was the bad kid from a good home,
31:43although the film itself seems to reverse that equation,
31:46laying the blame for Jim and Judy's alienation
31:48squarely at the feet of their loving parents.
31:52Look at the vertigo-inducing camera angles in this key scene.
31:59He's home.
32:01We're home.
32:08You're home. Are you all right?
32:11Where were you? We were so worried.
32:14Much of Jim's torment comes from the fact that,
32:16as far as he's concerned,
32:18the pecking order of his family is topsy-turvy,
32:21with his mother, who he fears as a woman at the top,
32:24and his father, who he needs to be a man, at the bottom.
32:29You want me to tell the truth. Now, didn't you say that?
32:33You can't turn it off.
32:35For Jim, family life is in chaos,
32:38and the staging and camera angles reflect that inner turmoil.
32:42You'll learn when you're older, Jim.
32:45Well, I don't think that I want to learn that way.
32:49Well, it doesn't matter anyway, because we're moving.
32:52You're not tearing me loose again.
32:56Fast-forward more than 50 years,
32:58and the failings of Dean's family
33:00Fast-forward more than 50 years,
33:02and the failings of parents are highlighted
33:04in the shooting style of Matt Reeve's vampire story Let Me In,
33:07a US remake of Thomas Alfredson's Let The Right One In.
33:10Look how the mother's face is out of focus in this scene,
33:13emphasising the emotional distance between parent and child.
33:17She's there, yet somehow removed.
33:21But just as parent-child relationships have evolved since the 1950s,
33:25we've seen screen parents evolve,
33:28as new generations of filmmakers take on the genre.
33:31PHONE RINGS
33:33Hello?
33:35The fallible parent is no longer there
33:37just as a two-dimensional prop for comic asides
33:40or as a catalyst for angst.
33:42They may now be a fully fleshed-out character,
33:45with similar insecurities to our protagonist.
33:48OK, we're all just winging it, you know?
33:51In Richard Linklater's Boyhood,
33:53Mason's parents, played by Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette,
33:57are now undergoing their own coming-of-age journeys,
34:00which we also see play out over 12 years.
34:03You know what I'm realising? My life is just going to go like that.
34:06This series of milestones.
34:08Getting married, having kids, getting divorced.
34:11The time that we thought you were dyslexic,
34:14when I taught you how to ride a bike.
34:17Getting divorced again, getting my master's degree,
34:20finally getting the job I wanted.
34:22Sending Samantha off to college, sending you off to college.
34:26What's next, huh?
34:28It's my fucking funeral!
34:32Just go and leave my picture!
34:36Aren't you jumping ahead by, like, 40 years or something?
34:43I just thought there would be more.
34:50With parents flawed or even absent from coming-of-age films,
34:53these characters may take on the role of mentor,
34:56reaching out to support alienated children and inspire them.
34:59In Persepolis, the story of a rebellious teenager
35:02growing up against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution,
35:05this figure is our heroine's grandmother.
35:08She tells Marjane to stay true to herself,
35:11an important lesson in any journey to self-discovery.
35:14In your lifetime, you're going to meet a lot of jerks.
35:17If someone hurts you, just tell yourself
35:21it's a lack of intelligence.
35:23That way, you'll never sink down to their level.
35:25Because there's nothing worse in this world
35:27than bitterness and revenge.
35:29Never lose sight of your dignity.
35:31Always stay true to yourself.
35:35Often, this mentor figure is quite literally a teacher,
35:38whether it's Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society...
35:43Medicine, law, business, engineering.
35:45These are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.
35:49Poetry, beauty, romance, love.
35:54These are what we stay alive for.
35:57..or Julie Walters in Billy Elliot.
36:12And sometimes, like Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,
36:17they may be flawed or even destructive figures themselves.
36:23Rome.
36:25This is a large formation of Ilducci's fascisti.
36:28They are following him in noble destiny.
36:32I myself mingled with such a crowd.
36:36I wore my silk dress with red poppies, which is right for my colouring.
36:41Benito Mussolini.
36:43Ilducci.
36:46Italy's leader supreme.
36:49A Roman worthy of his heritage.
36:51The greatest Roman of them all.
36:54Whether the adults are oppressive or benign,
36:56escaping from their world can often be a liberating moment for our heroes.
37:00And the best coming-of-age films capture that youthful energy.
37:06Denny's Comes At Ogavan's Mustang is the story of teenage sisters
37:10imprisoned by their family for messing around with boys
37:13in a conservative village in Turkey.
37:15In the middle of the film, the girls escape to a football match.
37:20In a series of tight shots, we see them on a bus and then at the game
37:24experiencing a moment of pure joy
37:26that could be at any youthful gathering in the world.
37:31They're surrounded by their peers,
37:33who often embody values themselves, for better or worse.
37:43Two households,
37:46both alike in dignity, in fair Verona.
37:51A dog of the house of Capulet moves me!
37:59The idea of teen gangs is as old as Shakespeare.
38:03And whether it's Marlon Brando's bikers in The Wild One,
38:06or Alex and his droogs in A Clockwork Orange,
38:10cinema has traditionally treated them, at best, with ambivalence.
38:14But there's an intensity to childhood friendships
38:17familiar to most of us,
38:19and directors have sought to capture this in coming-of-age films.
38:22They might be groups with a clearly defined style and set of values,
38:26like the skinheads in This Is England,
38:28or a looser gang of buddies like the kids in Stand By Me.
38:32A soldier of fortune is a man called Paladin!
38:38Like the adults we've just seen,
38:40there's something inherently ambiguous in the idea of a gang.
38:44It can be supportive of the protagonist,
38:46but also potentially dangerous.
38:49Céline Cierma's Girlhood is one of my favourite movies of recent years,
38:53and tells the story of teenage life in the housing projects of Paris.
38:57It's about a gang of girls whose pastimes involve fighting and thieving,
39:01both of which become bonding rituals.
39:08SHE SPEAKS FRENCH
39:15Girlhood was billed in some sections of the press
39:18as an exposé of girl gangs,
39:20but crucially, Cierma has said that French young women today
39:24are this girl,
39:26emphasising the universality and authenticity of her story.
39:30MUSIC PLAYS
39:38The closeness of the girls is captured in a key moment
39:41in which the gang dance in stolen dresses.
39:47In this scene, Rihanna's Diamonds is allowed to play out uninterrupted
39:51as the group of girls dance and sing along.
39:54It's a bonding moment which approaches transcendence.
40:00The group sing-along is, of course, a well-worn cinematic device.
40:05Think of the bus sing-along to Elton John in Almost Famous.
40:14Or to Lady Antebellum in American Honey.
40:22These simple moments capture the appeal
40:24of being in the group for the characters,
40:27and because we inevitably feel the urge to sing along,
40:30we feel part of that group too.
40:33Some aspects of gang membership are altogether more ritualistic.
40:39In a genre that's all about finding identity,
40:41a teenage gang provides a set of rules
40:43that our protagonists can choose to obey or to break.
40:46So we decided to show Ty the ropes at Bronson Alcott High School.
40:51That is Alana's group over there.
40:53They do the TV station.
40:55They think that's the most important thing on Earth.
40:57Coming-of-age movies can be home to distinct teen tribes
41:00with their own codes and cultures.
41:03Knowing the tribes is crucial,
41:05which is why there's often a key scene in these movies
41:08taking us through the gangs.
41:10These scenes are there in any number of Hollywood movies,
41:13but they also pop up in British settings
41:15like the Midlands school ground of This Is England.
41:17What the fuck are they?
41:19These? I'm wearing them for a bet. What's your excuse?
41:22Cheeky bastard. Woodstock's that way, pal.
41:24Fuck off. These don't look like Count Dracula.
41:28In 2004's Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey,
41:32Lindsay Lohan plays the daughter of anthropologists
41:35who's recently moved from Africa to start school in Ohio.
41:38SCREAMS
41:40I'm OK. Sorry. I'll be careful.
41:43She quickly discovers that, anthropologically speaking,
41:46high school's not that different from the jungle.
41:49Here. This map is going to be your guide to North Shore.
41:52Now, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial
41:55because you've got everybody there.
41:58Freshmen, rotsy guys, premps,
42:01JV jocks, Asian nerds,
42:05cool Asians,
42:07varsity jocks,
42:09unfriendly black hotties,
42:11girls who eat their feelings,
42:14girls who don't eat anything,
42:16desperate wannabes,
42:18burnouts,
42:20sexually active bandies,
42:22the greatest people you will ever meet,
42:24and the worst.
42:26You have to be aware of the plastic.
42:30These gangs don't just look different, they talk different.
42:34Hello. It was his 50th birthday.
42:37Whatever.
42:39The best coming-of-age films have created a slang
42:42that's filtered through into the language
42:44and, ironically, ends up transcending generations.
42:47The 1988 black comedy Heathers, written by Daniel Waters,
42:50brother of Mean Girls director Mark Waters,
42:54has been cited several times in the Oxford English Dictionary.
42:57Jealous much?
43:03Heather, why can't you just be a friend?
43:05Why are you such a mega-bitch?
43:07Such a pillowcase.
43:09What is your damage, Heather?
43:11Fuck me gently with a chainsaw.
43:13In coming-of-age movies with a female protagonist,
43:16there's often a point where the main character
43:18ditches her true friends in favour of a different group.
43:22Now, breaking the rules of one group to obey the rules of another
43:25can act as a social passport to popularity,
43:28but as the protagonists of Mean Girls, Pretty In Pink
43:31and, more recently, Lady Bird, all learn,
43:33that popularity comes at a price.
43:35No, it's a made-up thing, so we all can participate.
43:38You can't do anything unless you're the centre of attention, can you?
43:42Yeah, well, you know your mum's tits, they're fake, totally fake.
43:45She made one bad decision at 19!
43:47Two bad decisions!
43:50Like Heather's, Winona Ryder finds herself embroiled
43:53in a murderous web when she abandons the titular Queen Bees
43:56for Christian Slater's Jason Dean,
43:58a teen rebel name if ever there was one.
44:00Now!
44:02GUNSHOT
44:06Writer Daniel Waters and director Michael Layman
44:09wanted to play with teen cliches and explore their darker sides,
44:14because in the coming-of-age genre,
44:16growing up isn't always pretty in pink.
44:19You got some on you.
44:22Nice.
44:29What?
44:31Bee.
44:34I just got the curse.
44:36Coming-of-age themes have long been a core feature of horror movies,
44:40many of which deal with the awkward changes of adolescence
44:43expressed through monstrous metaphor.
44:45Kill yourself to be different.
44:48A young girl's passage to womanhood
44:50is often associated with the birth of a supernatural talent,
44:53such as telekinesis in Carrie,
44:55witchcraft in The Craft,
44:57or werewolf transformation in Ginger Snaps.
45:01Let's get out of here.
45:05My favourite film of 2017 was Raw,
45:08a French-Belgian horror fantasy from writer-director Julia De Corno,
45:12which used a taboo theme of cannibalism
45:15to portray its central character's transformation
45:17from innocent youth to fully-fledged adult.
45:20Garance Marillier stars as Justine,
45:22a vegetarian student who arrives at veterinary college
45:25where she's showered in blood,
45:27part of an initiation ceremony
45:29that knowingly evokes the climax from Carrie.
45:33Like Carrie, Raw's virginal Justine is isolated from her peers,
45:37struggling with the enforced debauchery
45:39that finds students crawling like dogs,
45:42drinking like fish and mating like rabbits.
46:03But once she's tasted forbidden flesh,
46:05Justine cannot go back to her former innocence.
46:09The cannibalistic gore would seem to place the movie
46:12firmly in the horror genre,
46:14but De Corno calls Raw a portrait of the alienation
46:17that most girls feel during their teenage years,
46:20a rites-of-passage drama about sisterly rivalry,
46:23family legacy and peer pressure,
46:25classic coming-of-age themes
46:27all dressed up in the clothing of cutting-edge horror.
46:33But amid the horrors and traumas of adolescence,
46:36there's still much to enjoy and celebrate.
46:38Think of the makeover scenes
46:40that are a staple of so many teen movies.
46:43From The Breakfast Club,
46:45to Clueless,
46:47to This Is England,
46:49coming-of-age movies are about kids trying to find out who they are,
46:53trying different identities on for size,
46:55and a makeover scene is the perfect way to do that.
46:58Honestly, mate, you look sterling.
47:00Get your shirt on. Let's see your Ben Sherman, then.
47:03The moment is half Cinderella, half Superman,
47:06when the glasses are whipped off and the character is reborn.
47:10That's a good fit.
47:12Let's have a look at you.
47:14Oh, my!
47:16What a transformation!
47:18He looks so cute.
47:20Few of these films would have found their audience
47:23if they hadn't managed to capture the joy of being young.
47:30But one emotion can dominate adolescence,
47:33the most bittersweet rite of passage of all.
47:44Coming-of-age movies can be light and silly or dark and moving.
47:48There's one theme that has shades of all those moods.
47:51First love.
47:53Giordano and I enjoyed a glorious,
47:55atavistic fortnight of lovemaking,
47:57humiliating teachers and bullying,
48:00but I've already turned these moments
48:02into the Super 8 footage of memory.
48:09One of the reasons I love Jeremy
48:11is that it seems to me to perfectly capture
48:14the bewildering experience of falling in love for the first time.
48:18But I still consider Susan, the heroine of Jeremy,
48:21to be my first girlfriend,
48:23despite the fact that I've never met her,
48:25because, well, because she's a fictional character.
48:29Look at this sequence in which the gawky Jeremy
48:32attempts to phone Susan for the first time.
48:37Oh, what did you do today?
48:39Um...
48:41I... I woke up.
48:43I had some orange juice.
48:45Jeremy, it's only... It's only nine o'clock.
48:49Now compare that with this sequence
48:51from Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides.
48:54Hello?
48:56Go.
48:59Hello, it's me
49:04I've thought about us for a long, long time
49:09Car, 727-0487.
49:18Shit, it's them.
49:20The films are completely different
49:22and were made decades apart,
49:24but the awkwardness they portray,
49:27the inability to say what you mean when you're young,
49:30and the way in which they choose to portray it,
49:32is exactly the same.
49:37You need some new trousers.
49:39The spiky ones are awful.
49:41I'll talk to Mum about it.
49:43The blue one's Italian.
49:45If you're going to start falling in love,
49:47you'll have to start taking care of yourself.
49:49Coming-of-age movies allow filmmakers
49:51to approach love quite differently
49:53to the rom-com genre.
49:55It's not just glossy relationships
49:57full of sparkling repartee.
49:59First love is full of awkwardness
50:01and feeling that your world
50:03has been turned on its head.
50:05We are clinging to the surface of this planet
50:07while it spins through space
50:09at 1,000 miles an hour,
50:11held only by the mystery force
50:13called gravity.
50:15Wow.
50:17A lot of people panic when you tell them that
50:19and they just fall off.
50:21But these movies are also a chance for filmmakers
50:24Taking a lead from Romeo and Juliet,
50:26the forbidden nature of a love affair,
50:28whether for reasons of gender,
50:30culture or race,
50:32may act as the dramatic motor of the story.
50:34Recently, Call Me By Your Name
50:36became an awards-garlanded hit,
50:38dealing with the once-taboo subject
50:40of a relationship between a young man
50:42and his older male paramour,
50:44riffing on themes from The Graduate
50:46but inflected with the same sensuality
50:48which infused Blue is the Warmest Colour,
50:50the story of a relationship
50:53between a teenage girl and an older woman.
50:57And then there are the coming-of-age movies
50:59which completely blur gender lines.
51:01Films like Makoto Shinkai's Your Name,
51:03in which the male and female protagonists
51:05swap their bodies and sexes,
51:09a theme previously explored in films
51:11like the 1982 Japanese hit Tenkosei,
51:13or more recently,
51:15the Scandinavian oddity Girls Lost.
51:19Whatever the gender,
51:22most coming-of-age stories tap into
51:24that endless love idea
51:26that you'll never love anyone
51:28as much as your first love.
51:36In these stories,
51:38young love rarely ends well.
51:40Often, the best you can hope for
51:42is bittersweet memories
51:44as you face the cold light of day.
51:52As we've seen,
51:54coming-of-age movies
51:56show characters on a journey
51:58between childhood and adulthood.
52:00So something has to happen
52:02that changes everything.
52:04It's the moment which says
52:06we have to grow up
52:08and it's the big moment
52:10to which these movies
52:12are so often heading.
52:14Death is obviously the big hitter here.
52:16It could be the accidental death
52:18of a rival in Rebel Without a Cause.
52:21The end to adolescent fun
52:23as it literally spirals out of control.
52:39Ah!
52:41Or the death of a Kestrel
52:43representing the freedom of youth
52:45killed by an overbearing brother in Kez.
52:47What are you doing, Mum?
52:49Terrain.
52:51That was a rotten trick anyway, wasn't it?
52:53It was a long trick, what it did to me, wasn't it?
52:55You don't need to take it out to a bird,
52:57you could have took it out to me.
52:59Sometimes that lesson is just a disillusionment with a hero.
53:01Think of Phil Daniels discovering
53:03that Supermod Sting
53:05is actually a cringing hotel bellboy
53:07in Quadrophenia.
53:09Bellboy!
53:11Carried his baggage out.
53:13Bellboy!
53:15Or the moment you finally
53:18stand up to the dominant adult
53:20in your life.
53:24Sandy.
53:26Think of Maggie Smith
53:28in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,
53:30a charismatic teacher, yes,
53:32but one against whom
53:34her most fervent disciple, Sandy,
53:36must ultimately rebel.
53:38It was you who betrayed me.
53:40I didn't betray you.
53:42I simply put a stop to you.
53:45Oh.
53:47I see.
53:49No, you don't see.
53:51You don't see that you're not good for people.
53:53In what way?
53:55In what way, Sandy,
53:57was I not good for you?
53:59You are dangerous and unwholesome
54:01and children should not be exposed to you.
54:03Always remember,
54:05in the end, coming of age
54:07is about leaving school,
54:09not standing on desks and sulking.
54:11There he is!
54:14I see him, look!
54:16I see him!
54:18These big moments of change
54:20usually come later in the film.
54:22Think of Stand By Me,
54:24where the children's discovery
54:26of the dead body happens
54:28in the third act.
54:30But director John Singleton
54:32cleverly references Stand By Me
54:34in an early scene in Boys In The Hood
54:36to show that one child's
54:38dramatic loss of innocence
54:40can be another's everyday life.
54:42The young friends on the hunt for a dead body,
54:44the train track,
54:46the wandering friends,
54:48even the body itself echo each other.
54:50An older gang of teenagers
54:52appear in both to confront the kids.
54:54In Stand By Me,
54:56which is based on the Stephen King story The Body,
54:58this scene is the moment
55:00to which the boy's journey has been leading.
55:02But in Boys In The Hood,
55:04this scene happens in the first act of the film.
55:06With this nod to Stand By Me,
55:08Singleton establishes that in this world,
55:10his young protagonists are always
55:12just a step away from violence and death.
55:16Y'all wanna see a dead body?
55:20But even in the gentlest of scenes,
55:22there's something about the end of childhood
55:24that makes for some of the most emotionally resonant
55:26moments in cinema.
55:28How many adults watching the end of Toy Story 3
55:30with their children
55:32could maintain a dry eye
55:34as Andy passes his beloved Woody and Buzz
55:36on to the next generation?
55:38I have some toys here.
55:40Ooh, you hear that, Bonnie?
55:42It's a remarkably moving scene
55:44because we've all been through the moment
55:46when we quite literally put away childish things.
55:48Someone told me you're really good with toys.
55:50It's also powerful because this is the end
55:52of the third film in the series
55:54and so many of the audience have either grown up
55:56or grown older alongside Andy.
55:58So in a way,
56:00watching the trilogy come to an end
56:02is itself a rite of passage for all of us.
56:04This is Jessie,
56:06the toughest, toughest cowgirl in the whole West.
56:08She loves critters.
56:10Which raises the question,
56:12what the hell are they going to do in the forthcoming part four?
56:20As we've seen, the best coming-of-age movies
56:22vividly capture that moment we've all been through
56:24on the cusp of adult life.
56:26And if you can't stay 17 forever,
56:28what happens next?
56:30Remember The Gang?
56:32In movies like American Graffiti, Stand By Me
56:34or Boys In The Hood,
56:36a group of buddies come to represent
56:38the different paths our hero could take.
56:40These three movies end by telling us
56:42what subsequently became of the different characters
56:44and they suggest what might have happened to the hero
56:46under different circumstances.
56:52I'll see you.
56:54Bye.
56:56I'll see you.
56:58Not if I see you first.
57:02One brother left, man.
57:04Chris did get out.
57:06He enrolled in the college courses with me.
57:08And although it was hard,
57:10he gutted it out like he always did.
57:12He went on to college
57:14and eventually became a lawyer.
57:16Last week, he entered a fast food restaurant.
57:18Just ahead of him,
57:20two men got into an argument.
57:22One of them pulled a knife.
57:24Chris, who had always made the best piece,
57:26tried to break it up.
57:28He was stabbed in the throat.
57:30He died almost instantly.
57:36These postscripts can be both poignant
57:38and remarkably stark.
57:40Yet it's in the very nature of the genre
57:42that life still lies ahead
57:44for most of these characters
57:46and we leave them facing an uncertain future
57:48but hopefully just that little bit of hope.
57:50It's no coincidence that so many coming-of-age films
57:52from The 400 Blows
57:54to This Is England
57:56to Moonlight
57:58end in the same way.
58:00With their heroes staring out towards a distant horizon
58:02then turning to look at the camera
58:04to connect with us.
58:20Next week, I'll voyage across time and space
58:22to explore the secrets of science fiction cinema.
58:50Thanks for watching.
58:52Subscribe for more.
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