Every seven years since then, the series has revisited as many of the original 14 who have agreed to continue to participate. Now here is the eighth film, "56 Up." Remarkably, all 14 are still alive. Michael Apted, now a major British director, was a researcher on the first film, took over as director with "14 Up," and has continued ever since. These people are all bonded through the continuity of this remarkable idea, although it's clear here that some of the participants consider this form of fame a mixed blessing.
In the U.K., their faces are well known. Consider Tony (no family names are given). As a kid we saw him working as a groom in a racing stable. Later, he had a brief career as a jockey. When that didn't work out, he "started on the Knowledge," which is what London cabbies call the long process of memorizing more or less every street or landmark in London. The rest of his life he has driven a taxi.
"56 Up" edits together footage from the earlier films to retrace the life of each character. We watch Tony as he grows older, gets married, has children, buys a vacation home in Spain, survives the real estate bust and navigates uncertainties in the taxi business. (When times are good for the Arabs, times are even better for cabbies. When the price of oil goes down, so do their fares.)
Tony recalls that one day he picked up the "spaceman" Buzz Aldrin, who was the second man to walk on lunar soil. As he pulled over his cab, a man in the next car handed him a piece of paper and asked for an autograph. Tony passed it back to Aldrin. "Not him!" said the autograph seeker. "You!"
The character I've come to care and worry about the most over the years is Neil, who is … troubled. He was born in Liverpool and filled with life as a kid, but by 21, something had gone wrong. Since then he has moved through a series of oddly assorted jobs, from home construction to politician. He has never married. He has often been homeless or a step away. He's wandered Britain, living on outskirts, usually involved in something vaguely idealistic. Having won local office on the Liberal Democrat ticket, Neil finds his latest occupation is as a canon in his local Anglican church. "I can do most of the jobs of a priest," he says somewhat ruefully.
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