Social Realism

1. These types of films are not glamourising the certain issue (eg; poverty) but simply because it is aiming to make the viewer reflect on that specific point.

2. They focused on the ugly realities of everyday life and sympathized with working-class people, particularly the poor. They recorded what they saw in a dispassionate manner. The public was outraged by Social Realism, in part, because they didn't know how to look at it or what to do with it.

3. Social Realism in cinema was reflecting Britain's transforming wartime society. Women were working alongside men in the military and its munitions factories, challenging pre-assigned gender roles.

4. Social realism shouldn't be confused with 'socialist realism'. Social realism is the realistic depiction in art of contemporary life, as a means of social or political comment, whereas socialist realism is the theory of art, literature, and music officially sanctioned by the state in some Communist countries (especially in the Soviet Union under Stalin), by which artistic work was supposed to reflect and promote the ideals of a socialist society.

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soJ2BKXqGKQ

6. Social realist directors aim to portay life at the specific time that the film is set. These types of films are secular which focus on logic and reasons, as they are not mystical or religious.

7. They often represent working class characters who are struggling and present them as a protagonist. The directors are aiming to depict a specific type of social injustice such as discrimination, political injustice etc.

8. This is a film genre which can tend to focus on one social class eg; the lower class and can be described as 'gritty'. These films usually raise issues the social class may experience such as poverty, racism etc.

9. 'Social Realism' films mostly include point of view shots, hand-held camera work which gives the viewer a true indication of what life may be like for the lower class.

10. Social realism, an international art movement, reflects upon the work of painters,photographers and filmmakers who draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working class and the poor and what life is like for them.

11. In Britain examples of social realism can be found in the eighteenth century, for example in the work of William Hogarth, but it became particularly widespread in the nineteenth century. Important contributions to social realism were made by the Pre-Raphaelites, and by the more serious-minded genre painters such as Augustus Egg.