MADE

UK, 1972, 104 minutes, Colour/
Carol White, John Castle, Roy Harper, Margery Mason.
Directed by John Mackenzie.

Made is quite an interesting film and should provide a great deal of discussion material, especially for late adolescent audiences and for discussion between the generations. One could criticise it and say that it tries too hard to have something to offer to everyone.

Valerie, the heroine, (played with compassion by Carol White - of Cathy Come Home, Poor Cow, Dulcima) is an unmarried mother, supporting her mum and working at the telephone exchange. She is, in the words of the final song, a "twentieth century social casualty"; she is shown at the beginning and end on a merry-go-round. Valerie's main encounters and reactions are to her mother, an amorous suitor, a socially conscious do-gooding priest and a live-life-and-love-for-the-day pop singer. These last two offer Valerie choices and adequacies and inadequacies are explored. In fact, the sequence of Valerie listening to the pop singer's exploitive hit-song on her plight is rather harrowing. This is a limited picture of a limited world, a world of cliche, slogan and search; the film reflects this in many ways. However, it is an interesting and enjoyable film.

1. What is the meaning of the title - in reference to Valerie and the final song - twentieth century social casualty"?

2. The effect of the symbolism of the merry-go-round and the yellow, black and white silhouettes of the beginning and the end, of Valerie and those in her life?

3. Did you like Valerie - how typical was she of today's young girl in the cities? Her particular difficulties - unmarried mother, caring for her sick and complaining mother? What qualities did she have - personality, charm, vitality, reserve? What were her faults?

4. How much was Valerie influenced by her environment and its limitations?

5. Valerie is best understood in her relationships to the people in her life -to June, her mother, her baby, Fr. Dyson, Mike Preston, Mahdar Gupta.

6. How did Fr. Dyson and Mike Preston represent the two possibilities for her -responsibility and awareness of consequences versus living life daily with feeling and care without concern of consequences? The nature of religion and of the world? Who was right?

7. The sequences of Mike in America - what did they reveal about him? (Contrasting with Fr. Dyson in his church, at Brighton, caring for the dying Mrs. Marshall, listening to the tape of his sermon)?

8. Valerie's quarrel with Fr. Dyson? Why?

9. The final images of Valerie listening to the song? How did this affect her? Had Mike used her? Did he have any real feeling for her? Has the song cruel?

10. Was this a relevant drama for today? Significant? Too cliche prone? Why?

11. Details of character: Valerie, her inability to share June's cheerfulness; work for her mother, hospital, missing her mother's death; tragedy of the baby's death. Fr. Dyson: 'modern' priest with social concern, the Brighton trip, his disappointment when she did not change. Mike: interview answers, the affair, momentary consolation, his song, Mahdar Gupta: first visit, Valerie's using of him?