All language subtitles for S01E03 - Coming of Age

This programme contains
some strong language

Remember when we were young?

I'm in the prime of my youth and
I'll only be young once.

Yeah, but you're going to be stupid
for the rest of your life.

That summer.

That one last dance.

That one last day of childhood
before we had to grow up.

How do you capture
that moment forever?

Take a boy or a girl,

on a journey to find out
who they are.

They fight with their parents...

are inspired by a teacher...

and make friends they'll
remember forever.

First love...

first fight...

and first steps into a new
and uncertain world.

All played out to the
soundtrack of your life.

In this series, I'm looking at some
of cinema's most enduring genres,

from the romcom to the horror film.

I'm exploring the conventions

which underwrite the movies
we love the most,

and examining the technique
film-makers use

to keep us coming back for more.

And tonight I'll show you what makes
the perfect coming-of-age movie.

Of all the genres in this series,
coming-of-age movies

are, perhaps, the most personal.

Personal for the film-makers
who may be putting their own life

stories up on screen,

and personal for us
because so often those stories

reflect our own experiences.

These films deal with characters
on the cusp of something,

struggling through that netherworld
between childhood and adulthood.

And the best of them capture the
authentic feeling of growing up

and that has universal appeal.

Hey, Johnny, what are you
rebelling against?

What've you got?

Coming-of-age films cross borders,
from Miami to Cumbernauld...

..Tehran...

to Brighton.

And the real magic of these movies
is that they can make us share the

experience of characters
with whom, on the surface,

we have very little in common.

What's up, Daddy?
What the hell is that?

A dress. Says who?
Calvin Klein.

For example, one of my own
favourite coming-of-age movies

is an obscure, American B picture,
from the 1970s, called Jeremy.

The film is an oddity,
a cheap indie pic shot on 16mm.

It stars a young Robby Benson,

now best known as the voice of Beast
in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Benson plays Jeremy,

a music student in New York

who falls in love with a dancer
played by Glynis O'Connor.

But their romance proves
all too fleeting,

as her parents decide
to move away from New York,

tearing the young lovers apart.

I first saw Jeremy
as the supporting feature

to the Charles Bronson
western Breakheart Pass.

I was about 12 years old,
never had a girlfriend,

never been to New York,

and had no expectation
of ever going to a music academy.

But it didn't matter.

The film struck a chord.

It touched my soul
and it broke my heart

and it's stayed with me ever since.

Oh!

Oh, you scared me.

Oh, gee, I'm sorry.

I was equally struck
by John Singleton's

'90s breakthrough picture,
Boyz N The Hood.

A story of young African Americans
facing up to a crisis of fatherhood

in a world stricken with
poverty, crime and guns,

despite the fact
that I grew up in Finchley

and have no experience
of life in any hood.

Is that blood? What happened?

What do you think?
Somebody got smoked.

Look at the hole
in the wall, stupid.

At least I can tell my times tables.

Boyz N The Hood uses the classic
elements of the coming-of-age genre.

A distinctive time and setting.

A young hero trying to find
his place in the world.

A father figure.

A first crush.

A gang of buddies.

Moments of fun and the music
to go along with it.

And a loss of innocence,

a crisis, that forces
the characters to grow up.

The point is that whatever
the specifics of culture or gender,

the best coming-of-age movies take
a universal truth we all understand

and then repackage it with different
music, fashions and slang,

or different racial,
sexual and social tensions.

Whether they're post-war
European auteurs...

Bonjour, madame.

..or the most recent awards winners,

film-makers have a particular
fascination with these stories.

They can make movies
about what they know best,

perhaps even recapture
their own youth,

and reflect on some of the most
profound questions of all our lives.

The protagonists of coming-of-age
movies range across sex, sexuality,

class, ethnicity, nationality.

But they're all
on a quest for identity.

If I had one day...

..when...

When I didn't have
to be all confused...

and didn't have to feel that
I was ashamed of everything.

If I felt that I belonged
someplace, you know...

OK, Christine.
Lady Bird.

Is that your given name?

Yeah. Why is it in quote?

Well, I gave it to myself.

It's given to me by me.

OK. Take it away, Lady Bird.

Even Harry Potter,

a coming-of-age hero for kids
growing up in the 21st-century,

spends eight films working out
if he fits the label

he'd been given
as an 11-year-old.

You're a wizard, Harry.

I'm a what?

A wizard, and a thumping
good 'un, I'd wager.

Once you're trained up a little.
No, you've made a mistake.

I mean,

I can't be a wizard.

I mean, I'm just...Harry.

Just Harry.

Sometimes, a film will be
explicitly built

around a character's
search for identity.

Take The Breakfast Club,

which cemented writer-director
John Hughes' reputation

as the auteur of the '80s
teen movie.

Although Hughes' hit has recently
been the subject of some

uncomfortable reassessment
regarding its gender politics,

it was seen at the time as the
quintessential coming-of-age movie,

in which a group of high schoolers
spending a Saturday in detention are

forced to question who they are.

All right, people,

we're going to try something
a little different today.

We are going to write an essay...

of no less than 1,000 words...

describing to me who you
think you are. This a test?

Think about the voice-over
that bookends The Breakfast Club.

It may be cheesy,
but it sets out its stall.

Here are a group of teenagers
being labelled by adults,

when they don't even know how
they'd label themselves yet.

And you see us
as you want to see us.

In the simplest terms, and
most convenient definitions.

You see us as a brain,

an athlete,

a basket case.

For all its era specific pop culture
trappings, the music,

the clothes, the attitudes,

The Breakfast Club is cut from
timeless coming-of-age cloth,

telling a story about its young
misfits' search for identity.

This is a key theme
of coming-of-age films,

the idea that who you are
is up for grabs,

and if you don't
decide for yourself,

others will try to decide for you.

We can see it in movies, from the
1955 classic, Rebel Without A Cause,

to the 2017 Oscar winner, Moonlight.

On one level, Moonlight could be
described as a film about poverty,

drug dealing and hard scrabble lives
in the toughest areas of Florida.

Hi, Mom. You cannot be here
tonight.

I got company coming.

Find somewhere for you to be.

Yet, thanks to the brilliance of
co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney and

director Barry Jenkins,

both of whom draw on their own
personal experiences,

Moonlight becomes something
quite different.

A beautiful and universal tale
of finding one's own identity.

This central theme is spelt out to
the young hero by a father figure,

drug dealer Juan.

At some point you gotta decide
for yourself who you going to be.

Can't let nobody make
that decision for you.

A kaleidoscopic gem,

Moonlight uses three different
actors to focus

upon three distinct periods
of its subject's life.

Barry Jenkins makes clear that this
is a film about finding who you are

by titling each act with the three
different names and identities

the protagonist assumes,

Little, Chiron and Black.

Lending heartfelt
voice to characters

who've previously been
silenced or sidelined,

it's an astonishingly
accomplished work,

a coming-of-age movie which
returns time and time again

to the same, repeated question.

It's a question we first hear
when Chiron's a frightened child,

worried about his life
and sexuality.

And just as that letter to Mr Vernon
bookends The Breakfast Club,

so that question returns
in the final act of Moonlight,

when the now grown
Chiron is reunited

with the man he fell
in love with as a boy.

Who is you, man?

Who, me?
Yeah, nigger, you.

Saying, man, them fronts.
That car.

Who is you, Chiron?

I'm me, man.
Ain't tryin' be nothing else.

The search for identity is made
explicit in Moonlight

with the script giving clear voice

to its characters' uncertainties
and questions.

But sometimes those questions
don't have to be spoken.

They can be raised through visual
motifs which tell the audience

all they need to know about a
character's search for themselves.

It's no surprise that so
many young protagonists

are seen running or cycling...

..or hitting the road for
a journey of self-discovery.

Sometimes, those characters find
themselves driving round in circles.

Sometimes they're just trying to
negotiate the emotional traffic.

That's the way! Relax position.

Brake.
That's the way.

Come here, you.
Was that the emergency stop?

Emergency stop unsimulated, yes.

Hi, Mike. Call me Dad, Gregory,
or Pop or something.

It makes me feel better when
you call me Dad or Father.

Or perhaps they're just utterly
becalmed, like Dustin Hoffman,

iconically floating on a lilo
in The Graduate.

I would say that I'm just drifting
here, in the pool. Why?

Well, it's very comfortable
just to drift here.

But whether the hero is drifting
or trying to escape,

it's essential that we establish
the world of their story.

From the streets of Barnsley
in Ken Loach's Kes,

to Tehran in Marjane Satrapi and
Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis,

the settings of truly
great coming-of-age movies

make the unfamiliar seem familiar.

Iron Maiden.

Hey, how much do you want for it?

90 tomans. 50.

60. 50.

60. 50. 50.

Whether it's a high school
hallway, a small town street...

Hey, see you, Janice.

..or a family dinner table,

the best of these films make us
feel that this is where we live,

at least for the duration
of the movie.

What are you doing?

Hey, this shirt.
Watch the shirt, stupid. Basta!

All right, come on.

But you can't detach where
these stories take place

from when they take place.

Coming-of-age movies are by
their nature set in the past.

If not the literal past,

then in the past of
the film-maker's experience

because teenagers themselves

don't usually
get to make movies.

So, even if the target
audience is teens,

in general, these films are made by
adults looking back at their past,

often with a hefty dose
of nostalgia.

Francois Truffaut's
The 400 Blows, made in 1959,

has become one of the most
influential films of the genre.

The title refers to a French
idiom for raising hell,

and it's the story of a
misunderstood adolescent.

This semiautobiographical
coming-of-age classic

was Truffaut's first film.

He wanted to depict adolescence
not with nostalgia,

but as the painful
experience it really is.

Look at the opening sequence,

shot from a car driving
through the streets of Paris,

it depicts the Eiffel Tower as being
always just out of reach,

hidden behind buildings.

Then, as Truffaut's
screen credit appears,

there's a moment when
our goal is attainable.

And then it's gone,

receding in the rear-view mirror.

Truffaut is battling
a conundrum with which

the makers of coming-of-age films
have always wrestled.

The tension between authenticity
and nostalgia.

You can see it again in the
iconic shot which ends the film.

Our lead is looking straight
to camera, challenging and real,

then the freeze-frame,
a child frozen in time,

becoming a nostalgic image.

Childhood turns into a photograph,
something to look back upon.

When making her Oscar-nominated
coming-of-age movie Lady Bird,

Greta Gerwig said that she wanted
to offer a female counterpart

to films like The 400 Blows,

acknowledging the
influence of Truffaut

alongside other genre milestones

like George Lucas'
American Graffiti.

SHE SCREAMS

Larry, how long will this hold us?
I don't know.

Lady Bird is a female-centred film
made by a woman at a time

when Hollywood finally seems
to be waking up to feminism.

It feels very much of the moment.

But in the same way
that American Graffiti asked

"where were you in '62"?

Lady Bird asks
"where were you in 2002"?

The protagonists of American
Graffiti and Lady Bird

are of different sexes

and come from different decades,

but both are eager to leave the West
Coast small towns where they grew up

and head east to become writers.

And both films are loosely based

on the teenage years of
their directors,

and are set when
Lucas and Gerwig were 18.

What did you say?
Wait, what did you say?

Can I get your number?
We were looking to set up

some more gigs down
there. Definitely.

It's my parents' number.

You don't have a cellphone?

No. Good girl.

Gerwig has said that she was
interested in how personal life

and history intertwined because
often in films, they're portrayed as

if they happen in distinct arenas.

And although they're largely
kept in the background,

Lady Bird is littered
with references

to the major historical events
of the era,

from 9/11 to the economic crisis,

flagged up on school notice boards
and on the TV news.

Your father doesn't have a job.

He lost his job.

Do you need him to come in here
and explain that to you?

Part of the appeal of both
Lady Bird and American Graffiti

is that they speak to the
audience's experience of youth

by working hard to recreate
the director's experience.

Greta Gerwig did this by
immersing her cast and crew

in the detritus of her adolescence,

giving them copies of her
high school yearbooks

and showing them around
the sights of her hometown.

And it's the ability to convey
a sense of authenticity,

the idea that this could have
happened to you,

that can make or break
a coming-of-age film.

Arguably, the most important choice
a director makes

when creating a film
in this genre is who to cast.

Coming-of-age films have the
potential to make actors into icons.

Think of James Dean
or even the Bratpack actors

who dominated
the '80s teen market.

I can't believe that
I'm actually here.

Pretty bad, yeah.

Yeah, it's pretty bad.

Of course, the younger your cast,
the more challenges there are.

By definition, most stars
of coming-of-age movies

won't be seasoned professionals.

They'll be younger performers.

Directors often have no choice

but to go by their
instincts when casting.

Steven Spielberg famously cast
Henry Thomas to play Elliott in ET

after an audition in which
the young actor started crying

at the idea of having his alien
friend taken away from him.

Well, he's mine and he lives
with me and he likes me.

And he wants to stay here.
He likes it here.

Well, we wouldn't hurt
him or anything.

All we want to do
is talk to him.

But I don't want you
to take him away.

An audition which reduced
those watching it to tears.

OK, kid, you got the job.

For some directors,
the risk of being stuck

with a bad choice
is even higher.

Think of Richard Linklater casting
the six-year-old Ellar Coltrane

as Mason, the central
character in Boyhood,

a film that was to be
shot over 12 years.

Linklater didn't let his cast watch
the footage of their performances

for more than a decade.

Happy birthday!

By which time Coltrane could barely
remember himself at age six.

This really is the extreme
of trying to capture

the authentic nature
of growing up.

Capturing it as your actors
literally get older.

Other film-makers have done the same
thing over a series of films.

Francois Truffaut cast the
14-year-old Jean-Pierre Leaud

in The 400 Blows,

and the two of them
were then bound together

in a string of subsequent films

featuring the same character,
Antoine Doinel.

I've never played Quidditch.

And then there are the cast
of the Harry Potter movies,

who grew up with their audiences,
right before our eyes.

But Boyhood is particularly daring

because the whole journey
is there in one film.

How old are you?
15. 15. Give me a hug.

And the real genius of this movie
is that while watching it,

you simply forget about the head
scrambling logistics of the project.

Instead we focus upon
the characters themselves,

undistracted by the changing faces

and fashions of the world
in which they live,

or by the risks
which Linklater took

in mounting this project
in the first place.

Maybe it's that sense of risk that
has encouraged many directors

from Satyajit Ray to Ken Loach,

to look beyond the
standard casting routes.

Rather than pick a child actor,

why not go to the kind of place your
film is set and find real people?

Thomas Turgoose was discovered in a
youth club

for pupils with attendance issues.

Shane Meadows spotted something
in his manner which perfectly

fitted the misfit at the
centre of This Is England.

Andrea Arnold frequently uses
a mix of seasoned actors

and first-time performers
to add an extra layer to her films.

For her London-set coming-of-age
story Fish Tank,

she cast newcomer Katie Jarvis
after her assistant spotted Jarvis

having a row with her
boyfriend at a station.

Don't mind me, girl. Carry on.

I was enjoying it.

As if.

But she paired her
with Michael Fassbender.

You making eggs?

No.

What's the water for, then?

I'm making tea.

OK.

I'm a friend of your mother's.

You dance like a black.

It's a compliment.
And what would you know?

For 2016's American Honey,

Arnold went to the Florida beaches
where teenagers partied

to find her star, Sasha Lane.

Lane was on spring break
when Arnold approached her,

just weeks before filming began.

American Honey follows
a group of adolescents,

on a road trip around
America, selling magazines.

Many of the cast had no
previous acting experience,

but by ensuring that
they travelled together,

just like their characters,

Arnold created a group dynamic which
allowed her to capture plenty of

unplanned improvised
moments which generated

a documentary-like sense
of authenticity.

But behind that seemingly
casual verite realism,

there are plenty of
precisely-orchestrated

artistic decisions
in American Honey.

Cinemaphotographer Robbie Ryan
shoots in the squarer Academy Ratio

which has been Arnold's
signatures since Fish Tank.

But here, his superb use
of the four by three frame,

makes the image seem taller,
rather than narrower,

than more commonplace
widescreen formats

There's a lot of sky
in American Honey,

a sense of expansiveness that
marries shallow focus close-ups

of pierced and tattooed skin

with breathtaking vistas that seemed
to sweep upwards towards the stars,

suggesting new horizons opening up
for the teenage heroine.

This kind of attention to technical,
stylistic detail

frequently gets overlooked
in coming-of-age movies,

which are more often
praised by critics

for their engaging performances
or quotable dialogue.

But the way a story is framed
is every bit as important

as how it's played.

In The Florida Project, Sean Baker
uses a choreographed visual style

to conjure a child's
sense of wonder.

Buildings and trees seem
particularly large because of

the angle from which they're filmed
and the way they fill the screen.

Shooting on both digital and 35mm,

cinematographer
Alexis Zabe captures

these weird widescreen vistas
in bright, Day-Glo colours,

lending a cartoonish atmosphere
to this child eye's view

of the landscape
around Florida's Disney World.

But he also finds heart stopping
beauty in the image of a tree

which the six-year-old heroine
significantly loves

because it's tipped over
and it's still growing.

In her 1999 film Ratcatcher

Lynne Ramsey takes us visually
into a child's imagination.

James lives in a Glasgow housing
scheme during a bin strike

so when he catches a bus
to a half-built estate

on the edge of a wheat field

it's a massive contrast
to his regular life.

The framing of these shots,
of James climbing into the field,

gives the impression of him
climbing into a painting.

Filling the frame with
just gold and blue,

Ramsey captures the feeling of being
completely lost in the moment.

But of all the cinematic devices
which take us back in time,

back to our youth, none
is more powerful than music.

MUSIC: Lollipop
by The Chordettes

So many great scenes coming-of-age
movies play out to a jukebox

soundtrack, it's little wonder that
pop music has become one of the

fundamental building blocks
of the genre.

What's interesting, though, is
how the use of pop music in movies

has changed over the decades.

When pop music was first used
in movies in the '50s,

in films like The Blackboard Jungle,

it was used to evoke
a sense of nowness,

to locate the movie at the cutting
edge of contemporary culture.

MUSIC: Rock Around The Clock
by Bill Hayley And His Comets.

Throughout the '50s and '60s,
film-makers turned to musicians

like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley
or the Beatles and Pink Floyd,

to give their films
pop culture cachet.

From the beach party films
of Annette Funicello

to youthsploitation classics
like Easy Rider.

But then, in the '70s,
something strange happened.

While films like
Saturday Night Fever

continued to cash in
on contemporary chart success,

others started to use pop
to evoke a bygone age,

to bring something back
from the past.

As film producer Steve Woolley
once observed,

pop music in movies is like a knife,

you twist it and nostalgia
comes pouring out.

As far as Woolley was concerned, pop
music could be used like wallpaper,

covering over any anachronistic
cracks in set design,

dialogue or hair and make-up.

This was a truism
understood by George Lucas

when he made American Graffiti.

Having written his script
to a jukebox selection of tunes,

Lucas ensured that
the film's soundtrack

did much of the heavy lifting when
it came to evoking memories of 1962.

That's why Wolfman Jack's radio show
is such a constant presence.

Oh, shit!

Why'd you do that?

I don't like that surfing shit.

Rock and roll's been going downhill
ever since Buddy Holly died.

The soundtrack reflects the
importance of music to teenagers.

The music we hear is played
in real situations

where the characters can hear it,

on car radios or at school dances.

It's a constant soundtrack
to their lives

and it transports the audience
right back to the era.

MUSIC: Runaway
by Del Shannon

All right, baby, here we go with
another caller to the station.

Answer the phone, dummy!

Since George Lucas
demonstrated how well

the nostalgic jukebox
soundtrack could work,

it's been exploited by producers

on both sides of the Atlantic
to conjure specific eras,

from the British classic
Quadrophenia,

based on The Who's
60s-set rock opera...

MUSIC: Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
by The Who

What's this rubbish, then?
Ready, Steady, Go.

MUSIC: The Killing Moon
by Echo and the Bunnymen

..to Richard Kelly's 80s-set
cult classic, Donnie Darko.

Music has the power to connect
the audience to the characters

but it also has the power to connect
the characters to each other.

In Moonlight, the intimate
childhood relationship

between Chiron and Kevin
is rekindled

because Kevin hears a song that
sparks a memory and makes him

phone Chiron, after years apart.

The scene takes place in a diner.

As we saw in American Graffiti,

a key location for so many
American coming-of-age movies.

MUSIC: Hello Stranger
by Barbara Lewis

Crucially, there's
a jukebox in the diner

and Kevin puts on the Barbara Lewis
track Hello Stranger,

a song which somehow
helps these two men,

who have become strangers,

rediscover the intimate friendship
they shared as kids.

# Seems like a mighty long time... #

Is it mere coincidence
that director Barry Jenkins,

a very cine-literate film-maker,

chose a disc from the same period
in which American Graffiti is set?

Now that connection
might not be conscious

but on the level of
emotion and mood,

it seems to bind Moonlight

to Lucas' wellspring
of cinematic nostalgia.

MUSIC: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
by The Platters

So, the time and place is set,

the main characters
have been established,

and the right music's playing
in the background.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, in the case of coming-of-age
movies conflict is always lurking

just around the corner. Most often
embodied in the form of adults.

You should just go to city college,

You know, with your work ethic, just
go to city college and then to jail,

and then back to city college,

and then maybe you'd learn
to pull yourself up

and not expect
everybody to do...

SHE SCREAMS

For every child
or stunted adolescent

at the centre
of the coming-of-age movie,

there's a grown-up
who helps define them,

either by inspiring
or understanding them,

or giving them something
to revolt against.

Sometimes parents embody
a wider cultural conflict.

Anyway, there was a scout
from America there today,

and he's offered me a place
at a top university,

with a free scholarship and a chance
to play football professionally.

And I really want to go.

And if I can't tell you
what I want now

then I'll never be happy
whatever I do.

You let her leave
her sister's wedding

to go to a football match?

In Rebel Without A Cause,
a coming-of-age movie

which is also one of the first
mainstream teen movies,

it all comes down to the particular
psychology of Jim Stark's family.

Throughout his 1955 classic,

director Nicholas Ray
continually flags up

the disconnected family dynamic
with visual clues.

The film was made when the very idea
of the teenager was being born,

and the red jacket worn
by James Dean as Jim

would become an icon of teen angst.

It's bright colour
in sharp contrast

to the drab, adult world around him.

According to the film's publicity,

Dean's Jim Stark was the
bad kid from a good home,

although the film itself
seems to reverse that equation,

laying the blame for Jim and Judy's
alienation squarely at the feet of

their loving parents.

Look at the vertigo-inducing
camera angles in this key scene.

He's home.

Oh, you're home.

Oh!

You're home. Are you all right?

Where were you? We were so worried.

Much of Jim's torment comes from the
fact that, as far as he's concerned,

the pecking order of his family
is topsy-turvy.

With his mother, who he fears, as
a woman at the top, and his father,

who he needs to be a man,
at the bottom.

You told me, you said
you want me to tell the truth.

Now, didn't you say that?

You can't turn it off.

Well, he's not saying...

For Jim, family life is in chaos,

and the staging and camera angles
reflect that inner turmoil.

You'll learn,
when you're older, Jim.

Well, I don't think that
I want to learn that way.

Well, it doesn't matter, anyway,
because we're moving.

You are not tearing me loose again!

Fast forward more than 50 years
and the failings of parents

are highlighted in the shooting
style of Matt Reeves' vampire story,

Let Me In,

a US remake of Tomas Alfredson's
Let The Right One In.

Look how the mother's face
is out of focus in this scene,

emphasising the emotional distance
between parent and child.

She's there, yet somehow removed.

But just as parent-child
relationships

have evolved since the 1950s,
we've seen screen parents evolve

as new generations of film makers
take on the genre.

Hello.

The fallible parent
is no longer there

just as a two dimensional prop
for comic asides

or as a catalyst for angst.

They may now be a
fully-fleshed-out character

with similar insecurities
to our protagonist.

OK, we're all
just winging it, you know.

In Richard Linklater's
Boyhood Mason's parents,

played by Ethan Hawke
and Patricia Arquette,

are undergoing their own
coming-of-age journeys

which we also see play out
over 12 years.

You know what I'm realising?

My life is just going to go,
like that.

This series of milestones,

getting married, having kids,
getting divorced,

the time that we thought
you were dyslexic,

when I taught you how
to ride a bike.

Getting divorced, again.

Getting my Masters degree.

Finally getting the job I wanted.

Sending Samantha off to college.

Sending you off to college.

You know what's next?

Huh? It's my fucking funeral!

Just go, and leave my picture.

Aren't you jumping ahead by,
like, 40 years or something?

I just...thought
there would be more.

With parents flawed or even absent
from coming-of-age films,

other figures may take
on the role of mentor,

reaching out to support alienated
children and inspire them.

In Persepolis, the story
of a rebellious teenager

growing up against the backdrop
of the Iranian revolution,

this figure is our
heroine's grandmother.

She tells Marjane
to stay true to herself,

an important lesson in any
journey to self-discovery.

In your lifetime, you're going
to meet a lot of jerks.

If someone hurts you,
just tell yourself

it's due to their
lack of intelligence.

That way you'll never
sink down to their level.

Because there's nothing
worse in this world

than bitterness and revenge.

Never lose sight of your dignity.

Always stay true to yourself.

Often this mentor figure
is quite literally a teacher,

whether it's Robin Williams
in Dead Poets Society...

Medicine, law, business,
engineering.

These are noble pursuits
and necessary to sustain life.

But poetry, beauty, romance, love...

these are what we stay alive for.

..or Julie Walters in Billy Elliot.

MUSIC: We Love To Boogie
by T Rex

Go on!

And sometimes, like Maggie Smith
in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie,

they may be flawed or even
destructive figures themselves.

Rome.

This is a large formation
of the Il Duce's facisti.

They are following him
in noble destiny.

I myself mingled with such a crowd.

I wore my silk dress
with red poppies

which is right for my colouring.

Benito Mussolini, Il Duce.

Italy's leader supreme.

A Roman worthy of his heritage,
the greatest Roman of them all.

Whether the adults are
oppressive or benign,

escaping from their world

can often be a liberating moment
for our heroes,

and the best coming-of-age films
capture that youthful energy.

Deniz Gamze Erguven's Mustang
is the story of teenage sisters

imprisoned by their family
for messing around with boys

in a remote, conservative
village in Turkey.

In the middle of the film, the girls
escape to a football match.

In a series of tight shots, we see
them on a bus and then at the game,

experiencing a moment of pure joy

that could be at any youthful
gathering in the world.

They're surrounded by their peers,
who often embody values themselves,

for better or worse.

Two households,

both alike in dignity,

in fair Verona...

A dog of the house of Capulet
moves me!

The idea of teen gangs
is as old as Shakespeare,

and whether it's Marlon Brando's
bikers in The Wild One

or Alex and his droogs
in A Clockwork Orange,

cinema has traditionally treated
them at best with ambivalence.

But there is an intensity
to childhood friendships

familiar to most of us,

and directors have sought to capture
this in coming-of-age films.

They might be groups with a clearly
defined style and set of values,

like the skinheads
in This Is England.

Or a looser gang of buddies,
like the kids in Stand By Me.

THEY SING THE BALLAD OF PALADIN

Like the adults we've just seen,

there's something inherently
ambiguous in the idea of a gang.

It can be supportive
of the protagonist,

but also potentially dangerous.

Celine Sciamma's Girlhood is one of
my favourite movies of recent years

and tells the story of teenage life
in the housing projects of Paris.

It's about a gang of girls
whose pastimes involve

fighting and thieving,

both of which become
bonding rituals.

RAISED VOICES

Girlhood was billed in
some sections of the press

as an expose of girl gangs.

But, crucially, Sciamma has said
that French young women today

ARE this girl,

emphasising the universality
and authenticity of her story.

MUSIC: Diamonds
by Rhianna

SHE MOUTHS:

# Shine bright like a diamond... #

The closeness of the girls
is captured in a key moment

in which the gang dance
in stolen dresses.

# You and I, you and I... #

In this scene, Rhianna's Diamonds
is allowed to play out

uninterrupted, as the group of
girls dance and sing along.

It's a bonding moment which
approaches transcendence.

# We're like diamonds in the sky. #

The group sing-along is, of course,
a well-worn cinematic device.

Think of the bus sing-along
to Elton John in Almost Famous...

MUSIC: Tiny Dancer
by Elton John

..or to Lady Antebellum
in American Honey.

MUSIC: Wild, Wild Whisper
by Lady Antebellum.

These simple moments
capture the appeal

of being in the group
for the characters,

and because we, inevitably,
feel the urge to sing along,

we feel part of that group too.

But some aspects of gang membership
are altogether more ritualistic.

In a genre that is all
about finding identity,

a teenage gang provides
a set of rules

that our protagonists can
choose to obey or to break.

So we decided to show Tai the ropes
at Bronson Alcott High School.

That is Alana's group over there.
They do the TV station.

They think that's the most
important thing on earth.

Coming-of-age movies can be home
to distinct teen tribes

with their own codes and cultures.

And there's Elton in the white vest,
and all the most popular boys...

Knowing the tribes is crucial,
which is why

there's often a key scene in these
movies taking us through the gangs.

These scenes are there in any
number of Hollywood movies,

but they also pop up
in British settings,

like the Midlands school
ground of This Is England.

What the fuck are they? These?
I'm wearing them for a bet.

What's your excuse?
Cheeky bastard.

Woodstock's that way, pal.

Fuck off. At least I don't
look like Count Dracula!

In 2004's Mean Girls,
written by Tina Fey,

Lindsey Lohan plays the daughter of
anthropologists who's recently moved

from Africa to start school in Ohio.

SHE SCREAMS

I'm OK.

Sorry. I'll be careful.

She quickly discovers that,
anthropologically speaking,

high school's not that
different from the jungle.

Here. This map is going to be
your guide to North Shore.

Now, where you sit in
the cafeteria is crucial

because you got everybody there.

You got your freshman,
ROTC guys,

preps, JV jocks, Asian nerds...

..cool Asians,

varsity jocks,

unfriendly black hotties,

girls who eat their feelings,

girls who don't eat anything,

desperate wannabes,

burn-outs,

sexually-active band geeks,

the greatest people
you will ever meet,

and the worst.

Beware of the Plastics.

These gangs don't just look
different, they talk different.

Hello. It was his 50th birthday.

Whatever.

The best coming-of-age films
have created a slang

that's filtered through
into the language

and, ironically, ends up
transcending generations.

The 1988 black comedy Heathers,
written by Daniel Waters,

brother of Mean Girls
director Mark Waters,

has even been cited several times
in the Oxford English dictionary.

Jealous, much?

Heather, why can't you
just be a friend?

Why are you such a megabitch?

Such a pillowcase.

What is your damage, Heather?

Fuck me gently with a chainsaw.

In coming-of-age movies
with a female protagonist

there's often a point
where the main character

ditches her true friends
in favour of a different group.

Now, breaking the rules of one
group to obey the rules of another

can act as a social passport
to popularity.

But, as the protagonists
of Mean Girls,

Pretty In Pink and, more
recently, Ladybird, all learn,

that popularity comes at a price.

It's a made up thing
so we all can participate.

You can't do anything unless you're
the centre of attention, can you?

Yeah, well, you know your mom's
tits? They're fake. Totally fake.

She made one bad decision at 19!
Two bad decisions!

In Heathers, Winona Ryder finds
herself embroiled in a murderous web

for Christian Slater's Jason Dean,

a teen rebel name
if ever there was one. Now!

Writer Daniel Waters
and director Michael Lehman

wanted to play with
teen clique cliches

and explore their darker sides.

Because, in the coming-of-age genre,

growing up isn't always
Pretty In Pink.

You got some on you?

Nice.

What?

Bea...

I just got the curse.
Ew.

Coming-of-age seems have long been
a core feature of horror movies,

many of which deal with the
awkward changes of adolescence

expressed through
monstrous metaphor.

In horror cinema, a young girl's
passage to womanhood

is often associated with the birth
of a supernatural talent

such as telekinesis in Carrie,

witchcraft in The Craft,

or werewolf transformation
in Ginger Snaps.

Let's get out of here.

My favourite film of 2017 was Raw,

a French Belgian horror fantasy

from writer-director
Julia Ducournau,

which used the taboo theme of
cannibalism to portray its central

character's transformation
from innocent youth

to fully fledged adult.

Garance Marillier stars as Justine,

a vegetarian student who arrives
at veterinary college,

where she's showered in blood,
part of an initiation ceremony

that knowingly evokes
the climax from Carrie.

Like Carrie, Raw's virginal Justine
is isolated from her peers,

struggling with the
enforced debauchery

that finds students
crawling like dogs,

drinking like fish
and mating like rabbits.

But once she's tasted
forbidden flesh,

Justine cannot go back
to her former innocence.

The cannibalistic gore
would seem to place the movie

firmly in the horror genre,

but Ducournau calls Raw
a portrait of the alienation

that most girls feel
during their teenage years,

a rites of passage drama
about sisterly rivalry,

family legacy and peer pressure,

classic coming-of-age themes
all dressed up in the clothing

of cutting-edge horror.

But amid the horrors
and traumas of adolescence,

there's still much
to enjoy and celebrate.

Think of the makeover scenes that
are a staple of so many teen movies.

From The Breakfast Club...

to Clueless...

..to This Is England,

coming-of-age movies are about kids
trying to find out who they are,

trying different
identities on for size,

and a makeover scene is
the perfect way to do that.

Honestly, mate, you look sterling.

So am I in the gang now?

Well, not yet. Get your shirt on.
Let's see your Ben Sherman, then.

The moment is half Cinderella,
half Superman,

when the glasses are whipped off
and the character is reborn.

That's a good fit, that.
It's a good fit, mate.

Turn around, let's have a
look at you. Amazing. Oh, mate.

Look at that. What a transformation.

Yeah. He looks like you.

Brilliant. Really good.

Few of these films would have
found their audience

if they hadn't managed to
capture the joy of being young.

But one emotion can
dominate adolescence,

the most bittersweet rite
of passage of all.

Coming-of-age movies can be light
and silly or dark and moving.

There's one theme that
has shades of all those moods,

first love.

Jordana and I enjoyed a glorious,
atavistic fortnight of lovemaking,

humiliating teachers
and bullying the weak.

I've already turned
these moments into

the Super 8 footage of memory.

One of the reasons I love Jeremy
is that it seems to me to perfectly

capture the bewildering experience

of falling in love
for the first time.

And I still consider Susan,
the heroine of Jeremy,

to be my first girlfriend,

despite the fact that
I've never met her because...

Well, because she's
a fictional character.

Look at this sequence
in which the gawky Jeremy

attempts to phone Susan
for the first time.

Oh, what did you do today?

I, I woke up.

I had some orange juice.

Jeremy, it's only,
it's only nine o'clock.

Now compare that with this sequence

from Sophia Coppola's
The Virgin Suicides.

Hello? Go.

MUSIC: Hello, It's Me
by Todd Rundgren

Call us. 727 0487.

Shit, it's them.

The films are completely different
and were made decades apart,

but the awkwardness they portray,

the inability to say what
you mean when you're young,

and the way in which they choose
to portray it is exactly the same.

You need some new trousers.
Those baggy ones are awful.

I'll talk to Mum about it.

New ones, Italian.

If you're going to start
falling in love,

you'll have to start
taking care of yourself.

Coming-of-age movies allow
film-makers to approach love quite

differently to the rom-com genre.

These aren't glossy relationships,
full of sparkling repartee.

First love is full of awkwardness

and feeling that your world
has been turned on its head.

We are clinging to the
surface of this planet

while it spins through space
at 1,000 miles an hour,

held only by the mystery force
called gravity.

Wow. A lot of people panic
when you tell them that,

and they just fall off. Oh...

But these movies are also
a chance for film-makers

to turn tradition and
stereotypes upside down.

Taking a lead from Romeo and Juliet,

the forbidden nature
of a love affair,

whether for reasons of gender,

culture or race, may act as
the dramatic motor of the story.

Recently, Call Me By Your Name
became an awards-garlanded hit,

dealing with the once taboo subject

of a relationship between a young
man and his older male paramour,

riffing on themes from The Graduate,

but inflected with
the same sensuality

which infused Blue Is The Warmest
Colour - the story of a relationship

between a teenage girl
and an older woman.

And then there are the coming-of-age
movies which completely blur gender

lines - films like
Makoto Shinkai's Your Name,

in which the male and female
protagonists

swap their bodies and sexes.

A theme previously explored in films
like the 1982 Japanese hit,

Tenkosei, or more recently,
the Scandinavian oddity Girls Lost.

Whatever the gender,

most coming-of-age stories
tap into that Endless Love idea

that you'll never love anyone
as much as your first love.

In these stories,
young love rarely ends well.

Often the best you can hope for is
bittersweet memories as you face

the cold light of day.

As we've seen, coming-of-age movies
show characters on a journey between

childhood and adulthood.

So something has to happen
that changes everything.

It's the moment which says
we have to grow up,

and it's the big moment to which
these movies are so often heading.

Death is obviously
the big hitter here.

It could be the accidental death of
a rival in Rebel Without A Cause,

the end to adolescent fun as it
literally spirals out of control.

HE SCREAMS

Or the death of a kestrel,
representing the freedom of youth,

killed by an overbearing brother
in Kes.

Look what he's done, Mam.
Look at it.

He's a right 'un. That were a
rotten trick anyway, weren't it?

It were a rotten trick
what he did to me, wasn't it?

You've no need to take it out
to a bird,

you could have took it out to me!

Sometimes that lesson is just
a disillusionment with a hero.

Think of Phil Daniels discovering
that super-mod Sting

is actually a cringing hotel
bellboy in Quadrophenia.

# Bellboy!

# Carried his baggage out... #

Bellboy! Bellboy!

Or the moment you finally stand up
to the dominant adult in your life.

Sandy.

Think of Maggie Smith in
The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie -

a charismatic teacher, yes,

but one against whom her
most fervent disciple, Sandy,

must ultimately rebel.

It was you who betrayed me.

I didn't betray you.

I simply put a stop to you.

Oh...

I see.

No, you don't see.

You don't see that
you're not good for people.

In what way?

In what way, Sandy,
was I not good for you?

You are dangerous and unwholesome

and children should
not be exposed to you!

Always remember, in the end

coming-of-age
is about leaving school

not standing on desks and sulking.

There he is! I see him! Look!
Look, over there! I see him!

I see him!

These big moments of change
usually come later in the films.

Think of Stand By Me where
the children's discovery of the

dead body happens in the third act.

But director John Singleton cleverly
references Stand By Me in an early

scene in Boyz N The Hood to show
that one child's dramatic loss

of innocence can be another's
everyday life.

Look at these scenes.

Both show a group of young friends
on the hunt for a dead body.

The train track,
the wandering friends,

even the body itself
echo each other.

An older gang of teenagers appear
in both to confront the kids.

In Stand By Me, which is based
on the Stephen King story The Body,

this scene is the moment to which
the boys' journey has been leading.

But in Boyz N The Hood this scene

happens in the first
act of the film.

With this nod to Stand By Me,

Singleton establishes that in this
world his young protagonists

are always just a step away
from violence and death.

Y'all want to see a dead body?

But even in the gentlest of scenes,

there's something about the end of
childhood that makes for some of the

most emotionally resonant
moments in cinema.

How many adults watching the end of
Toy Story 3 with their children

could maintain a dry eye as Andy
passes his beloved Woody and Buzz

on to the next generation?

I have some toys here.

Ooh! You hear that, Bonnie?

It's a remarkably moving scene
because we've all been through

the moment when we quite literally
put away childish things.

Someone told me you're
really good with toys.

It's also powerful because this is
the end of the third film in the

series, and so many of the audience
have either grown up or grown older

alongside Andy.

So, in a way,

watching the trilogy come to an end

is itself a rite of passage
for all of us.

This is Jessie, the roughest,
toughest cowgirl in the whole West.

She loves critters.

Which raises the question,

what the hell are they going to do
in the forthcoming part four?

As we've seen, the best
coming-of-age movies

vividly capture that moment
we've all been through

on the cusp of adult life.

And if you can't stay 17 forever,
what happens next?

LAUGHTER AND CHATTER

Remember the gang?

In movies like American Graffiti,
Stand By Me or Boys N The Hood,

a group of buddies come to represent

the different paths
our hero could take.

These three movies end by telling us

what subsequently became
of the different characters,

and they suggest what might have
happened to the hero

under different circumstances.

See you. Not if I see you first.

One brother left, man.

Chris did get out. He enrolled
in the college courses with me,

and although it was hard he gutted
it out like he always did.

He went on to college and
eventually became a lawyer.

Last week he entered
a fast food restaurant.

Just ahead of him,
two men got into an argument.

One of them pulled a knife.

Chris, who had always made the best
peace, tried to break it up.

He was stabbed in the throat.

He died almost instantly.

These postscripts can be both
poignant and remarkably stark.

Yet it's in the very nature
of the genre

that life still lies ahead
for most of these characters

and we leave them facing
an uncertain future,

but hopefully just that
little bit wiser.

It's no coincidence that
so many coming-of-age films,

from The 400 Blows to
This Is England to Moonlight,

end in the same way -

with their hero staring out towards

a distant horizon,

then turning to look at the camera,

to connect with us.

Next week, I'll voyage
across time and space

to explore the secrets
of science fiction cinema.