Free Cinema: o elogio do homem comum

Abstract

This article investigates the Free Cinema documentary movement, which integrated the wave of renovation of English cinema during the post-war period. 'Free Cinema' was the name of a series of exhibitions organised from February 1956 at the National Film Theatre in London, followed by another fi v e exhibitions until the sixth and last Free Cinema in 1959. The term also refers to the movement initiated by the filmmakers who organised the exhibitions (in a first instance as a vehicle for their debut films), and who wrote and signed a manifesto, expressing their views on filmmaking and vigorously reacting against the stagnation of English cinema in the 1950s. As well as presenting an overview of post-war English cinema's landscape, the article offers a discussion on the specificity of Free Cinema's realism, closely linked to an essential preoccupation with everyday life and the common man.