Peterloo

I studied the Peterloo Massacre to the 'nth' degree when doing 'O' level history, it drove me out of my mind for months. Therefore I won't be watching it!

Some friends went yesterday and left half an hour in. I've not had chance to discuss this with them yet but it's fair to say they aren't right wingers.

Likewise Juggernaut, I studied it in history too. I won't be going to see it either.

Simon Heffer's review said exactly what you did Iam64; he praised the presentation of the concerns of the working classes as excellent but felt the portrayal of the upper classes and politicians was unrealistic, with no effort made to consider the very real fear in the country of the influence of the French Revolution.

As soon as I saw the stills of those healthy well fed factory workers in nice neat, clean brand new clothes, I knew the film was not for me.

Read Mrs Gaskell to know that most workers were underfed and underclothed, and many suffered from industrially related disease. Clean clothes no doubt, but secondhand and well worn.

MOnica, the story went that they were to wear Sunday best but, yes even Sunday best wouldn’t have been quite so clean and smart

One of the thing that most irritates me about period pieces is how well manicured villages and towns are and how clean every one is, no starving paupers, crippled workers or beggars.

Look at the painting of artists like Gustav Dore.
www.bl.uk/collection-items/london-illustrations-by-gustave-dor. Dore was working 50 years after Peterloo, but the pictures of the poverty and misery of the poorest classes makes most period tv/films look like a Disney land production.

What a pity it seems this might be disappointing. We saw them filming part of it outside Lincoln Castle and Cathedral. It was quite interesting to see how they had changed all the shop fronts. I was amazed by the horses. One girl was sitting on a low stool, head bent down, holding three horses, girl and horses motionless. They were still there when we came out of the cathedral.

We went to a screening of Peterloo followed by a Q n A with Mike Leigh. He obviously cared deeply about the subject but he needed to let someone else edit the movie. Every scene could have been shorter. Yes, everyone looked too clean and well dressed (possibly) but overall the film looks very good.

I have seen this and thought it was very interesting. . I think the depiction of the prince regent and landed gentry was deliberately pantomime like to give the production more of a theatre like feel.
I didn't think everything looked clean in fact DH and I both commented on how the grim everything was . The workers had blackened teeth and looked old before their time. I was also struck by the noise in the Mill which was deafening . I agree it was very long and it was by no means perfect but it held our attention throughout and we enjoyed it.

I saw it on Friday. I agree it could have been edited more...I found it 30 mins too long too. Very few films do show the reality of the grim conditions of the poor. I recently visited the Backs in Birmingham & despite being tidied up by NT gave a good sense of the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions.
I think it did imply that even if a wealthyb person did have a touch of empathy for the workers/ poor you riskedca lot to speak out . I enjoyed it despite its flaws.

I went to see this recently and didn't like it at all. I thought the tone was confusing. Some parts of the film seemed like satire, with the over-acting so great that some characters seemed like gross caricatures. Other parts seemed to be striving for realism. None of the actors, bar perhaps Rory Kinnear, seemed real to me.

I had been looking forward to seeing it as I usually like Mike Leigh's plays and I thought it covered a subject that has received little attention. But I found this film extremely boring and, given the appalling tragedy of Peterloo, strangely unmoving.