Michael Apted: TV documentary pioneer and film-maker dies aged 79

[jamiefairlie]

Crap. The 7-Up series is a masterpiece.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55597263

[Sin Agog]

Ah.  Every seven years I'm hoping he'll be around, on a drip if necessary, to film the next one.  I'm sure there are lots of younger documentarians who'd happily step in, but that's got to be a wrap, hasn't it?  Even if his relationship with some of them got a little fractious, I know them enough at this point to easily say they wouldn't carry on without him.

Upped an interview he did with Ebert on youtube a few years ago.  Had a bit of Frankenstein's Monster about him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGu470P7yfc

[touchingcloth]

Michael Apdead.

[Jockice]

I'm gutted. The Up series is my favourite TV show of all time. Let's hope he's left a list of questions for 70 Up in a few years time. I know a woman called Claire Lewis has been involved with it since the earlyish days (in fact posh John is interviewed by her as he refused to talk to Apted) so maybe she'll do 70 Up. After up it should definitely be wrapped up though.

[phes]

Such sad news. And UP! was his life work, I wonder wether it will continue and if it does, how they will handle this. I found watching it a profound experience and that's tied in with a weirdly coincidental life-changing event whilst watching the most existential of episodes come to a close

On a brighter note, I've just read about The Children of Golzow on UP!'s wiki and Karagarga has them all with subs

[Sin Agog]

There are some good Ups from across the world out there.  South Africa I found particularly interesting.  Not just because they're my exact age, but it started out pre-Apartheid with a couple of real sketchy Afrikaners in their midst, before suddenly having to show shakily integrated schools at 14.

The Russian one is supposedly really good.

[touchingcloth]

He directed The World Is Not Enough. FMH.

[Pinball]

He directed The World Is Not Enough. FMH.

That explains all the 7Up product placement.

[Billy]

There are some good Ups from across the world out there.  South Africa I found particularly interesting.  Not just because they're my exact age, but it started out pre-Apartheid with a couple of real sketchy Afrikaners in their midst, before suddenly having to show shakily integrated schools at 14.

The Russian one is supposedly really good.

The Russian one starts at the beginning of the 1990s and famously has one of the seven year olds correctly predicting the imminent

Spoiler alert

coup attempt

[close]

.

Both Russia and South Africa should have released a 35 Up by now (they both got up to 28 around 2012/13) but worryingly there's no signs online that either got made, hope they haven't been abandoned. There's also a 28 Up of the "new" UK series due this year (starting with 7 Up in 2000), if they did bother with it then would be interesting to see how a load of people not too far off my age have coped with the last mad few years of Brexit/Trump/Covid etc.

I'm really sad to hear this, I've been following it since 42 Up and it was great to see it return a couple years ago, even despite the loss of one of the participants and another that was seriously ill. Agreed that 70 Up would be an appropriate time to end it now as a last hurrah and a way of letting whoever's left enjoy their retirement.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Who will present This Is Your Life now?

[GMTV]

He can make a spirit side doc whilst someone else can take over the existing duties. Have parallel docs until they're all reunited again.

[petril]

this was his life

[dissolute ocelot]

There's a *-Up box set that I've meant to get for a while, but it's only 7-49 (he got up to 63, with the last 2 apparently available to buy on separate DVDs). Sitting down to watch all of that and see all those people's lives unfold in front of you. It's humbling. (It could continue, but in view of the coming and going of participants, I'm guessing some people might be less willing without Apted.)

He managed to direct a few prestigious pictures (including Gorillas in the Mist), and helmed David Essex pop-star cult drama Stardust which I bang on about whenever possible, but TV seems to have been his home. Some great Plays For Today in the 70s, but he was working as a jobbing director for most of his career even after Bond.

[idunnosomename]

7 down

[Peter St. John]

There's a *-Up box set that I've meant to get for a while, but it's only 7-49 (he got up to 63, with the last 2 apparently available to buy on separate DVDs).

Network have all of them in one package on Blu-ray - https://networkonair.com/all-products/3067-7-63-up-blu-ray-

(agree with you on Stardust too!)

[Pinball]

A reminder of the temporary, fragile nature of life. Now in HD.

[phes]

It seems that Nick Hitchon, the physicist, died on the same day as Apted

https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTEwMDAwMDkzNDUzNTEyMjo1MTc2MTg3NjUyNDIyMzM1

[Shit Good Nose]

Away from the Up series and numerous other very worthy documentaries, he made some right old bilge as a theatrical film director, but I just want to say how extremely underrated Continental Divide is.  And P'tang Yang Kipperbang is obvs great as well.  Uh.

[Jockice]

It seems that Nick Hitchon, the physicist, died on the same day as Apted

https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTEwMDAwMDkzNDUzNTEyMjo1MTc2MTg3NjUyNDIyMzM1

Shit.That's bad news. But it's also quite a coincidence.

[Sin Agog]

Ah, Nick was the realest.  He got me properly tearing up when talking about surviving for his fam in the last one (something like that). It seemed for awhile like he was a completely different person to the 7-year-old who happily wondered about clouds, but then I started to see him again in the last couple.  I like how he mentioned how the act of filming each doc was a proper crucible that he felt he absolutely needed to do.

[jamiefairlie]

ah bollocks. i was just wondering how Nick was faring given how sick he was in the last show. I shall really miss this series, in some way they're pathfinders for me, being 10 years older, a little glimpse into my next stage of life each time we visit them.

[Twonty Gostelow]

It seems that Nick Hitchon, the physicist, died on the same day as Apted

https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTEwMDAwMDkzNDUzNTEyMjo1MTc2MTg3NjUyNDIyMzM1

Can someone post an extract from that please? (Looks like you need an account to see it.)

[Twonty Gostelow]

Many thanks.

[Sin Agog]

I tried to do it before, but facebook doesn't let you just copy and paste the bleeding text for some unknown reason.

Here, I'll exercise my secretarial skills and write it out for ya:

RIP Michael Apted. Your 'Seven Up' documentary series was a work of genius. I used it in teaching Interdisciplinary Human Development. That is how intelligently it looked at the lifecycle in the context of society and culture. In one of life's uncanny coincidences, several years ago I met and became a friend of one of the film's subjects, Dr. Nick Riviera.  In a very painful and eerie codicil to this post, Nick Riviera, brilliant physicist and engineer and wonderful human being, also died yesterday. RIP Nick. Getting to know you was a great honor. My students will always remember what they learned from you and from Michael Apted. And I know personally that your students at Madison both loved and admired you. The best to your wonderful wife.

(I may have changed just one little thing, but otherwise it's verbatim).

[Twonty Gostelow]

Thanks, Sinno. (I was a bit slow on the uptake with your name replacement...)  I'd found a Twitter post that mentions his death, but nothing more convincing.

I didn't realise that at the time of 63 Up interview how very sick he was, as Apted says in this piece https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/opinion/2019/12/19/one-died-one-is-dying-the-man-behind-63-up-must-cope-as-mortality-begins-to-strike-his-subjects.html and how close Apted was to him in particular. Odd coincidence indeed.

[Brundle-Fly]

It's suddenly occurred to me that I've never seen a photo of Michael Apted until this week. That wasn't how I imagined him looking at all with his narration in the Up series. I always pictured in my mind a Cliff Michelmore type.

[phes]

Thanks, Sinno. (I was a bit slow on the uptake with your name replacement...)  I'd found a Twitter post that mentions his death, but nothing more convincing.

I didn't realise that at the time of 63 Up interview how very sick he was, as Apted says in this piece https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/opinion/2019/12/19/one-died-one-is-dying-the-man-behind-63-up-must-cope-as-mortality-begins-to-strike-his-subjects.html and how close Apted was to him in particular. Odd coincidence indeed.

Yes it seemed like the writing was on the wall in 63. I harbored a feint hope that he may have had one of the forms of head & neck that responds considerably better to treatment than others, but he was - from memory - not optimistic about his chances, so likely already had a bleak prognosis. It's very unfortunate as those cancers are most commonly related to lifestyle. I wonder if his work in the 80s could have contributed. Rotten, regardless. His 'they like to come here for their holidays and we like to go to the city!' is the first thing that always pops into my head when I'm reminded of UP!

[jamiefairlie]

Yeah, the nuclear work was the first thing I thought of too.

[Billy]

While I don't think some random bloke on Facebook would make something up, it seems a bit odd that there's absolutely no other confirmation online of Nick passing away at all other than that post - nothing on Twitter, not even from the Wisconsin-Madison university's account or website. Only thing I can find is some odd bot-generated account that lists the name and a lot of placeholder text.

[Twonty Gostelow]

While I don't think some random bloke on Facebook would make something up, it seems a bit odd that there's absolutely no other confirmation online of Nick passing away at all other than that post - nothing on Twitter, not even from the Wisconsin-Madison university's account or website. Only thing I can find is some odd bot-generated account that lists the name and a lot of placeholder text.

That was why I wanted to know what the Facebook link said - I couldn't find anything else. But then again when Lynn died it wasn't generally known until it leaked out in the run-up to 63 Up.

However, Mail Online did a story today about where they all are now - it's basically repeating what we learned from the last programme from what I can see - and there's this in the comments:



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