Look Back in Anger
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Look Back in Anger (1956) is a John Osborne play and 1958 movie about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man (Jimmy Porter), his upper-middle-class, frigid wife (Alison), and her snooty best friend (Helena Charles). Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace. The play was a success on the London stage, and spawned the term "angry young men" to describe Osborne and other writers of his generation who employed harshness and realism, in contrast to what was seen as more escapist fare previously.
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Inspiration
Look Back in Anger was a strongly autobiographical piece based on Osborne's unhappy marriage to Pamela Lane and their life in cramped accommodation in Derby. While Osborne aspired towards a career in theatre, Lane was of a more practical and materialistic persuasion, not taking Osborne's ambitions seriously while cuckolding him with a local dentist. It also contains much of Osborne's earlier life, the wrenching speech of seeing a loved one die is a replay of the death of Thomas, Osborne's father. What it is best remembered for though, is Jimmy's tirades against the mediocrity of middle-class English life, personified by his hated mother Nellie Beatrice. Madeline, the lost love Jimmy pines for, is based on Stella Linden, an older rep-company actress who first encouraged Osborne to write.
Other meanings
"Look Back in Anger" is also a song written by British rocker David Bowie from his album Lodger. It is also a song by Television Personalities. The band Oasis referenced it with their song Don't Look Back in Anger. It is also a phrase frequently used by Craig Charles on the UK Takeshi's Castle when announcing the 'Furious Flashback' ("and now we look back in anger..."). One of the tracks on the soundtrack of Oldboy is also named after it.
See also
See also
