Realism and Tinsel

"What is serious about them is the way they depict women, women’s desires and what was open to them. Robert Murphy and others realized that these films were crucial in what they had to say about British society at a particular time. They were written off absolutely by the critics at the time, who wanted realism and discreet literary adaptation. Murphy describes a scene in Love Story – where Stewart Granger is going blind and Margaret Lockwood has an incurable disease – as “emotionally satisfying without needing to be realistic”. These films are not realistic in mirroring the social reality out of which they grow, but there’s an emotional truth in them. I was prepared to be quite snooty about these films until I read Robert Murphy."