Social Realism: A Very English genre

There are a large amount of independent and non-independent films that are produced within the social realism genre by directors who have been apart of the genre from a large period of the film making career, such as Ken Loach (I, Daniel Blake), Gordon Parks (who also used photography as a way to express social realism) and many more who dedicate films to trying to portray what life is really like to the audience. Within the British films the theme of social realism often shows certain visual styles that contain certain aspects and characteristics. For example, the film will often contain unknown actors, this being used to create the idea that the actor can be anyone they choose to be portrayed as. Furthermore, a key visual style that is included within all social realism films is he demonstration of a realistic representation the working class within the film through things like the locations closing in social realism films such as Billie Elliot; this allowing the audience to possibly connect and relate to not only the storyline, but further the characters. Furthermore, a social realism film will often deal with topics such as drugs, sex, poverty, homosexuality etc.

Moving on from this, themes often shown within films that are within the social realism genre consist of showing possible, social injustice, racial injustice, economic hardship and the working class often being portrayed as the heroes. Furthermore, ideologies are huge when creating a social realism film as they often include political views from the era in which the film is being set in or they contain ideologies such as religion.

All types of social realism films have different production companies that help to create the films. However, films such as 'This is England', 'Blind Shaft' and 'Tyrannosaur' are all created by the production company, optimum releasing.

The context of the era in which the films are being made is very important as it allows the film to be directed in different ways depending on the era in which it is being made, For example, in a film such as 'This is England', which was made in 2006, to 'Passport to Pimlico', which was made within 1949; this meaning there was a 57 year difference- this meaning that bot films would contain differences in not only directing by the context in that is being shown from the era. This further being important due to the directors ideologies and how they will choose to produce the film all being shaped by the era in which they are created.