Travel and Mobility

Analyses of 1960s British cinema often constellate around the respective merits of two critically constructed categories: the New Wave and Swinging London films. Both cycles were short lived. The New Wave flourished between approximately 1959 and 1963, while the ‘handful of films which might be regarded as genuine Swinging London films … had already been made and in most cases released by the spring of 1966’. ¹ Swinging London films pivot around single young women (and sometimes men), defying convention as they try to fulfil their ambitions and find romance in a modern and uniquely unconventional London. Many of the films are structured around the story of a single girl who arrives in London, a city that comes to represent a site of pleasure and autonomy. This theme can be found in Darling (John Schlesinger, 1965), The Knack (Richard Lester, 1965), Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965), Smashing Time (Desmond Davis, 1967) and the television play, Cathy Come Home (Kenneth Loach, 1965).