c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man,” is the Jesuit motto director Michael Apted used as the baseline for his 1964 documentary “Seven Up!”

Originally planned as one installment, the controversial documentary looked at 14 7-year-old boys growing up in the British class system and their views on life. After television documentary succeeded, Apted and the production company Granada Television decided to catch up with the subjects every seven years.

Now, with “49 Up” set to air on PBS in the fall, Apted, president of the Directors Guild of America, speaks about the series’ evolution and his own religious background.

Q: When did you come across this Jesuit motto?

A: When I was involved in the first (documentary). I don’t think I was aware of it before. I think it was just something that was very much a peg to hang that on. It was only ever going to be one film in 1964. So, it was a kind of useful almost journalistic. … Can you see into the future really?

Q: What happened after the first documentary came out?

A: Well “Seven Up!” was very successful. This kind of innocent idea of having 7-year-olds talk about their world, and how revealing that was of the world they were living in … it was much more effective and much more powerful than we could have imagined.

Q: Did the series’ direction evolve in any way?

A: Obviously, the whole film changed direction from being a very political thing about looking at the British class system and how destructive it is. … The people became much more interesting. I became much more interested in the people than in the social-political foundation of it, which … seemed to have less and less meaning. What was more meaningful was their lives.

Q: What role did religion play in their lives?

A: It’s on a case-by-case (basis). Obviously with Neil (Hughes), he’s better off; he talks about it a lot. I think he says in “49” he never would have survived without it really. Religion is a great thing for him. I asked him later if he ever wanted to have a career in the church, and he says, no he’s never had that calling. But I think to some of them, it’s never been an issue after 14 or 21, when I’ve asked all of them: Do they believe in God, and how important is God to them?

Q: How would you describe your own religious background?

A: I would say I’m agnostic. I am from a Church of England background. I was confirmed into the church. My father was very interested in it, and my mother wasn’t. My younger brother really took my father’s path, and I took my mother’s. We would go to church; up to the age of about 14, I would go to church all the time. Then as I got older, began to leave home, things like that, I fell away from it.

DSB/LF END BAKHSIHIAN

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