Films you've seen recently and would unreservedly recommend:

[IdleRich]

I suppose there is actually a genre of films/books set in posh unis - in fact you could probably even identify a sub-genre in which a hard-working and smart scholarship boy or working class kid or whatever despite his intellectual achievements is completely out of his depth in the flash social whirl of Oxford/Harvard etc and is corrupted by the decadent, drug-addled, beautiful millionaires and middle-eastern royalty that he now finds himself rubbing shoulders with... until they throw inevitably grow bored and throw him aside.
Off the top of my head here is a quick list of books/films in those posh universities which seem to hold such attraction to those on the outside - what have I missed?

Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Decline and Fall (to some extent) - Evelyn Waugh
I Am Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe
Rules of Attraction - Brett Easton Ellis (I think that's at a posh college, can't quite remember)
The Secret History - Donna Tart
Salturn - film, but is there a book as well?
Clique - did anyone watch this tv show shot at Edinburgh University? Apparently if this show is to be believed then Edinburgh must be by far THE most glamorous in the wrold



Started intrigueingly but sadly ran out of steam rather quickly and was ultimately a bit of a mess sadly



What have I missed, there must be loads? I never really about it before but it's a genre I rather like come to thing of it..

 

[Corpsey]

The Line of Beauty

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Fresh Prince of Bel Air

 

[mixed_biscuits]

perhaps MB or whatever could share.

I found Oxford more diverse and less stuffy than my state grammar. Some of the friendlier people were the super rich poshos. I was disappointed that we weren't expected to wear sub fusc all the time and that they played Oasis in the college bar rather than classical music. I think a lot of us felt a bit awkward being students in the town, rather than people doing proper work, and i used to enjoy mixing with the townies at the Chequers pub, as did Sir Richard Peto FRS!

I remember being invited to someone's birthday party in a vast terraced house on Eton Square (where Baroness Thatcher lived!). A couple of us went shopping with the birthday boy in the afternoon and he bought a £120 t-shirt which I thought outrageously expensive. One of his friends clambered onto a garage and five minutes later two helicopters turned up which impressed upon me the influence people in the area had. But really, is there any real difference between one t-shirt and another, one house and another, one chopper and another?

I think the social scene also depends on the subject. I was at Cambridge for a year afterwards and hanging out mainly with the mega-genius mathmos of Trinity college. They finally managed to muster what approximated a party for the 'stag do' of one of their number but the most entertaining thing about the event was seeing them attempting to organise the ordering of pints of beer at what they'd been told was a 'pub'.

Many of the made-for-life crew at university were to be pitied as the fact that they were in no position to prove that they could make their own way conferred a detached nihilistic outlook that was not doing their 'mental health' any favours.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Now that Oxbridge is biased against poshos (the private:state ratio should be 50:50 rather than c.30:70) those who do get in are probably even more likely to regard themselves as exalted specimens: expensively burnished diamonds among the quota-filler state school material.

 

[Corpsey]

Saw a lot of ppl on the guardian site saying saltburn is a totally skewed portrayal cos 70% of Oxbridge intake is now state school (although ofc 30% of kids in the UK don't go to a public school so it's still more posh than it "should" be).

Can't comment on the film as a whole cos I've only seen the Oxford bit but that bit "resonated" with me insofar as I remember university feeling like that (I went to Nottingham) i.e. the confident good looking people are having the time of their lives going to fancy dress orgies while I sit in the library or wank in my room, there's the danger of making friends with the first person you meet who might turn out to be the psychotic loser who you actually can't wait to ditch etc.

And then also the romanticism of some of that time in your life when it goes well. Being young and having friends and partying etc.

So I enjoyed it, sort of, in that way.

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

Bit different for me, as first gen out of the council estate commoner who went to a good private grammar school (for free), then on to oxford with a massive chip on my shoulder and brain cooked by acid and nihilism. How it turned out there is so complicated I don't know where to start and I'm still trying to figure it out 30 years later. A social and intellectual rollercoaster, black tie and tie dye, Friday nights on doves and roobarbs, Saturdays with the Sloanes, weekdays among the nerds and activists. The number of people into house and techno was negligible, but we all managed to meet and coalesce (without mobiles phones, just handwritte notes and regular rendezvous spots) in places like The Venue in Cowley road, or the big raves in the West country somehow.

The early scenes in saltburn at the formal matriculation dinner, awkward in sub fusc, a part of the wildly varied social menagerie were 🎯

The turf and lamb and flag were my pubs, the king's arms was insufferable

 

[Corpsey]

Interesting that the two controversial firebrands of dissensus both went to Oxford. Not sure how many others did.

 

[RWY]

Saw a lot of ppl on the guardian site saying saltburn is a totally skewed portrayal cos 70% of Oxbridge intake is now state school

The film is set in 2006 when the state school intake for Oxbridge was sitting around 50% (as it had done throughout most of the 80s, 90s and 00s), it's only since 2017 that the intake percentages have swung away, somewhat dramatically, from the public schools (see here, page 4).

 

[Corpsey]

Ah didn't realise it had changed that much.

You know what's funny is for me 2006 doesn't seem that long ago 🤣

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

The film is set in 2006 when the state school intake for Oxbridge was sitting around 50% (as it had done throughout most of the 80s, 90s and 00s), it's only since 2017 that the intake percentages have swung away, somewhat dramatically, from the public schools (see here, page 4).

I expect a lot of public school kids will game it a little by going to decent 6th form colleges after the name school.

 

[RWY]

You know what's funny is for me 2006 doesn't seem that long ago 🤣

Same, I was completely enthralled by the tone of the film as parts of it - particularly the garden party scene featuring a playlist of 00s Electro House - seemed so familiar, yet as the film progressed, I realised this period of time is now somewhat culturally distant. Apparently the director purposefully set the film in 2006 for aesthetic purposes:

By setting the story 17 years ago, Fennell is able to dabble in portraying the recent past, which she says “really knocks the fucking glamour off things. There’s nothing like a Livestrong bracelet and a ‘carpe diem’ tattoo and an eyebrow star and a boot-cut jean that deglamorizes things.”

Vanity Fair: Welcome to Saltburn's Twisted Gothic Tale

 

[shakahislop]

oxford's a city of walls. the geography of the center is yellow wall after yellow wall. the rest of the streets are twisted around them. you don't notice it until you look at a map. bits of the riverside you can't get to (like as you look down from magdelen bridge) or at least are subtly discouraged from getting to. all the pubs people are talking about are places for encounters because they're where the students spill out to every now and then. but its an overspill into the public from places that the public can't get into. my experience of oxford the university is being in my early 20s and curious about everything, getting in here and there by people inviting me (to be honest specifically girls liking me), sometimes just by trespass, or by searching the university internal events pages, where its not like they particularly wanted outsiders to come in but there wasn't anything in particular to stop you. it always felt like sneaking in whatever the method. that place is its own world and consciously or not they defend it. they have a place and a world to which access is restricted. but for historical reasons there's a whole town tangled around it.

 

[Clinamenic]

Just watched Poor Things yesterday, was blown away. I’d say that and Past Lives might be the best I’ve seen so far this year, unless I’m forgetting something.

Past Lives is more subtle and arguably more well-crafted character wise, but Poor Things was singularly imaginative (signature Lanthimos morbidity, with some terry gilliam CGI). Very hammy and broad at points, but those things I think worked well overall, seeing as they organically fit with Lanthimos’ style and mostly didn’t feel forced.

 

[shakahislop]

Just watched Poor Things yesterday, was blown away. I’d say that and Past Lives might be the best I’ve seen so far this year, unless I’m forgetting something.

Past Lives is more subtle and arguably more well-crafted character wise, but Poor Things was singularly imaginative (signature Lanthimos morbidity, with some terry gilliam CGI). Very hammy and broad at points, but those things I think worked well overall, seeing as they organically fit with Lanthimos’ style and mostly didn’t feel forced.

saw this as well. don't know if it's just what i end up seeing but there is a misandrist thread running through mainstream-ish cinema at the moment. you could see it as a welcome corrective. not sure where i stand on it exactly but it is a pretty interesting development. it had that tiktok pace and zoomer surrealism that's everywhere as well.

 

[version]

Rewatched Metropolitan last night and there's some overlap with the Saltburn discussion, particularly what Biscuits was saying here:

Many of the made-for-life crew at university were to be pitied as the fact that they were in no position to prove that they could make their own way conferred a detached nihilistic outlook that was not doing their 'mental health' any favours.

Also the whole thing of the outsider temporarily falling into these upper class people's social circle:

 

[linebaugh]

Saltburn was shit. That is was so boring worked in its favor cause its also really dumb if you manage to pay attention

 

[linebaugh]

Did something interesting though in that it was the first film Ive seen were it felt like twitter was behind the cinematography. Feel like its often said that dialog/characters/plot etc. in movies is pulled from twitter but in this it felt like shots were framed with the idea of becoming screen grabs on twitter feeds. It didnt look bad per se but it felt empty.

 

[linebaugh]

Look at this shite

 

[mixed_biscuits]

oxford's a city of walls. the geography of the center is yellow wall after yellow wall. the rest of the streets are twisted around them. you don't notice it until you look at a map. bits of the riverside you can't get to (like as you look down from magdelen bridge) or at least are subtly discouraged from getting to. all the pubs people are talking about are places for encounters because they're where the students spill out to every now and then. but its an overspill into the public from places that the public can't get into. my experience of oxford the university is being in my early 20s and curious about everything, getting in here and there by people inviting me (to be honest specifically girls liking me), sometimes just by trespass, or by searching the university internal events pages, where its not like they particularly wanted outsiders to come in but there wasn't anything in particular to stop you. it always felt like sneaking in whatever the method. that place is its own world and consciously or not they defend it. they have a place and a world to which access is restricted. but for historical reasons there's a whole town tangled around it.

Did you ever manage to sneak into All Souls? That place is inaccessible even if you are a student.