In film history, one often hears about the French New Wave, a film movement pioneered by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard known for its playful styles and innovative techniques. Less often does one hear about the British New Wave, which took place around the same time and was characterized by many similar attributes. Jack Clayton, director of The Great Gatsby, was an important figure in the British New Wave, and helped to form and influence the movement throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s.
Indeed, Clayton's 1959 film Room at the Top is believed by many to have started the British New Wave. While it was a period piece, unlike many other films in the movement, it typified many qualities of the genre, such as its exploration of the dynamics between the working and middle class and a tougher, more realistic style. An article about the British New Wave on the website Taste of Cinema states, "Many consider Room at the Top to be the first of the New Wave, especially since it’s the first of a kind that parodies the British class system."
It was this unflinching attention to class dynamics that particularly defined the British New Wave, and while Room at the Top was perhaps Jack Clayton's only film that belongs in the New Wave category, it anticipated and defined the films that were to come. After years of relegating working-class characters to comic roles in films, the British New Wave put the working class front and center, and asked audiences to take them seriously.
