This Sporting Life
This Sporting Life is a 1963 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. Based on the 1960 novel of the same name by David Storey, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award, it recounts the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield, a mining city in Yorkshire, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life. Storey, a former professional rugby league footballer, also wrote the screenplay.
Plot
Set in the fictional city of City, the film is about Frank Machin (Harris), a bitter young coal miner from the West Riding of Yorkshire. The first part of the story is told through a series of flashbacks when Frank is unconscious under a full anaesthetic in a dentist’s chair, having had his front teeth broken in a rugby league match. The second part takes place after the dentist has extracted his broken teeth.
Awards
More details
| author | David Storey |
|---|---|
| award | National Board of Review: Top Ten Films |
| contentLocation | Yorkshire |
| director | Lindsay Anderson |
| editor | Peter Taylor |
| genre | drama social |
| keywords | belong bolton priory brain haemorrhage cerebral haemorrhage coal miner drink end engineer fur coat great ape kept woman loose forward (number 13) lose married nothing one person reject rid river rugby league scar suicide west west riding of yorkshire will to survive |
| musicBy | Robert Gerhard |
| nomination | Academy Award for Best Actor Academy Award for Best Actress |
| producer | Karel Reisz |
| productionCompany | Independent Artists Julian Wintle |
| publisher | Janus Films The Rank Organisation |