Byker

In 1969 Finnish Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, one of the founders of the Amber film group, went to live in the British working class neighbourhood of Byker in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. As happened to many other such districts, Byker was renovated in the 1970s. Konttinen interviewed countless local residents, registering daily life in the neighbourhood in photographs. After the completion of the redevelopment, (at first sight rather occupant-friendly, i.e. without tall flat buildings), Amber decided to make a film about the neighbourhood. The population of the new Byker had shrunk to a mere one fifth of the original number. The point of departure of the film is the vanishing of a community with positive social control. The pub was pre-eminently the symbol, because that's where the community used to come together and sing. It is for this reason that there are several black and white reconstructions of pub scenes in the film. The new neighbourhood on the other hand is characterized by social isolation and lonely people watching television all on their own. These scenes were shot in colour.
This vision of the negative change of British working class culture, with the worker as a modern variant of Rousseau's 'noble savage', finds its origin in Richard Hoggart's influential book (1957). Hoggart blames mass literature and mass media, Byker the city planners. Apart from the successful reconstructions, Byker's power lies especially in Konttinen's splendid black and white photographs.