Nineteen-seventies Britain timeline was an extremely bleak affair indeed; Trade Unions strikes, high inflation, ever increasing unemployment, power cuts and the Three-Day Working Week of Energy (Power) shortages, cuts and blackouts, the 1978-1979 Winter of Discontent, Trade Unions, Government conceding rule and being forced a General Election to the ruse of further Conservative rule in the guise of Margert Thatcher (1925 - 2013): this still does not comprehend deep-seated envy and prejudices with social-polarising and Nationalistic unrest of Xenophobic and racial and cultural indifference; In spite of the anguish, intolerance and social-unrest there came a guiding light, a differing kind of Movement, a new and refreshing musical tone that both publicised youth anxieties and in which, too, gave a fulfilling, up-lifting energetic escape from the up-and-coming, if not bleaker, nineteen-eighties; that working-class musical movement which was 2-Tone.
By the time the 2-Tone movement, via the rejuvenation of Ska and its own unique musical stant, had firmly rooted itself into British working-class youth culture its well established and musical partners had now turned to the medium of celluloid via Joe Massot (1933 - 2002) and the sweaty, dark, dank, smoke-laden, (spilt) beer dance halls, of a once Great, Britain circa 1980: Dance Craze, and its partners-in-multiculturism as The Specials, The Beat, The Bodysnatchers, The Selecter, Madness and Bad Manners firmly hit the Silver Screen.
There is only one collective noun to describe the vibe and sensation seen here and that is Family; Varied backgrounds and differing cultures, on and off stage, conjoin to give a high-octane close-up feel to the proceedings. A wonderful premise of the hand-held-camera interjecting within the personal zone of the performing artists is done with fortitude by cinematographer Joe Dunton BSC, MBE and shooting the arenas with the Steadicam on Super 35mm film and then blowing the whole shebang to a cinematic sensory overload on 70mm. There's just so much going on here; bands are a playing and the crowds are a swaying full-on and to the bone; the clean, crisp sound & imagery seen here almost feels like a 3-dimensional experience, along with the highly individual bands and personalities are an atomic particle of pure energy, stamina and viga and again, sweat and more sweat. The by-words here is most certainly youth and youthful; and most definitely not wasted.
This growing generations musical-mentors are taking their audience to the limits of the high-rise towers and urban city council estates to the days of UB40 sign-on's with attitudes and triads of unemployment, working the factories, the class system, violence, racism, social conformity and British working-class culture; call it musical realism with a backbeat to dance and jive to.
Having the privilege of seeing the blown-up Superscope 70mm version in its first ever re-release, since its first-run in 1981, at the 2011 Bradford International Film Festival (England) with a Q&A after the event from Mr. Dunton himself and the historical memoirs and the attempts of plugging the film for a major distribution was an evening worth the wait after all the years; happily, the full assault of mass media release finally came to fruition in the Spring of 2023.
The pessimism pushing through the bleak realities of the lyrics of this particular British timeline is captured wonderfully and is a more-than-fair representative of the times of a Britain in turmoil and social decline; the future does not not look bright for those who live the realities of the sung lyric. Messer's Dunton and Massot show all that with, sadly, unfortunate negative undertones having to lead up to the event of Dance Craze one can simply forget, for just a brief moment, the trails and tribulations of cynicism rightly bought to a head by music, fun and dance.
