Contrary to pop culture the idea of the Teenager wasn't born in the 50s with Elvis and James Dean as Matt Wolf's fascinating documentary explores what it meant to be an inbetweener from the turn of the 20th century to post World War II.
You were either a child or an adult. You either played with dolls or worked ten hours in the factory. Teenage opens in 1904 with stark images of child workers, some as young as six, toiling down mines or in factories just as child labour laws came into being. Bookended by soul-destroying stints in WWI and WWII, the Crash and the subsequent unemployment see to the rest.
Four 'characters' have a wide and varied take on what it meant to be a teenager before the term was invented: Brenda Dean Paul was one of what the British media called Bright Young Things, a party-loving movement of the 20s; Melita Maschmann gets sucked into the ideology of the Hitler Youth while fellow German Tommie Scheel rebels by embracing the American Swing movement; and American Warren Wall hopes to be the first black Eagle Scout.
In the absence of interviews and talking heads Teenage is almost a stream of consciousness put to images with the montage of striking archive footage played to an ever present narration. Although it's unclear from where the narration was culled - one can assume from diaries, letters and personal writings but writers Matt Wolf and Jon Savage may have had more of an input - but either way there are some wonderful lines: 'Our world is speedy and they are old,' which is the essence of the adult/teen battle lines of rock n' roll and the Hughesian teen movie.
The choice of music is both bizarre and brave as Wolf pits archive footage from the 20s, 30s, and 40s against Can-esque chuggers, shoegazing dreampop and electronica (all by Deerhunter and Atlas Sound's Bradford Cox), the contemporary sounds making the images resonate today. There are a couple of bum notes - far too long is spent on the repetitive Hitler Youth sections and the use of re-enactments stand out and distract - but Teenage runs easy and smooth.
