The term ‘teenage’ is like a lingering hangover: you can’t pinpoint the time it left but you know you couldn’t wait to be rid of it. Rightly so: generally speaking, teenage years are full of painful coming of age experiences that are better left on the shelf next to horrific moods and acne. But through Matt Wolf’s TEENAGE, eyes are opened to the powerful evolution of the teenager – and all that those crucial years give us.

The film traces the genesis of youth culture from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th via a living collage of rare archival material, filmed portraits and spoken narratives representing true accounts of four teens who lived across this period. That Wolf was heavily inspired by Jon Savage’s 2007 book, Teenage: The Creation of Youth: 1875-1945, underlines the subculture legacy teenagers continue to leave us: Savage is himself most well known for his literary explorations of youth subcultures – punk, most heavily – from authoring The Kinks’ official 1984 biography to the stellar  England’s Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock (1991). 

In light of the release of TEENAGE on DVD in the UK, Matt Wolf tells us the story of a movement that has been in the making for over a century – or a few thousand, depending on how you look at it…

Tempe Nakiska: Is it possible to pinpoint the time the ‘teenager’ really burst into society?
Matt Wolf: It was an idea that was percolating in the background for quite some time, as there was a lot of contention around the idea of the role of youth in society. With the end of child labour a second stage of life emerged. It was originally seen as a problem by adult society,  whereas others saw it as an opportunity for political and commercial gain. But young people had their own ideas as to what their identity and culture could be. Towards the end of World War II, the ‘teenager’ really erupted.

TN: What kind of role have subcultures played over time in the development of the teen identity?
MW: It’s an interesting question and probably the are I’m most intrigued by – alternative forms of expression that manifest themselves amongst young people and go on to strike a nerve in a larger cultural sense. Swing is a great example of that: African American music that became popular in white society in the 1930s. Then the mass media caught on and it became a global phenomenon, it went from being a true subculture amongst youth to taking on all these different meanings in the context of war in Europe. It was a flagbearer for American culture, represented in its hold over the Rainbow Corner, the bar near Piccadilly Circus in London where all the American GIs would hang out; or it could be a degenerate frat, as it was considered in Nazi Germany at the time. Swing saw the first time young people developed a fully fledged subculture of their own, surrounding music. There was a style of dress, their own language – the jitterbug etc – it really took on a life of its own.

Archival photo of Jitterbug dance contest at the Shrine Auditorium in Southern CA, 1939.  Courtesy of Everett Collection / CPL Archives.

TN: Is it inevitable that once a subculture hits the mainstream it loses some of the zing that made it so special in the first place?
MW: I think it’s easy to romanticise anything that’s underground. Of course today, the internet has changed that dynamic. In some ways it makes alternative forms of subculture really accessible to anyone, particularly to young people around the world. If I was growing up in a remote village in Asia I could have access to the same music as somebody my age in London. That’s a very powerful thing.

At the same time, the ways we disseminate information are changing rapidly and something that is produced on a very small scale can become something major. So the line between what is actually underground and what is mainstream are really blurry now.

TN: There’s a quote at the end of the film that goes along the lines of, “We knew we could be blown up at any moment, so we lived in the now”…
MW: Yeah, it was a problem that so many British people felt, because for the most part of WWII America wasn’t bombed. But for people in Europe, their cities and landscapes were destroyed. There was a sense to needing to reivent and begin anew. At the end of WWII, people in Europe were entering a new era.

TN: We may be in a very different time now but really we’re only a screen away from what’s happening around the world: the current Ukraine crisis, for example. Do you think this has an impact on the pace at which young people mature? ‘Adultification’, let’s call it…
MW: Most people would argue that as a result of all this adolescence is actually prolonged. You know, people have more will and desire to stay young forever, they don’t leave their parents houses and don’t get a job. But you’re right, at the same time, because of access to the internet and social media, young people can’t stay as protected as they once did. They are witness to a lot of the world’s problems. That was still very much the case during the times covered in the film though, young people witnessed great war and depression and acted out. I think the social problems have always been quite visible, they are just going through different channels now.

TN: How was the process of working with Jon Savage, adapting the book into a film?
MW: The film is in a sense inspired by his book, it’s a significant adaptation. We made the decision early on to tell the story from the perspective of young people, whereas his book is told from a central voice. In that sense the film is a significant departure but we worked really closely together on the script and on gathering and piecing together the archival footage later on in the process.

TN: The footage is quite amazing, how did you source such a great amount of archival content?
MW: It was quite a process! I worked with a team of researchers, my principal researcher enlisted the support of other researchers in Washington DC and London and other areas, the process went on for years.

TN: When did the process start?
MW: About five years ago! The past 12 months has been the full festival circuit and distribution. So it’s exciting that it’s now properly out there.

TEENAGE is out now on DVD in the UK.