#391: ANDERSON, Lindsay: If.... (1969)

ANDERSON, Lindsay (United Kingdom)
If.... [1969]
{Spine #391}
Blu-ray

Lindsay Anderson's If.... is a daringly anarchic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell made a hell of an impression as the insouciant Mick Travis, who, along with his school chums, trumps authority at every turn, finally emerging as a violent savior in the vicious games of one-upmanship played by both students and masters. Mixing color and black and white as audaciously as it combines fantasy and reality, If.... remains one of cinema's most unforgettable rebel yells.

112 minutes
Color/Black & White

Monaural

1:66:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2011

Director/Writers

Lindsay Anderson was 46 when he directed If. . . .
Screenplay by David Sherwin.
From the original script Crusaders by Sherwin and John Howlett.

Other Anderson films in the Collection:

#417: This Sporting Life (1963)

The Film

Anderson's magnificent film begins with some lines from Proverbs 4:7:

Wisdom is the principal thing;

therefore get wisdom:

and with all thy getting

get understanding:

The film is divided into eight chapters, with distinct fonts of red and white:

A look at some of the remarkable moments from each of these segments:

• "Guy Fawkes is back again," says the whip, Fortinbras (Michael Cadman) as Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) makes one of the grand entrances in film history; we see only his hands and eyes, with his striking black hat and scarf covering his head and mouth.

2 College

• All subsequent chapters begin with a still image of the school's exterior:

• The history master (Graham Crowden) riding his bicycle into the classroom:

3 Term Time

• Unable to properly light the chapel scenes due to budgetary concerns, Anderson simply decided to film those scenes in black and white. Once that decision was made, he (arbitrarily, according to DP Miroslav Ondříček) began to film other scenes in B&W ... this scene shows the junior boys cooking up some beans and sausages:

4 Ritual and Romance

• Mick and Johnny (David Wood) escape the school and (halfway through the film) we feel a great sense of freedom as we leave the confined atmosphere to the green countryside. Mick steals a motocycle and the two boys stop at a cafe, where Mick and the girl behind the counter (Christine Noonan) snarl at each other and make love on the floor.

5 Discipline

• Mick is savagely beaten by Rowntree (Robert Swann). Anderson films McDowell from behind as he wipes away a tear.

6 Resistance

• Mr. (Arthur Lowe) and Mrs. Kemp (Mary McLeod) sing and play (probably original music by Marc Wilkinson) ... the music is gradually supplemented with a celesta, cuts to the matron (Mona Washbourne) and eventually morphs into a B&W scene with the sleeping boys.

7 Forth to War

• Mick appears to murder the chaplain (Geoffrey Chater). Anderson skirts the line between reality and fantasy from here to the end ... which is the point of the entire film; something many critics failed to grasp.

• (He pops out of a drawer in the headmaster (Peter Jeffrey)'s office in the next scene)

8 Crusaders

• The speech by General Denson (Anthony Nicholls) is filled with the irony that Anderson is satirizing:

"A lot of men would give their eyeteeth to be sitting where you're sitting now. You are privileged. Now, for heaven's sake, don't get me wrong. There is nothing the matter with privilege — as long as we're ready to pay for it. It's a very sad thing, but today it is fashionable to belittle tradition."

"It's up to all of you chaps to give the world a lead. It is Britain's tradition that you have learnt here. Self-reliance, service, self-sacrifice. A tradition of College. And it's up to all of us to reassure the world by our unquestioning obedience ... that we still hope — My God, we're on fire!"

The Extras

The Booklet

Thirty-six page booklet featuring essays by David Ehrenstein and Sherwin; Lindsay Anderson Interviews Lindsay Anderson.

Ehrenstein:

"Rudyard Kipling's 'If—,' a poem he wrote in 1909, is redolent of privilege, 'Empire,' and all the 'values' Linsday Anderson's nearly identically titled 1969 film abhors. One line sports a special pertinence to Anderson: 'If you can dream — and not make dreams your master.' For If.... is about both dreaming and mastering, revolting against the status quo and daring to imagine what it might be like to put something else in its place That, in essence, was what the 1960s were all about. And that's what If.... does in practice — tears down the wall of sleep that separates imaginative mental activity from active waking life. Unlike a dream, however, If.... tells a story with an identifiable beginning, middle, and end. But it's relayed through what Anderson called 'an atmosphere of poetic license,' where 'reality' and 'fantasy' converge and become one. In other words, a cinematic realization of the May 1968 watch cry L'imagination au pouvoir."

Sherwin:

[from his diary ... he has sent his script to the great Nicholas Ray]

"My twenty-first birthday. One thing bothers me. I should have heard from Nicholas Ray by now and be starting that Hollywood career he said lay waiting. I ring the production office. 'I'm Mr. Ray's personal assistant. When can I come out?'

'He's no longer directing the picture.'

I'm dumbfounded.

It turns out he's had a nervous breakdown.

I'm heartbroken."

Lindsay Anderson conducts a mock interview where he wrote both the questions and answers:

"What would you say your new film is about?"

"That's a horrible question. I don't think one can ever say what one's work is 'about' — certainly not if one has managed to make anything of value. You see, one doesn't set out to make a film 'about' anything. One starts with an impulse and a subject and an area of experience, and whatever one makes grows out of that ... I think school is such an exact image of the social system. I like very much to show a little or a limited world which has implications about the big world and about life in general existence."

Commentary

Featuring film critic and historian David Robinson and actor McDowell.

McDowell's love for Anderson and his appreciation for his mentorship unfolds beautifully in this valuable commentary.

Episode

Of the Scottish TV series Cast and Crew from 2003, featuring interviews with McDowell, Ondřiĉek, Rakoff, director's assistant Stephen Frears, producer Michael Medwin, and screenwriter Sherwin.

Video interview

with actor Crowden.

Thursday's Children (1954)

An Academy Award-winning documentary about a school for deaf children, directed by Anderson and Guy Brenton and narrated by actor Richard Burton.

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