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POSTER FOR LINDSAY ANDERSON 'S FILM
"IF..." (1968) Posted by Hello
POSTER OF MALCOLM MACDOWELL FOR
FILM "IF..." Posted by Hello
This film after almost forty years has retained a powerful impact on the viewer. It brings to mind the vexing question of
when is a violent revolution or insurrection the only appropriate response to a tyrannical status quo.
IF...1968 Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Christine Noonan, Richard Warwick, David Wood, Mary Macleod
Lindsay Anderson's film "IF..." is set in an English boarding school. Mick Travis played by Malcolm Mcdowell, who is in his
junior year rebels againgst the system & the status quo asserting his own indivuality in a system that awards complete
& absolute conformity . But as the headmaster points out to Mick in a funny scene that the school does allow for some
individual differences such as boys who let their hair grow longer than the other boys which the headmaster sees as a big
deal but Mick sees as trivial & superficial. In the 1960 to alot of people this initself was a big deal. When the length
of one's hair or the color of a shirt or tie is a big deal how do you convince others about more substantive & profound
& far reaching changes.For instance disagreeing with the way society is organized or rejecting the values of the society
in which we live or with government policies domestic or foreign. The headmaster & others at the school & the Colonel
who speaks at the assembly at the end of the movie can not tolerate any other view of the world than their own & that
of the ruling class i.e. my country right or wrong or our international cororations right or wrong.
The movie expresses the frustration of those who want to change society ,in their view , for the better. Since those in power
are so entrenched in their view of the world the situation seems almost impossible to change. So the film ends with Mick Travis
& his friends arming themselves & killing not just the soldiers & faculty but everyone innocent or guilty. To
Mick they are all guilty.
But some people were & are offended by the violent apocalyptic ending even though it is meant as a form of fantasy or
wish fulfillment. Its point is to disturb the audience especially those who are the main target of the film's satire. The
warning is that if some of the legitimate concerns of the students in the film & of those pouring into the streets of
Paris & all over University campuses in the U.S. & Britain elsewhere at the time were not addressed seriously &
some sort of compromise were not found then the next step might be violent revolution that would probably not be in anyone's
best interest. At the time the threat was perceived as quite real especially by the most conservative elements in society
. In a way one might see the ending as the paranoid fears & fantasies of the conservatives coming true. The film does
not offer up some sort of simple answer; for what lay ahead in the future would be difficult for all concerned.
PHOTO FROM LINDSAY ANDERSON'S
SURREAL & APOCALYPTIC FILM "IF..." STUDENT REBEL MICK TRAVIS SHOOTING AT FACULTY IN THE BLOODY CLIMAX OF THE FILM
Posted by Hello
The fact that "IF..." is the first part of a trilogy of films about Mick Travis gives support to the idea that the violent
ending is a fantasy sequence.
And as the entry below from THE BBC website on Lindsay Anderson by Tony Fords Curtis points out about the film" IF...":
"In this icy ode to rites of passage, Anderson paints a scathing portrait of the English private school system, using it as
a thinly disguised metaphor for society in Britain as a whole. O Lucky Man! (1972), the second in the trilogy, starts with
Travis taking on a new job as a coffee salesman. This job eventually leads Travis into a series of encounters with the military
and medical establishments, the industrial hierarchy and, finally, the media in the shape of a director (played by Anderson
himself), looking for a star for the film we have just been watching. The final part of Mick's journey, Britannia Hospital,
is a nightmarishly comic indictment of the British medical system of the 1980s, whose decay is again representative of society
as a whole. One theme which runs throughout these films is the vision of Mick as he cavorts and lurches through a modern England,
characterised by absurdity and decay."
See: BBC - h2g2 - Lindsay Anderson - Director
It is difficult to find all three films for rental but they have been shown on The Independent Film Channel (IFC) & check
out your Litle Art Film Theatres if there are any in your neck of the woods they might show them sometime or even make a
request.
Anyway that's it from me,
GORD.
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