Lindsay Andersons View of British Class and Society - Essay Example

? Lindsay Anderson’s View of British and society LINDSAY ANDERSON’S VIEW OF BRITISH AND SOCIETY Lindsay Anderson was an Indian born Briton born on April the 17th 1923. He was a film critic, documentary, feature film and theatre director, and a pioneer of the British New Wave and Free Cinema movement. He was the child of a British Army Officer and a Scottish heritage. Educated at saint Ronan’s school, Cheltenham College, Wadham College, and Magdalene College, he studied classics and English literature. After graduating, he worked as a cryptographer in the 2nd World War’s final year in Delhi at the Wireless Experimental Centre. He later became a film critic for the Sequence Magazine co-founded with his long life friends Karl Reisz and Gavin Lambert. He later wrote for Sight and Sound, a journal for the British Film Institute and the New Statesman, a left wing weekly. He lashed at contemporary critics and their objectivity pursuit in one article for Sights and Sounds. Anderson went on to develop a philosophy concerning cinema, which was christened the Free Cinema movement in the latter part of the 1950s. This philosophy held that cinema in Britain needed to break off from the class-bound attitudes it projected and that the national screens needed to be adorned with stories of non-metropolitan Britain. This paper seeks to examine three of Anderson’s films: “If...”, “O, Lucky Man”, and “Britannia hospital” and the view of British class and society that they provided. The use of the word new wave to describe cultural phenomena is a vital metaphor that when extended and scrutinised further allows one to picture the deep up currents and swellings that formed the wave (Allon, 2007 p7). These films challenged the old norms and were driven by an amalgam of social-democratic and liberal sentiments, which can ironically be viewed as a portion of the success of the economic boom in Britain that allowed the era’s youth to dream, in relatively secure economic mind-frames, about futures other than those that had been held as the norm. Perhaps a perfect example is If…, which came at the tail-end of the New Wave’s phase of social realism and had a nature that was ambiguous in both its recognition of a rapidly changing and expanding British future and its style, both in technique and theme. After his vital role in the Free Cinema movement development, he was involved integrally in the social realist filmmaking of the British New Wave (Anderson et al, 2007 p45). His movie This Sporting Life, based on flashbacks, was viewed as having too much intensity and purely naturalistic. In 1968, Anderson made If…, which exceeded the success of Sporting Life. This was the 1st and most successful film of the loose trilogy that included Oh Lucky Man and Britannia Hospital. While the last two were not as successful as the If, they are considered as films of their era. Anderson worked the script for if with David Sherwin, which was co-produced by Michael Medwin and the director. It was set in a great public school in Britain, where the ruling class of Britain traditionally schooled their sons in the use of power (Hedling, 2008 p32). The script attracted Anderson for its projection of schools as a microcosm, especially, in Britain where social system was mirrored in its educational system. The film’s photography work was done by Ondricek, with most of the film in black and white. Some of the scenes are in colour though this is done intuitively rather than rationally. The film has eight chapters, some of the chapters being “Resistance”, “Discipline”, and “College House” among others. These chapters are further sib-divided into short scenes (Hedling, 2008 p32). This division was, from the beginning, intended as a device of Brechtian alienation, succinctly reminding the audience that what they were watching was an artificial construct rather than reality. The film aimed at having a powerful objectivity element such as vital in all films targeting understanding. If… was not to be a film meant for agitation or excitement (Hedling, 2008 p32). Subsequent scenes are revealing of a link between militarism and religion in the ideologies of British schools (Jones, 1995 p16). They go on to introduce adolescent sexuality’s anarchic force, all the while emphasizing Mick and his friend’s, Wallace and Johnny, increasing rebelliousness. What comes next can be viewed as the expected outcome of a system of education grounded in hypocrisy, repression, and violence. This is especially vivid in the scene where Mick shoots at and then bayonets the commanding officer who also happens to be the Chaplain. The chaplain is resurrected in the head’s study from a huge drawer, a scene which was panned by critics for its extremity of the surreal (Jones, 1995 p16). The headmaster, progressive and smooth, is not impressed by the rebels but offers them a second chance to amend their ways. During a speech ceremony, Mick and the gang let off rounds from their weapons perched on a rooftop, aimed at their enemies. In this scene, the girl they encountered at the cafe, a girl who is the film’s symbol of life forces, freedom and sexuality, which in contemporary British upper class was “off-limits”, joins them. The girl pops the headmaster and kills him, at which point the establishment counters. The closing of the film shows the rebels fighting for their dear lives and their ideas of revolution, all against the odds. Mick at the end fires into the camera, into the audience, into British society itself. Anderson said in interviews after the making of this film that his most important challenge in the film was to get into poetry, beyond naturalism (Lloyd & David, 1987 p48). The film was, to him, a realistic reflection of British society, not entirely naturalistic, but attempting to pierce through British society’s reality. Safe from the lengthy panning and tracking shots of pre and post Mick’s sensuous taste of liberation in the cafe; the film’s shots are almost documentary-like, heavy with simplicity and soberness. This only fuels the scene’s ambiguity, which could be, construed as real or not, such as the scene where the headmaster’s wife struts through the dormitories naked. If… refused to paraphrase and defied all definition. O, Lucky Man was If…’s sequel in 1973 scripted by Lindsay and Sherwin. The film’s medium is of a narrative theme, with the technique of self-reflexive film serving to unmask film making process and self-definition narrative theme (Mayer,2006 p8). The titles in use for this film act not to impose any form of order, but rather to announce the film’s different sections. These titles, in fact, tend to cut the narrative’s order with their brevity and abrupt appearance. It is almost as if the film’s medium crackles through to remind the audience that it still exists. One of the film’s main themes is its medium and the energy that it generates. The creation process in the medium exceeds Mick’s accomplishments until their meeting in the last scene sequence. Mick Travis approaches the director, Anderson, at the film’s audition. Mick is obedient in following all of Anderson’s demands of his emotions till he is requested to smile. He rejects the order, asking what there is to smile about. Anderson strikes him with a script in exasperation, making Mick smile. Mick realises that, as one of the film’s actors, he can create action (Mayer, 2006 p8). Britannia Hospital reflected a working class attitude detached from affectionate celebration (McFarlane et al, 2005 p9). This film showed that his earlier social democratic phase had left him, and it had been doing so since the mid 1960s. The films share Anderson’s beliefs that the 2nd World War had been Britain’s lost chance at dismantling the class structure, and its tied educational system. It is representative of a vision that is much darker than the earlier film. The film’s setting is in a hospital, mirrors If…’s physical environment of a repressive static system. The film is constitutive of little hope for any progress and change, mirroring the British society of the late 70’s and early 80’s. Mick appears in the film as a reporter who has become successful selling what the masses want, which references his earlier role in O Lucky Man!. In addition, acts as a descriptive phrase for his reporter role. Here, Mick attempts to expose Dr Millar’s questionable and unethical experiments. Although he puts up a great fight, he is overwhelmed by the system. This film more than anything is representative of British society in this era and the union’s decreasing power being usurped by the system and repressing the people (McFarlane et al, 2005 p9). The film’s action is contained in the hospital building and, the research centre, adjacent to it (Monaco & James, 1991 p47). This film is an analogy between the film’s location and British historical and social context. The hospital is meant to be a space where the past glories are celebrated, and precedence is taken over the present’s reality. Dr. Millar’s research centre is representative of a future devoid of any social or historical dimensions. This is brilliantly projected by the disembodied voice emanating from a giant machine that is brain like and fails to complete Shakespeare’s hamlet monologue, which celebrates man’s greatness. This very glaring contrast acts to reinforce the sameness they share; labourers storming the hospital and the visit by the Royal family, which is symbolic of a ritual corresponding to a conception that is outdated concerning the British country (Monaco & James, 1991 p47). Professor Millar is non-related to any social order that is pre-determined, with science advancement being his sense of purpose and identity. The film If… was representative of the British New wave (Pettigrew, 2005 p137). Here, as with other British New wave directors, Anderson explored society’s margins and preferred to project people working in the industry from North England and the Midlands. Using an industrial town location, in a public school, the young men, are not satisfied with the way their lives are turning out and are seeking escape. The film shares the shooting techniques and subject matter of a documentary. Adding to the film’s fresh subject matter was its locational shooting characteristic that was outstanding. This fact opposed the conventional studio shots of mainstream films. The documentary technique was applied to this feature film to imbue it with some authentic feel, projecting the lives of the working class on the screen. The shots of the public school added to the film’s reality effect. The film was significant in its representation of Britain’s working class in the era of economic affluence. Despite the frequent use of the point of view shown by the character and subject narration overlapping, sometimes-making use of flashbacks, its viewpoint is not coherent (Pettigrew, 2005 p137). Pictorial descriptions of the public school are shot mostly from a vantage point (Pettigrew, 2005 p138). These viewpoints appear differentiated from the ones held by the main characters, revealing another existence gaze, such as that of an outsider looking at the school from a vantage point. The film was made in black and white with a few scenes in colour (Roberts, 2009 p250). The shots were taken via Bolex cameras that were hand-held and only capable of taking a maximum of 22-second shots. It avoided the utilisation of voice-over commentaries of the didactic style and lacked narrative continuity, as well as having impressionistic editing and sound. The revolutionary HPS film stock improved the possibilities for this film to be taken out of a studio and to a school setting. This was especially useful for nighttime shots (Roberts, 2009 p250). O Lucky Man follows Mick Travis from If…, even though the character is different, with the stories not being sequential (Hedling, 2008 p17). However, just like the original Mick Travis, this one does also illustrate, via comedy and fantasy, the reality of how British institutions have succeeded in repressing the working-class society. The derangement projected in the film is a mirror image of the manner in which British society perceived daily life. However, Travis’ dance with monsters does not make him into one, which is representative of British society’s indifference to their institutions and leaders at the time. The film also utilises the theatrical conceit of having one actor play several roles (Hedling, 2008 p17). Britannia Hospital was set in the late 1970’s British society, changed by Margaret Thatcher’s establishment (Hedling, 2008 p40). Anderson displays Britain in the late 1970’s in a grotesque version where there exists a shared sense of community values. The despairing and gloomy atmosphere hanging over the film, is representative of the British working class society of the late 1970’s and extends a depressingly pessimistic view of the condition of British human condition. The characters are representative of Thatcher’s spirit of entrepreneurship, though portrayed with a sense of cynicism. It illustrates Thatcher’s creation of a divided society, especially in its final scenes via the use of exaggerated characters like Professor Millar. Never apologise, also never apologize in the US is the title of a brand new film, which was ,however, receptive of a very short period of cinematic run, starting on September the 5th of 2008. The film is a recording about the legend that was Lindsay Anderson, with the film adorned with cuts from Lindsay’s clips retrieved from If…, O Lucky Man, and Britannia Hospital. In conclusion, Lindsay Anderson was an undeniably pivotal figure in the Free Cinema movement of the 1950’s which led to the British New Wave films in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. These films differed from earlier British films by their themes and film techniques, his film If… being the best example. They focused more on the working class society and utilised documentary like features and technique to increase the realness. His subsequent films in the trilogy continued his social realism theme to varying degrees, with the last of the trilogy being pessimistic on the British society’s ability to break free from the system. References Allon Y. Contemporary British and Irish film directors : a wallflower critical guide. London: Wallflower, 2007. Anderson L, Alan P, and David S. O lucky man! London: 1973., Plexus. Hedling, E. Lindsay Anderson : maverick film-maker. London :: 2008, Cassell, . Jones S. The Frankenstein scrapbook : the complete movie guide to the world's most famous monster. New York,: 1995, Citadel Press . Lloyd A, and David R. The Illustrated history of the cinema. New York, : Macmillan, 1987. Mayer G. Guide to British cinema. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006. McFarlane B, Anthony S, and Philip F. The encyclopedia of british film. London : 2005, Methuen. Monaco J, and James P. The encyclopedia of film. New York: Perigee Books, 1991. Pettigrew T. British film character actors. London : David and Charles, 2005. Roberts J. Encyclopedia of television film directors. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2009. Shail R. British film directors : a critical guide. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007. Slifkin I. VideoHound's groovy movies : far-out films of the psychedelic era. Detroit: Visible Ink, 2006 . Read More