Film: if....
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Country: UK
Released: December 1968
Runtime: 111 minutes
Genre: Satire
Studio: Memorial / Paramount
Influenced: Stanley Kubrick, Peter Weir, Sally Potter, Gus Van Sant, Céline Sciamma
After a run of mid-60s films that captured Swinging Britain – examples include A Hard Day's Night (1964), The Knack... and How To Get It (1965), Darling (1965), Alfie (1966), Blow-Up (1966) – there came a series of much darker British films in the late 60s and early 70s, most notably Lindsay Anderson's if... (1968), Nicholas Roeg's Performance (1970) and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971). These films shared a sense that Britain’s post-WWII socialist dream now lied in ruins, with peace, love and common purpose abandoned at the altar of individualism and ultraviolence. Just as Glastonbury turned into Altamont, so too did the institutionalised power structures of British society evolve rapidly from the healthcare utopia of the NHS to the oppressive authority of an intransigent older generation.
In particular, if.... is an incendiary social critique of the repressive atmosphere of the English public school system, and the abiding principles of the British Empire that it embodies. Anderson daringly explores themes of authority and rebellion, using the school as a microcosm of British society. The plot centres around Mick Travis, played brilliantly by Malcolm McDowell, and his two companions, Johnny and Wallace, all of whom are senior students at a traditional British public school. They endure the oppressive school system, marked by its rigid hierarchy and punitive practices, ultimately leading to a violent rebellion. Anyone familiar with the British school system will know how public schools perpetuate the class divide, conferring huge advantages on the privileged children of moneyed parents, and Anderson was able to critique the system from an insider's perspective.
While the movie doesn't directly deal with gay relationships or Anderson's own sexuality, there are scenes in the film that suggest a homoerotic undercurrent, particularly in the relationship between the senior and junior boys at the school, which could be interpreted as subtle commentary on homosexuality and the repression of it in such an environment (and wider society). Anderson's film also echoes the broader generational conflict of the late 1960s and is a notable example of the director's Free Cinema style, a movement committed to presenting reality without artifice. His use of surrealism and non-linear narrative adds an avant-garde edge, while the stark juxtaposition of colour and black & white scenes, though initially a budgetary compromise, adds an aesthetic depth and emotional resonance to the film.
Anderson went on to make two more films featuring Malcolm McDowell in the central role of Mick Travis, O Lucky Man! (1973) and Britannia Hospital (1982), to form a loose trilogy linked by a common thematic thread of social, political and institutional critique of the UK. O Lucky Man! is a picaresque film that follows Mick Travis as he navigates various aspects of British society, including the spheres of business, politics and science, and is a biting satire of capitalism and ambition. Britannia Hospital, meanwhile, is set in a hospital that serves as a microcosm of British society, culminating in a mad scientist's experiment designed to create a "new man", Genesis, who symbolises the dehumanising effects of modern society. All three films are a wild ride but if.... is easily the finest of them all.
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