Country: UK
Year: 1968
Duration: 111'
The British public school system is blocked by its own initiation rites: shy, awkward adolescents are humiliated by the elder students in the name of a concept of hierarchy that permeates prestigious institutes like a reflection of England’s traditionalist society. But Mick Travis decides he isn’t going to go along with that mentality and, along with two companions, prepares a macabre surprise for the ceremony that celebrates the last day of school, one of the institute’s most solemn moments. [cg]
Biography
film director
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Anderson (Bangalore, India, 1923 - Angoulême, France, 1994) graduated in 1948 from Oxford, where he was captivated by theater. He was one of the first collaborators of the magazine “Sequence” and the founder along with Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson of Free Cinema. He directed several short films, like O Dreamland and Every Day Except Christmas, and his debut feature film was This Sporting Life (1963). In 1968 he made If…, which won the Golden Palm at Cannes, and then dedicated himself primarily to theater and television. He later directed films such as O Lucky Man! (1973), Britannia Hospital (1982) and, in 1986, The Whales of August, the last film he directed for cinema.
FILMOGRAFIA
Meet the Pioneers (mm, doc., 1948), Three Installations (cm, doc., 1952), O Dreamland (cm, doc., 1953), Thursday’s Children (cm, doc., 1954), £20 a Ton (cm, doc., 1955), A Hundred Thousand Children (cm, doc., 1955), Every Day Except Christmas (mm, doc., 1957), This Sporting Life (Io sono un campione, 1963), The White Bus (mm, 1967), If... (Se..., 1968), O Lucky Man! (id., 1973), In Celebration (Celebrazione, 1975), Look Back in Anger (1980), Britannia Hospital (id., 1982), The Whales of August (Le balene d’agosto, 1987), Glory! Glory! (tv, 1989), Is That All There Is? (mm, tv, 1993).
Declaration
film director
“The heroes of If.... are, subconsciously, old-fashioned boys... traditionalists. They are neither antiheroes nor dropouts nor Marxist-Leninists nor Maoists nor readers of Marcuse. Their rebellion is inevitable, not because of what they think but because of what they are. Mick plays the intellectual but when he reacts he does so instinctively. If his story is ‘about’ something, it is about freedom. In this sense they are all traditionalists. It is they, not their conformist contemporaries, who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spoke.”
Cast
& Credits
regia/director
Lindsay Anderson
soggetto/story
David Sherwin, John Howlett
sceneggiatura/screenplay
David Sherwin
fotografia/cinematography
Miroslav Ondrícek
montaggio/film editing
David Gladwell
scenografia/production design
Jocelyn Herbert
costumi/costume design
Shura Cohen
musica/music
Marc Wilkinson
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Malcolm McDowell (Mick Travis), David Wood (Johnny Knightly), Richard Warwick (Wallace), Christine Noonan (la ragazza/girl), Rupert Webster (Bobby Phillips), Robert Swann (Rowntree), Hugh Thomas (Richard Denson), Michael Cadman (Fortinbras), Peter Sproule (Barnes), Peter Jeffrey (il preside/headmaster)
produttori/producers
Michael Medwin, Lindsay Anderson
produzione/production
Memorial
Lindsay Anderson
soggetto/story
David Sherwin, John Howlett
sceneggiatura/screenplay
David Sherwin
fotografia/cinematography
Miroslav Ondrícek
montaggio/film editing
David Gladwell
scenografia/production design
Jocelyn Herbert
costumi/costume design
Shura Cohen
musica/music
Marc Wilkinson
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Malcolm McDowell (Mick Travis), David Wood (Johnny Knightly), Richard Warwick (Wallace), Christine Noonan (la ragazza/girl), Rupert Webster (Bobby Phillips), Robert Swann (Rowntree), Hugh Thomas (Richard Denson), Michael Cadman (Fortinbras), Peter Sproule (Barnes), Peter Jeffrey (il preside/headmaster)
produttori/producers
Michael Medwin, Lindsay Anderson
produzione/production
Memorial
contatti/contacts
