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Lindsay Anderson

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Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994)<ref name="Who Was Who">Template:Cite book</ref> was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave.<ref>25 Years of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court, Richard Findlater (ed) Amber Lane Press 1981. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Curtain Times: The New York Theater 1965–67, Otis L. Guernsey Jr, Applause 1987 Template:ISBN</ref> He is most widely remembered for his 1968 film if...., which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival in 1969 and marked Malcolm McDowell's cinematic debut.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He is also notable, though not a professional actor, for playing a minor role in the Academy Award-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. McDowell produced a 2007 documentary about his experiences with Anderson, Never Apologize.<ref name="NYT" />

Early lifeEdit

Lindsay Gordon Anderson was born in Bangalore, South India, where his father was stationed with the Royal Engineers, on 17 April 1923.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> His father Captain (later Major General) Alexander Vass Anderson<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Lindsay Anderson Diaries, Lindsay Anderson, ed. Paul Sutton, Bloomsbury, 2004, Introduction, p.13</ref> was a British Army officer who had come from Scotland. His mother Estelle Bell Gasson was born in Queenstown, South Africa, the daughter of a wool merchant.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>British Society Since 1945: The Penguin Social History of Britain, Arthur Marwick, Penguin Books, 1996, p. 127</ref> Lindsay was the second son. His parents separated in 1926, and Estelle returned to England with the two boys. In 1932 the couple tried to reconcile in Bangalore, and when Estelle returned to England she was pregnant with their third son, who was named Alexander Vass Anderson after his father.<ref name=":2" /> The Andersons divorced. Estelle married again in 1936, to Major Cuthbert Sleigh.<ref name=":2" /> Lindsay's father remarried while in India. Gavin Lambert writes, in Mainly About Lindsay Anderson: A Memoir (Faber and Faber, 2000, p. 18), that the father Alexander Vass Anderson 'cut (his first family) out of his life', making no reference to them in his Who's Who entry. But Lindsay often saw his father and looked after his house and dogs when he was away.<ref>Lindsay Anderson Revisited: Unknown Aspects of a Film Director, ed. Erik Hedling, Christophe Dupin, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, p. 120</ref>

Both Lindsay and his older brother Murray Anderson (1919–2016) were educated at Saint Ronan's School in Worthing, West Sussex, and at Cheltenham College.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It was at Cheltenham that Lindsay met his lifelong friend Gavin Lambert, who became a screenwriter and novelist, and later the director's biographer.<ref name=":2" />

The UK had been at war for years when Anderson won a scholarship in 1942 for classical studies at Wadham College at the University of Oxford.<ref name=":2" /> The next year he entered World War II, serving in the Army from 1943 until 1946, first with the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps. In the final year of the war, he was a cryptographer for the Intelligence Corps, based at the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi.<ref name=":1" />

In August 1945, Anderson assisted in nailing the Red flag to the roof of the Junior Officers' mess in Annan Parbat, after the victory of the Labour Party in the general election was confirmed.<ref name="StandUp">Sight and Sound, Autumn 1956, reprinted in Paul Ryan (ed) Never Apologise: The Collected Writings, 2004, London: Plexus, p218-32, 228, 226. This article was reprinted in a shortened form in Universities and Left Review 1:1, Spring 1957, p44-48, 46, 46, and is online here Template:Webarchive, though only part of the second reference is reproduced.</ref> Their colonel did not approve, he recalled a decade later, but took no disciplinary action against the junior officers.

Lindsay returned to Oxford in 1946 but changed from classical studies to English;<ref name=":2" /> he graduated in 1948.<ref name=":1" />

CareerEdit

Film criticismEdit

Anderson was passionate about film and with his friend Gavin Lambert, and Peter Ericsson and Karel Reisz, co-founded Sequence magazine (1947–52), which became influential. Anderson became a prominent film critic.<ref name=":2" /> He also later wrote for the British Film Institute's journal Sight and Sound and the left-wing political weekly, the New Statesman.<ref name=":0" />

In a 1956 polemical article, "Stand Up, Stand Up" published in Sight and Sound, Anderson attacked contemporary critical practices, in particular the pursuit of objectivity. Taking as an example some comments made by Alistair Cooke in 1935, in which Cooke had claimed to be without politics as a critic, Anderson responded:

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Following a series of screenings which he and the National Film Theatre programmer Karel Reisz organized for the venue of independently produced short films by himself and others, he developed a philosophy of cinema that was expressed in what became known, by the late-1950s, as the Free Cinema movement.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> He and other leaders in the field believed that the British cinema must break away from its class-bound attitudes and that non-metropolitan Britain ought to be shown on the nation's screens. Anderson had already begun to make films himself, starting in 1948 with Meet the Pioneers, a documentary about a conveyor-belt factory.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Anderson was invited to join the British Film Institute's Board of Governors in 1969 with the aim of bolstering support for independent British directors, but left the role after a year.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

FilmmakingEdit

Along with Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, and others, he secured funding from a variety of sources (including Ford of Britain). Each of these founders made a series of short documentaries on a variety of subjects. One of Anderson's early short films, Thursday's Children (1954), concerning the education of deaf children, was made in collaboration with Guy Brenton, a friend from his Oxford days; it won an Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 1954.<ref name=":0" /> Thursday's Children was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

These films, influenced by one of Anderson's heroes, the French filmmaker Jean Vigo, and made in the tradition of the British documentaries of Humphrey Jennings, foreshadowed much of the social realism of British dramatic cinema that emerged in the next decade. These included Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), and Anderson's own This Sporting Life (1963), produced by Reisz. Anderson's film met with mixed reviews at the time, and was not a commercial success.Template:Citation needed

Anderson is perhaps best remembered as a filmmaker for his "Mick Travis trilogy", all of which star Malcolm McDowell as the title character: if.... (1968), a satire on public schools; O Lucky Man! (1973) a Pilgrim's Progress-inspired road movie; and Britannia Hospital (1982), a fantasia taking stylistic influence from the populist wing of British cinema represented by Hammer horror films and Carry On comedies.<ref name=NYT>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1981, Anderson played the role of the Master of Caius College at Cambridge University in the film Chariots of Fire.

Anderson developed an acquaintance from 1950 with John Ford. Anderson wrote what has come to be regarded as one of the standard books on that director, About John Ford (1983). Based on half a dozen meetings over more than two decades, and Anderson's lifetime study of the man's work, the book has been described as "One of the best books published by a film-maker on a film-maker".<ref>David Castell, Daily Telegraph, cited on back cover of UK paperback edition</ref>

In 1985, producer Martin Lewis invited Anderson to chronicle Wham!'s visit to China, among the first-ever visits by Western pop artists. Anderson made the film Wham! in China: Foreign Skies. He admitted in his diary on 31 March 1985, to having "no interest in Wham!", or China, and he was simply "'doing this for the money'".<ref>Paul Sutton (ed) Lindsay Anderson: The Diaries, 2004, London: Methuen, p434</ref> Anderson's own cut of the tour, titled If You Were There, was never released after George Michael objected to this version. It featured only four songs from the tour. Anderson was fired from the project, and Michael turned out the film that was entitled Wham! in China: Foreign Skies.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1986, Anderson served as a member of the jury at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival, by invitation.<ref name="Berlinale">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Anderson was also a significant British theatre director. He was long associated with London's Royal Court Theatre, where he was Co-Artistic Director 1969–70, and Associate Artistic Director 1971–75. He directed premiere productions of plays by David Storey, among others.Template:Citation needed

In 1992, as a close friend of the late actresses Jill Bennett and Rachel Roberts, Anderson arranged a boat trip to scatter the women's ashes in the Thames River. Professional colleagues and friends were also on the boat and musician Alan Price sang the song "Is That All There Is?". Anderson included this event in his autobiographical BBC film Is That All There Is?Template:Citation needed

Every year, the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA) gives an acclaimed filmmaker the chance to screen his or her personal Top 10 favorite films. In 2007, Iranian filmmaker Maziar Bahari selected two of Anderson's short documentaries, O Dreamland and Every Day Except Christmas (1957), a record of a day in the old Covent Garden market, for his top 10 classics from the history of documentary.[3]

Personal lifeEdit

Gavin Lambert's memoir, Mainly About Lindsay Anderson, wrote that Anderson was homosexual and repressed his orientation, which was seen as a betrayal by his other friends.<ref>Lindsay Anderson: Let me tell you about Lindsay Template:Webarchive The Independent, 21 February 2002. Retrieved on 1 January 2017.</ref> In November 2006 Malcolm McDowell told The Independent that he believed Anderson was gay, and said: Template:Quote

Death and legacyEdit

Anderson died from a heart attack on 30 August 1994 at the age of 71.<ref> https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/01/obituaries/lindsay-anderson-director-and-iconoclast-dies-at-71.html</ref>

Following the publication of Anderson's diaries and collected writings in 2004 there has been a revival of interest in Anderson scholarship, including several edited collections and monographs addressing his work from a variety of critical perspectives.<ref>Izod, John, et al. (2012) Lindsay Anderson: Cinema Authorship. (British Film Makers) Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hedling, Erik and Dupin, Christophe. (2016) Lindsay Anderson Revisited: Unknown Aspects of a Film Director. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kitchen, Will. (2023) Film, Negation and Freedom: Capitalism and Romantic Critique. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.</ref> The centenary of Anderson's birth in 2023 was marked by special events at the University of Stirling, where the Anderson papers are currently held.<ref> https://artmag.co.uk/la-lands-at-macrobert-centre-stirling/</ref>

Theatre productionsEdit

All Royal Court, London, unless otherwise indicated:

FilmographyEdit

FilmsEdit

Year Title Notes
1963 This Sporting Life Nominated—Palme d'Or
1967 The White Bus Short film, also producer
1968 if.... Also producer
Palme d'Or
Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Direction
1973 O Lucky Man! Also producer
Nominated—Palme d'Or
1975 In Celebration
1982 Britannia Hospital Fantasporto Audience Jury Award
Nominated—Palme d'Or
Nominated—Gold Hugo
1986 If You Were There Documentary
1987 The Whales of August
1992 Is That All There Is? Mockumentary; also writer

TelevisionEdit

Year Title Notes
1956–1957 The Adventures of Robin Hood 5 episodes
1972 Play for Today Episode: "Home"
1979 The Old Crowd Television film
1980 Look Back in Anger Television film
1986 Free Cinema Television documentary
1987 Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow Documentary (Narrator)
1989 Glory! Glory! Television film

Documentary short filmsEdit

Year Title
1948 Meet the Pioneers
1949 Idlers That Work
1952 Trunk Conveyor
1952 Three Installations
1953 O Dreamland
1954 Thursday's Children
1955 The Children Upstairs
1955 Henry
1955 Green and Pleasant Land
1955 Foot and Mouth
1955 Energy First
1955 A Hundred Thousand Children
1955 £20 a Ton
1957 Wakefield Express
1957 Every Day Except Christmas
1959 March to Aldermaston
1967 The Singing Lesson

ActingEdit

Year Title Role Notes
1968 Inadmissible Evidence Barrister
1973 O Lucky Man! Film Director Uncredited
1981 Chariots of Fire Master of Caius
1991 Prisoner of Honor War Minister Television film
1992 Blame It on the Bellboy Mr. Marshall Voice

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

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BibliographyEdit

External linksEdit

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