Lindsay Anderson

Film criticism

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.^[12] He also later wrote for the British Film Institute's journal Sight and Sound, and for the New Statesman, a left-wing political weekly.^[7]

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:

The problems of commitment are directly stated, but only apparently faced. …The denial of the critic's moral responsibility is specific; but only at the cost of sacrificing his dignity. … [These assumptions:] the holding of liberal, or humane, values; the proviso that these must not be taken too far; the adoption of a tone which enables the writer to evade through humour [mean] the fundamental issues are balked."^{[17][clarification needed]}

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.^[18] 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.^[19]

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.^[20]

Filmmaking

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.^[7] Thursday's Children was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.^[21]

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.^[22]

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.^[23]

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".^[24]

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".^[25] 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, instead focusing predominantly on the effects of the reform and opening up policies on Chinese society. Anderson was fired from the project, and Michael turned out the film that was entitled Wham! in China: Foreign Skies.^[26]

In 1986, Anderson served as a member of the jury at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival, by invitation.^[27]

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?^{[citation needed]}

Theatre director

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.^{[citation needed]}

Death

Anderson died from a heart attack in Angoulême, France, on 30 August 1994, at the age of 71.^[31]

Filmmaking

Acting roles