If….

Reviewed by J. Lunden on August 29, 2011

The history and relevance of Lindsay Anderson’s If…. is bold, beginning as a script that no one would produce, and ending as a reconfigured auteur piece that Paramount was afraid to release. The film is a battle cry from a feature filmmaker/class warrior who had just begun to fight with classics like This Sporting Life. Due to its placement in the timeline of British cinema (and introduction of Malcolm McDowell), If…. feels very much like a tremor signaling Stanley Kubrick’s pavement-ripping A Clockwork Orange. As a work of allegorical, kitchen sink cinema, If…. is a grin that grows to a maw of bared teeth.

The film is set in a British boarding school whose halls and dormitories are overflowing with the disenchanted young men of the upper classes. Through illustrated hierarchies, Anderson defines the school as a microcosm of habitual humiliation and corporal brutality. The administrators are either twisted caricatures of their own emeritus tormentors or faded dissidents who smuggle in morsels of progressive education past the guards of tradition and ritual. The younger students are, for all intents and purposes, cattle, divided up among the senior classmen as worker bees, minion-like assistants, and even objects of desire. However, in the midst of this authoritarian realm, a hint of destabilizing evolution burgeons in the form of Mick Travis (McDowell).

Anderson seems to purposely under define the character of Mick so that McDowell’s gigantic performance can create a presence rather than a person. One wonders what infected Mick during his time away from school, what ignited the flame of some aimless revolution that burns so evidently behind his eyes. He returns to the dormitories wearing a black cloak, black fedora, with a black scarf shielding all but his wild gaze. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling what the scarf is actually concealing, but its implications are significant. Mick’s lair—shared by friends Wallace (Richard Warwick) and Johnny (David Wood)—is a shrine of contradictory admirations, its walls littered with the torn-out photos of western icons, guerrilla militants and pornography. Mick is a character simply waiting for a good shove to begin his crusade against the whole damn world. Enter “the Whips,” certain senior classmen (known as “Whips” due to the striking sticks they have tucked under their arms) with special privileges granted by the school administrators. These privileges are, of course, abused, and when they sniff out Mick as a possible threat to their kingdom of status quo, a war of indignities begins. Blood in the water.

If…. builds to a climax that is as irreverently hilarious as it is unnerving—a strange soup of emotions, indeed. However, Anderson does not reach this conclusion by any traditional means. Anderson’s films are particularly focused on theme and metaphor, and Anderson himself has called If…. a work of “poetic license.” Though beautifully composed by cinematographer Miroslav Ondrícek, the film is an amalgam of kitchen sink, almost anti-cinematic realism and ironic fantasy. The film switches thematic tracks without warning and even, at times, lurches into monochrome. The meaning of the black and white sequences has been argued for years. I’ve read that the idea was forced by lighting limitations in the film’s budget, but I prefer McDowell’s explanation that it was simply Anderson’s anarchistic “bloody-mindedness” that inspired him to shoot certain scenes this way. Regardless, these paradigm shifts blend perfectly into Anderson’s antiestablishment fable.

There is also an understated, but ever-present, delicacy at work here. Mick Travis’ hero’s journey skirts the fantastic and the absurd, but , along the way, Anderson allows light to illuminate a few autobiographical corners. Anderson attended a school much like the one depicted in the film and he used his experiences to detail his allegory. And the subtle undercurrents of homosexuality throughout, particularly the contrasting inferences in the film, perhaps hint towards Anderson’s own internal struggle with his suppressed nature.

Anderson was a tremendous filmmaker and If…. is one of his finest works. It is something of a miracle that the film was ever made and, even more miraculous, that it appeared in cinemas . . . and was embraced by 1969 audiences. At a time when Britain was in the throes of an identity crisis, I think audiences saw something they recognized in Mick Travis, something honest and vulnerable beyond the abstract and violent.

If…. comes to Blu-ray in its original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66:1. The transfer utilizes the AVC codec, takes up 33GB of space on the disc, and has a video bitrate of 35.00Mbps.

Criterion’s attractively filmic transfer was minted from the original 35mm elements and was approved by cinematographer Miroslav Ondrícek. The film’s fine grain structure has been preserved and image detail is about what you’d expect from late-sixties stock. Color appears accurate, though skin tones do skew a bit warm at times. Black levels are fine, with good shadow delineation and no detectable crush. The restoration work is excellent, but some image wavering and very light damage remain.

If…. is presented here with a 24-bit uncompressed English monaural track at 1152Kbps.

The audio doesn’t fare as well as the video here. There is a base layer of hiss throughout the film and dialogue is sometimes a bit muddy. The mix is true to the production, but the single-channel track is rough around the edges, and certain scenes become noisy with warring ambience, dialogue and music.

Commentary:
This splendid commentary features historian David Robison and Malcolm McDowell (recorded separately and cut together). Robinson shares a wealth of cultural and cinematic knowledge while McDowell offers personal anecdotes of the production, as well as intimate insights into his collaboration and friendship with Anderson. It’s a great track.

Cast and Crew (42min):
Here we have a 2003 episode of the television series Cast and Crew, which is entirely devoted to the film. Of special note here is director Stephen Frears who acted as director’s assistant on the film.

Graham Crowden (14min):
An interview with actor Graham Crowden.

Thursday’s Children (22min):
Anderson’s acclaimed 1955 documentary about a school for deaf children.

Booklet:
Included is a 32-page booklet featuring two essays by David Ehrenstein and a great piece wherein Anderson interviews himself.

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