Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994)
was a British
feature-film,
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
and
documentary director
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''D ...
,
film critic
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outl ...
, and leading-light of the
Free Cinema
Free Cinema was a documentary film movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s. The term referred to an absence of propagandised intent or deliberate box office appeal. Co-founded by Lindsay Anderson (but he later disdained the ...
movement and of the
British New Wave
The British New Wave is a style of films released in Great Britain between 1959 and 1963. The label is a translation of '' Nouvelle Vague'', the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others.
Styli ...
. He is most widely remembered for his 1968 film ''
if....'', which won the ''
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...
'' at
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
in 1969 and marked
Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell (born Malcolm John Taylor; 13 June 1943) is a British actor, producer, and television presenter. He is best known for portraying Alex DeLarge in ''A Clockwork Orange.'' He was born in the Horsforth suburb of Leeds and raised i ...
's cinematic debut.
He is also notable, though not a professional actor, for playing a minor role in the
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-winning 1981 film ''
Chariots of Fire
''Chariots of Fire'' is a 1981 British historical sports drama film directed by Hugh Hudson, written by Colin Welland and produced by David Puttnam. It is based on the true story of two British athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell ...
''. McDowell produced a 2007 documentary about his experiences with Anderson, ''
Never Apologize''.
Early life
Lindsay Gordon Anderson was born in
Bangalore
Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
,
South India
South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...
, where his father had been stationed with the
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...
, on 17 April 1923.
His father Captain (later Major General)
Alexander Vass Anderson
Major-General Alexander Vass Anderson (17 November 1895 – 17 October 1963) was a senior British Army officer of the Second World War.
Military career
Anderson was born in Poona, India, the son of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vass Anderson (1 ...
was a British Army officer who had been born in
North India
North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...
, and his mother Estelle Bell Gasson was born in
Queenstown, South Africa
Queenstown, officially Komani, is a town in the middle of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, roughly halfway between the smaller towns of Cathcart and Sterkstroom on the N6 National Route. The town was established in 1853 and is curr ...
, the daughter of a wool merchant.
Lindsay's parents separated in 1926 and Estelle returned to England with her sons; however, they tried to reconcile in 1932 in Bangalore, and when Estelle returned to England she was pregnant with her third son, Alexander Vass Anderson.
The Andersons divorced and Estelle remarried Major Cuthbert Sleigh in 1936.
Lindsay's father remarried in India; although Gavin Lambert writes, in ''Mainly About Lindsay Anderson: A Memoir'' (Faber and Faber, 2000, p. 18), that Alexander Vass Anderson 'cut (his first family) out of his life', making no reference to them in his ''
Who's Who'' entry, Lindsay often saw his father and looked after his house and dogs when he was away.
Both Lindsay and his older brother Murray Anderson (1919–2016) were educated at
Saint Ronan's School in
Worthing
Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...
,
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...
, and at
Cheltenham College
("Work Conquers All")
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public school Independent School Day and Boarding School
, religion = Church of England
, president =
, head_label = Head
, head = Nicola Hugget ...
. It was at Cheltenham that Lindsay had met his lifelong friend and biographer, the screenwriter and novelist
Gavin Lambert
Gavin Lambert (23 July 1924 – 17 July 2005) was a British-born screenwriter, novelist and biographer who lived for part of his life in Hollywood. His writing was mainly fiction and nonfiction about the film industry.
Personal life
Lam ...
.
Lindsay won a scholarship for classical studies at
Wadham College
Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road.
Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...
at the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, in 1942.
Anderson served in the Army from 1943 until 1946, first with the
60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, and then in the final year of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
as a
cryptographer
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...
for the
Intelligence Corps, at the
Wireless Experimental Centre
The Wireless Experimental Centre (WEC) was one of two overseas outposts of Station X, Bletchley Park, the British signals analysis centre during World War II. The other outpost was the Far East Combined Bureau. Codebreakers Wilfred Noyce and Mauri ...
in
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
.
Anderson assisted in nailing the
Red flag to the roof of the Junior Officers' mess in Annan Parbat, in August 1945, after the victory of the
Labour Party in the
general election was confirmed.
[''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 onlin]
here
though only part of the second reference is reproduced. The colonel did not approve, he recalled a decade later, but no disciplinary action was taken against them.
Lindsay returned to Oxford in 1946 but changed from classical studies to English;
he graduated in 1948.
Career
Film criticism
Before going into film-making, Anderson was a prominent film critic writing for the influential ''
Sequence
In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is calle ...
'' magazine (1947–52), which he co-founded with
Gavin Lambert
Gavin Lambert (23 July 1924 – 17 July 2005) was a British-born screenwriter, novelist and biographer who lived for part of his life in Hollywood. His writing was mainly fiction and nonfiction about the film industry.
Personal life
Lam ...
, Peter Ericsson and
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker, one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the best-known films he directed are '' Saturday Night and S ...
;
later writing for the
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
's journal ''
Sight and Sound'' and the
left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
political weekly the ''
New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
''.
In a 1956
polemical
Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...
article, "Stand Up, Stand Up" for ''Sight and Sound'', he attacked contemporary critical practices, in particular the pursuit of
objectivity. Taking as an example some comments made by
Alistair Cooke
Alistair Cooke (born Alfred Cooke; 20 November 1908 – 30 March 2004) was a British-American writer whose work as a journalist, television personality and radio broadcaster was done primarily in the United States.[National Film Theatre
BFI Southbank (from 1951 to 2007, known as the National Film Theatre) is the leading repertory cinema in the UK, specialising in seasons of classic, independent and non-English language films. It is operated by the British Film Institute.
His ...]
programmer
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker, one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the best-known films he directed are '' Saturday Night and S ...
organized for the venue of independently produced short films by himself and others, he developed a philosophy of cinema which found expression in what became known, by the late-1950s, as the
Free Cinema
Free Cinema was a documentary film movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s. The term referred to an absence of propagandised intent or deliberate box office appeal. Co-founded by Lindsay Anderson (but he later disdained the ...
movement. This was the belief 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. He had already begun to make films himself, starting in 1948 with ''Meet the Pioneers'', a documentary about a conveyor-belt factory.
Filmmaking
Along with
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker, one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the best-known films he directed are '' Saturday Night and S ...
,
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson (5 June 1928 – 14 November 1991) was an English theatre and film director and producer whose career spanned five decades. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film ''Tom Jones''.
Early ...
, and others, he secured funding from a variety of sources (including
Ford of Britain) and they each 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
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an Audiology, audiological condition. In this context it ...
children, made in collaboration with Guy Brenton, a friend from his Oxford days, won an
Oscar
Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to:
People
* Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms.
* Oscar (Irish mythology) ...
for Best Documentary Short in 1954.
''Thursday's Children'' was preserved by the
Academy Film Archive
The Academy Film Archive is part of the Academy Foundation, established in 1944 with the purpose of organizing and overseeing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ educational and cultural activities, including the preservation of m ...
in 2005.
These films, influenced by one of Anderson' heroes, the
French filmmaker
Jean Vigo
Jean Vigo (; 26 April 1905 – 5 October 1934) was a French film director who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s. His work influenced French New Wave cinema of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Biography
Vigo was born to ...
, and made in the tradition of the British documentaries of
Humphrey Jennings, foreshadowed much of the social realism of British cinema that emerged in the next decade, with Reisz's ''
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' is the first novel by British author Alan Sillitoe and won the Author's Club First Novel Award.
It was adapted by Sillitoe into a 1960 film starring Albert Finney, directed by Karel Reisz, and in 1964 was ...
'' (1960), Richardson's ''
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
"The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" is a short story by Alan Sillitoe, published in 1959 as part of a short story collection of the same title. The work focuses on Smith, a poor Nottingham teenager from a dismal home in a working clas ...
'' (1962) and Anderson's own ''
This Sporting Life
''This Sporting Life'' is a 1963 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. Based on the 1960 novel of the same name by David Storey, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award, it recounts the story of a rugby league footb ...
'' (1963), produced by Reisz. Anderson's film met with mixed reviews at the time, and was not a commercial success.
Anderson is perhaps best remembered as a filmmaker for his "
Mick Travis trilogy
Michael Arnold "Mick" Travis is a fictional character played by Malcolm McDowell in three films directed by British film director Lindsay Anderson and written by David Sherwin. Travis features not so much as a single character with a character ar ...
", all of which star
Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell (born Malcolm John Taylor; 13 June 1943) is a British actor, producer, and television presenter. He is best known for portraying Alex DeLarge in ''A Clockwork Orange.'' He was born in the Horsforth suburb of Leeds and raised i ...
as the title character: ''
if....'' (1968), a satire on public schools; ''
O Lucky Man!
''O Lucky Man!'' is a 1973 British comedy-drama fantasy film directed by Lindsay Anderson, and starring Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis, whom McDowell had first played as a disaffected public schoolboy in his first film performance in Ander ...
'' (1973) a ''
Pilgrim's Progress
''The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come'' is a 1678 Christianity, Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of theological fiction in English literature and a prog ...
'' inspired road movie; and ''
Britannia Hospital
''Britannia Hospital'' is a 1982 British black comedy film, directed by Lindsay Anderson, which targets the National Health Service and contemporary British society. It was entered into the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and Fantasporto.
''Britan ...
'' (1982), a fantasia taking stylistic influence from the populist wing of British cinema represented by
Hammer horror films and Carry On comedies.
In 1981, Anderson played the role of the Master of
Caius College
Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...
at
Cambridge University
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
in the film ''
Chariots of Fire
''Chariots of Fire'' is a 1981 British historical sports drama film directed by Hugh Hudson, written by Colin Welland and produced by David Puttnam. It is based on the true story of two British athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell ...
''.
Anderson developed an acquaintance from 1950 with
John Ford
John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...
, which led to what has come to be regarded as one of the standard books on that director, Anderson's ''About John Ford'' (1983). Based on half a dozen meetings over more than two decades, and a lifetime's 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".
In 1985, producer
Martin Lewis invited Anderson to chronicle
Wham!
Wham! (briefly known in the US as Wham! U.K.) were an English pop duo formed in Bushey in 1981. The duo consisted of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. They became one of the most commercially successful pop acts of the 1980s, selling mor ...
's visit to
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, among the first-ever visits by Western pop artists, which resulted in Anderson's film ''Foreign Skies: Wham! In China''. 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'". In 1986, he was a member of the jury at the
36th Berlin International Film Festival.
Anderson was also a significant British theatre director. He was long associated with London's
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...
, where he was Co-Artistic Director 1969–70, and Associate Artistic Director 1971–75, directing premiere productions of plays by
David Storey
David Malcolm Storey (13 July 1933 – 27 March 2017) was an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a professional rugby league player. He won the Booker Prize in 1976 for his novel ''Saville''. He also won the MacMillan ...
, among others.
In 1992, as a close friend of actresses
Jill Bennett and
Rachel Roberts, Anderson included a touching episode in his autobiographical
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
(several of their professional colleagues and friends aboard) to scatter their ashes on the waters while musician
) gives an acclaimed filmmaker the chance to screen his or her personal Top 10 favorite films. In 2007,
market, for his top 10 classics from the history of documentary.
's memoir, ''Mainly About Lindsay Anderson'', in which he wrote that Anderson repressed his
, was seen as a betrayal by his other friends.