If ...
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | If ... |
| Original title | if .... |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1968 |
| length | 111 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Lindsay Anderson |
| script |
John Howlett , David Sherwin |
| production | Lindsay Anderson, Michael Medwin |
| music | Marc Wilkinson |
| camera | Miroslav Ondříček |
| cut | David Gladwell |
| occupation | |
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| chronology | |
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If ... (Original title: if .... ) is a British drama from 1968. Directed by Lindsay Anderson , the screenplay was written by John Howlett and David Sherwin .
action
Mick Travis, who is considered inappropriate, attends a private English school . The younger students at the boarding school are supervised, humiliated and corporally punished by high school students. The boarding school's curriculum also includes basic military training using real infantry weapons. Mick and two of his friends try to evade the strict boarding school rules, but this repeatedly results in punishments.
In the course of the film, real events mix with (day) dream sequences, whereby the two worlds are only partially separated from each other by black and white images.
In a surreal dream scene towards the end of the film, Mick and his confidants find an armory with submachine guns and grenade launchers from the Second World War while clearing out a cellar. They use these to randomly shoot their tormentors, parents and other typical representatives of the conservative establishment at the boarding school's anniversary celebration. When the boarding school director tries to stop the bloodshed, he is also shot. In the meantime, however, the participants of the event have also armed themselves heavily and, under the leadership of a general who was present as a guest of honor, started a massive counterattack against the now hopelessly defeated rebels. The last camera shot shows the face of Mick Travis firing from the roof with a submachine gun.
backgrounds
The film was shot in various locations in England. Its world premiere took place on December 19, 1968 in London.
Reviews
- Vincent Canby wrote for the New York Times on March 10, 1969 that the film was so good and strong that even the things that were " first-rate mistakes " were more interesting than the films of less significant directors. The film is a very human, very British comedy about social issues. The representations by Malcolm McDowell, Richard Warwick, Peter Jeffrey, Robert Swann and Mary McLeod are particularly good.
- Jamie Russell wrote for the BBC on February 26, 2002 that the film reproduced the " revolutionary spirit " of the late 1960s. Over the years it has lost a bit of its strength, but it is still one of the best films of the time, which “ glowingly ” attacked bourgeois values.
- The lexicon of international films wrote that the film shows a " boarding school story staged with terrifying realism and numerous symbolic insertions " and was " one of the main works of British cinema of the 1960s ". It is a " formally excellent film with convincing acting performances ". The film warns " of an inevitable revolution of the youth if the conditions for pressure-free forms of life are not created ".
- The Protestant Film Observer judges: Director Anderson understands his film, which won a prize in Cannes and in which he uses absurd antidotes to describe the seemingly absurd but true conditions in certain British schools very subtly, as a manifesto of the rebellion of the oppressed individual against social constraints. Content-wise up-to-date and serious, also formally and atmospherically successful contribution to the mentioned topic. A film that provides important ideas.
Awards
In 1969 Lindsay Anderson won the Grand Prix with If… at the Cannes Film Festival . He and screenwriter David Sherwin were nominated for the British Film Awards in 1969. The film was nominated for the Golden Globe in 1970 for Best Foreign Film in English . The British Film Institute voted If ... in 1999 as # 12 of the best British films of all time .
Web links
- If ... in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- If ... atRotten Tomatoes(English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Filming locations for If ...., accessed November 19, 2007
- ^ Opening dates for If ..., accessed on November 19, 2007
- ↑ Vincent Canby's film review, accessed November 19, 2007
- ↑ Film review by Jamie Russell, accessed November 19, 2007
- ^ If ... in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on November 19, 2007
- ↑ Evangelical Press Association Munich, Review No. 474/1969