IF..

"Lindsay Anderson's provocative, savage and wickedly funny 1968 masterpiece, If ..., deals fundamentally - and controversially - with England and 'Englishness'. Coming six years after Anderson's double Oscar-nominated debut feature This Sporting Life, and based in part on the director's own experiences of British public school and of the military, If ..., was the first film with a British setting and cast to win the Palme d'Or for Best Film at Cannes. The fruit of Anderson's first-hand studies of the Czech, Polish and Indian New Waves led by Milos Forman, Andrzej Wajda and Satyajit Ray, it prophesied - and then mirrored - an international outbreak of youthful rebellion. Sutton here draws on a number of sources: Anderson's private archive, which illuminates the film's autobiographical elements; the original script Crusaders which would be transformed into If ... ; the sequel on which he was working at the time of his death; and interviews with key members of cast and crew including actor Malcolm McDowell. Disentangling Anderson's work from the social realist tag, Sutton also discusses the film's experimental mix of realism and fantasy, the responses from censors, audiences and the public schools on which it was based."--Jacket.