The Most Over-rated British Film

[stevie boy]

Originally Posted by Iris First post, btw!

welcome Iris

[stevie boy]

Originally Posted by batman I find all Lindsay Anderson's films boring and pretentious .... This Sporting Life is a fine evocation of a time and place but as a film it is IMHO plodding and dull. 'The Mick Travis Trilogy' starts poorly and just gets worse, with Brittania Hospital being an embarrassment to sit through. Poorly written, apallingly acted and directed by Anderson as if he had just been let loose in the village hall. Dreadful stuff!

This Sporting Life is, as you say, is a fine evocation of time and place, but I do think that it works very well. In my mind it would fall below Saturday Night & Sunday Morning and a Taste of Honey purely because of the lack of humour, but the grimness of This Sporting Life is ,in its on way, quite beautiful.

[orpheum]

In one word "Atonement"

[batman]

Originally Posted by stevie boy This Sporting Life is, as you say, is a fine evocation of time and place, but I do think that it works very well. In my mind it would fall below Saturday Night & Sunday Morning and a Taste of Honey purely because of the lack of humour, but the grimness of This Sporting Life is ,in its on way, quite beautiful.

I don't rate Saturday Night And Sunday Morning either .... another dull plod through through the depressing lives of uninteresting people. It is saved only by the acting.

God, I sound like an old misery ...... I blame it on having this bloody virus for the past two weeks!

However, I won't let the bastard grind me down!

[kezzy]

It is the fate of many revolutionary works of art to become prematurely dated. 'Look Back in Anger' feels so petty looked at from today. Novels such as 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'On the Road' suffer similarly. They die so that others might live.

When Lindsay Anderson did 'If...' it was still considered outrageous to knock the establishment. Monty Python was yet to appear, and Peter Cook's Establishment Club was new on the scene. I totally agree that, by today's standards, 'If...' doesn't stand up. But I do think it's impressive that, having been one of the openers of the floodgates himself, Anderson then went on to create something as magical as 'O Lucky Man'.

[Rob Compton]

Originally Posted by batman I don't rate Saturday Night And Sunday Morning either .... another dull plod through through the depressing lives of uninteresting people. It is saved only by the acting. God, I sound like an old misery ...... I blame it on having this bloody virus for the past two weeks! However, I won't let the bastard grind me down!

Bats!

Here's what you need...

TMF: Grumpy Old Fools

What a great site, the discussion boards are the finest (apart from Britmovie, of course!)

[batman]

Originally Posted by Rob Compton Bats! Here's what you need... TMF: Grumpy Old Fools What a great site, the discussion boards are the finest (apart from Britmovie, of course!)

Bah humbug!

[Carmel]

Originally Posted by orpheum In one word "Atonement"

Thankyou i wasn't the only one that thought it was a pile of rubbish.Another one is Breif encounter never saw the attraction in it, sorry.

[Marky B]

Originally Posted by batman I don't rate Saturday Night And Sunday Morning either .... another dull plod through through the depressing lives of uninteresting people. It is saved only by the acting.

I didn't like the kitchen sink dramas that we came out with in the late fifties and sixties. All of them were a dull plod through the depressing lives of uninteresting people.
Ta Ta
Marky B

[stevie boy]

Originally Posted by batman I don't rate Saturday Night And Sunday Morning either .... another dull plod through through the depressing lives of uninteresting people. It is saved only by the acting. God, I sound like an old misery ...... I blame it on having this bloody virus for the past two weeks! However, I won't let the bastard grind me down!

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning is great, Bats, By the way I had a virus for 3 months resulting in a lump in my neck, got the all clear yesterday, so that has cheered me up. Treated myself today by ordering The Haunting and The Legend of Hell House, any way that is enough, bye bye

[GRAEME]

Originally Posted by penfold Funnily, I agreed with you about the first two films.... For the sake of amicable discussion, in what way do you think (apart from in Anderson's own imagination) If... either important or revolutionary?? This Sporting Life I might just have conceded as being important...

Hi mate

For me, If... is the great English revolutionary movie. Our Battle of Algiers. But very English - an anti-public school drama in every sence of the term "anti"( and as for over-age actors playing the schoolboys? What public school pic hasn't got 'em? The Guinea Pig, anybody? Here it is flagrant and intentional). Anderson the public school marxist intellectual taking a machine gun to everything he thought was stuffy, cruel and appalling about his England - and especially the class he came from. It's an inside job - an assault on the upper middle class of searing ferocity, as well as adolescent petulance (Anderson surely wanted to be Travis?). At the same time it is an anthem for a new generation of "doomed youth".

The revolutionary subject matter is reflected in the bizarre surrealism of the technique (this has dated I'll grant you) - and there is an exhillaration in the sheer excess of it, the savagry of the attack. The Brechtian alienation is lovely, darlink, come on in!

It is public school Marxist intellectual punk satire. And I love it. It's like playing "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols loudly out your windows during the Queen Mum's funeral two minute silence - wonderful, pointless, hats off to him, down with everything. BOOM!

[penfold]

Originally Posted by kezzy When Lindsay Anderson did 'If...' it was still considered outrageous to knock the establishment. Monty Python was yet to appear, and Peter Cook's Establishment Club was new on the scene. I totally agree that, by today's standards, 'If...' doesn't stand up. .

Monty Python was yet to appear, but precursors of Python (Do Not Adjust, At Last the 1948 Show) were on TV '66/67, well before If.... before that, the Beyond the Fringe team had led the way, followed by TW3, The Frost Report, all big successes in the early-mid 60's, all mocking the establisment mercilessly. On paper you had Private Eye (Est. 1962) and as you mention, there was Cook's comedy nightclub The Establishment around the same time...in fact IIRC, The Establishment had closed down long before If....
Practically Everyone in the Arts was mocking /fighting the establishment in '68......

[penfold]

Originally Posted by GRAEME For me, If... is the great English revolutionary movie. Our Battle of Algiers. But very English - an anti-public school drama in every sence of the term "anti"( and as for over-age actors playing the schoolboys? What public school pic hasn't got 'em? The Guinea Pig, anybody? Here it is flagrant and intentional). Anderson the public school marxist intellectual taking a machine gun to everything he thought was stuffy, cruel and appalling about his England - and especially the class he came from. It's an inside job - an assault on the upper middle class of searing ferocity, as well as adolescent petulance (Anderson surely wanted to be Travis?). At the same time it is an anthem for a new generation of "doomed youth". The revolutionary subject matter is reflected in the bizarre surrealism of the technique (this has dated I'll grant you) - and there is an exhillaration in the sheer excess of it, the savagry of the attack. The Brechtian alienation is lovely, darlink, come on in! It is public school Marxist intellectual punk satire. And I love it. It's like playing "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols loudly out your windows during the Queen Mum's funeral two minute silence - wonderful, pointless, hats off to him, down with everything. BOOM!

Hello!!

It's about revolution, yes, but does that make it revolutionary itself ? Is it really any more scathing about Public Schools than the St Trinians films ?? Let alone the silent, yes silent, French-made Zero De Conduite ?? In cinematic terms, is it more revolutionary than '66's Blow Up?? Both the latter films have precisely the intellectual gravitas, alienation effects, savagery and excess, and ZdC the subject matter, of If....
It's a stylistic broth, which is fine in itself, but like most broths, contains much warmed-over remains of previous meals.....just like The Sex Pistols....

[GRAEME]

Originally Posted by penfold Hello!! It's about revolution, yes, but does that make it revolutionary itself ? Is it really any more scathing about Public Schools than the St Trinians films ?? Let alone the silent, yes silent, French-made Zero De Conduite ?? In cinematic terms, is it more revolutionary than '66's Blow Up?? Both the latter films have precisely the intellectual gravitas, alienation effects, savagery and excess, and ZdC the subject matter, of If.... It's a stylistic broth, which is fine in itself, but like most broths, contains much warmed-over remains of previous meals.....just like The Sex Pistols....

Oh, we're at cross purposes here. (Again??? ) I only meant revolutionary in the political sense. The film is agitprop. Upper class English style.

Like most modernism, of which this is a verrrrry late example, it is a dead end stylistically, part of the late sixties surrealist binge of Lester, Python et al. Fun but going nowhere.

No, I think the real value of the movie is in its message and its rage and its sheer style.

If you can't detect more hate per second of movie footage in this film than, er, a St Trinian's movie... then... er...

[penfold]

Originally Posted by GRAEME Oh, we're at cross purposes here. (Again??? ) I only meant revolutionary in the political sense. The film is agitprop. Upper class English style. If you can't detect more hate per second of movie footage in this film than, er, a St Trinian's movie... then... er...

I have a problem with "Agitprop. Upper class English style." (And I couldn't have put it better myself).....it's just another intellectual pose, isn't it !!?? At least Fred Kite's dreams of all them wheatfields and ballet in the evenings was a genuine, if wrong, hope for an improvement in his and his fellow workers' conditions....

When referring to The St.Trinians films, I was of course, if you reread my post, referring to the satire aspect....hatred?? try Unman Wittering and Zygo. Yes, the film was 1971., but the TV and radio plays were 1965.....