What do you know about Free Cinema? Not much, Lindsay Anderson would presume, as he and his group of british outsider filmmakers put on screenings of their films in the 50’s and did not set the world on fire like they hoped. Some of his cohorts would make the biggest films of the kitchen-sink genre that followed in the 60’s: gritty, working-class portraits of modern discontentment in Britain. But while those filmmakers left for Hollywood, Anderson stayed in Britain and produced a truly scandalous takedown of the british school system, “if…”. It won the top prize at Cannes whilst being denounced by the UK’s ambassador to France, and it began the career of a young phenom, Malcolm McDowell.

We talk about how the film combines the naturalism of 60’s/70’s filmmaking with the surreal, the way real world trends informed how homosexuality is depicted in the film, and other stand-out boarding school films. 

Next week: Theorem (1968) by Pier Paolo Pasolini

UnauthorizedPod.com for more. Hosted by Zachary Domes and J Brooks Young. Music by hetchy