Sightlines · reception
How if.... was received
1968 · Lindsay Anderson · if.... on Sightlines
The arc
Landed like a grenade in 1968 — denounced by parts of the British establishment as an insult to the nation, then promptly won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1969. Now it's untouchable: the BFI ranked it among the greatest British films ever made.
What’s debated
Fans still argue over where the film's reality ends and its fantasy begins — Anderson refused to draw the line, and every rewatch thread relitigates it.
Its footprint
It's the definitive cinematic artifact of 1968 rebellion, endlessly invoked whenever cinema takes aim at British institutions, and the launchpad of Malcolm McDowell's whole screen persona — his Mick Travis returned in Anderson's O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital.
Where it stands
A pillar of the British canon and a perennial cult object — the film angry, clever teenagers have been handed as a rite of passage for over fifty years.
Did you know? It was Malcolm McDowell's film debut — and Stanley Kubrick cast him as Alex in A Clockwork Orange on the strength of seeing him in it.
Named by the director
- Zéro de conduite (1933) — Anderson openly acknowledged Jean Vigo's anarchic boarding-school revolt as the model and inspiration for if....
- Jean Vigo — Anderson cited Vigo's poetic anarchism as the guiding spirit behind the film's rebellion against school and establishment.