Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, David Wood, Robert Swann, Peter Jeffrey
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Oscar History: No nominations, but it did win the Palme d'Or
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars
Sometimes Palme d'Or winners take on their own life, becoming instant classics that are talked about in gushing circles for decades to come. Other times, they feel inconsequential, largely forgotten or the sort of movie when you're listing the winners that not only have you not seen, you've also not heard of it. if... our movie review for today, is somewhere in-between. This is not MASH or Pulp Fiction, an English-language movie that changed the cultural landscape to the point we still discuss it, but it was a hugely influential picture, one of the major films of the 1960's counterculture, in many ways as important at the time as landmark films like Blowup. The film put Malcolm McDowell on the map, and indeed got him the role of Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange that would make him a legend. But what is if..., a movie that I had seen on lists but had no clue what it was actually about until I recently scurried to watch it before it disappeared off of the Criterion Channel? Let's find out.
(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place at a school in the 1960's, one where the students live at the school rather than return home at the end of the day (I believe in Britain this is referred to as a "public school," which has a completely different meaning in the United States, hence why I'm providing a definition). Mick (McDowell), Wallace (Warwick), and Johnny (Wood) are three men who are in their penultimate year at the school, and are thus one rung below the authority prefects, headed by Rowntree (Swann), who has an obsession with his role in authority, and is indeed given an enormous amount of leeway from the staff, who appear powerless compared to the prefects. After Rowntree decides to teach the three younger students a lesson, they rebel against him at the Founders' Day celebration, and Mick, Wallace, Johnny, and Mick's girlfriend (simply known in the film as "The Girl," played by Noonan) begin to shoot people fleeing the celebration after they set off a smoke bomb in the school hall.
The film is shocking, as are frequently a lot of the best-made counterculture films. The sex and violence, completely unthinkable just a few years prior to if... being released, is groundbreaking and bold. This film, considering its ending, certainly could not be made or shown widely today, particularly considering the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. The film's sexual politics are also ones we wouldn't see today. There's a scene where Mick kisses "the Girl" without her permission, and then in a fantasy sequence they wrestle, and the prefects force the junior students to essentially be their slaves, and frequently make sexual innuendos about them. Combined with a general sense of rebellion against authority, if... is a movie that intends to announce itself, and it's not hard to see why Cannes took notice.
That's because if... is a masterpiece. If you can move past some of the realism, particularly in regard to gun violence, what's here is a fresh film and one that clearly influenced a number of filmmaker's in the years that followed (particularly Stanley Kubrick). It's anchored by a wonderful star turn from McDowell, menacing and involved with this character in a way that few other actors would be able to be, but truly it's Anderson in the director's chair who takes this film to another level. The sporadic use of black-and-white, the great use of close, medium, and long shots, the way that it puts social commentary squarely in its center but also can feel universally about the rebellion of youth some fifty years after the fact...that's difficult to achieve in a movie. if... isn't well-remembered today, but it should be-this is innovative, provocative cinema.
(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place at a school in the 1960's, one where the students live at the school rather than return home at the end of the day (I believe in Britain this is referred to as a "public school," which has a completely different meaning in the United States, hence why I'm providing a definition). Mick (McDowell), Wallace (Warwick), and Johnny (Wood) are three men who are in their penultimate year at the school, and are thus one rung below the authority prefects, headed by Rowntree (Swann), who has an obsession with his role in authority, and is indeed given an enormous amount of leeway from the staff, who appear powerless compared to the prefects. After Rowntree decides to teach the three younger students a lesson, they rebel against him at the Founders' Day celebration, and Mick, Wallace, Johnny, and Mick's girlfriend (simply known in the film as "The Girl," played by Noonan) begin to shoot people fleeing the celebration after they set off a smoke bomb in the school hall.
The film is shocking, as are frequently a lot of the best-made counterculture films. The sex and violence, completely unthinkable just a few years prior to if... being released, is groundbreaking and bold. This film, considering its ending, certainly could not be made or shown widely today, particularly considering the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. The film's sexual politics are also ones we wouldn't see today. There's a scene where Mick kisses "the Girl" without her permission, and then in a fantasy sequence they wrestle, and the prefects force the junior students to essentially be their slaves, and frequently make sexual innuendos about them. Combined with a general sense of rebellion against authority, if... is a movie that intends to announce itself, and it's not hard to see why Cannes took notice.
That's because if... is a masterpiece. If you can move past some of the realism, particularly in regard to gun violence, what's here is a fresh film and one that clearly influenced a number of filmmaker's in the years that followed (particularly Stanley Kubrick). It's anchored by a wonderful star turn from McDowell, menacing and involved with this character in a way that few other actors would be able to be, but truly it's Anderson in the director's chair who takes this film to another level. The sporadic use of black-and-white, the great use of close, medium, and long shots, the way that it puts social commentary squarely in its center but also can feel universally about the rebellion of youth some fifty years after the fact...that's difficult to achieve in a movie. if... isn't well-remembered today, but it should be-this is innovative, provocative cinema.
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