‘If’: The controversial British classic that inspired Richard Linklater: “It’s a radical, radical work”
There’s no law against American filmmakers who make distinctly American films drawing their influences from outside their own borders, with Richard Linklater viewing a controversial and contentious British classic as a touchstone that will never be dislodged as one of his favourites.
Famed for a naturalism that deliberately flirts with realism and a preference for exploring the unsung everyday stories that occur in all walks of life, Linklater has built his career on balancing independent spirit with populist style to deftly toe the line between art and commerce.
Alongside Steven Soderbergh, he’s one of his generation’s most famed purveyors of the ‘one for me, one for them’ mindset, alternating between the wide-ranging appeal of movies like Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, and Hit Man to his more intimate, experimental, and personal passion projects.
With that in mind, a satirical drama set in the British educational system that ruffled so many feathers it ended up being slapped with an X-rating for its unflinching depictions of violence and incendiary subject matter doesn’t leap out as an obvious inspiration, but Lindsay Anderson’s If… was immediately burned into Linklater’s brain as a feature he simply couldn’t shake.
“If… is truly stunning, and it’s a radical, radical work,” he told A.Frame. “It’s funny and satirical, and Brechtian, and so real and surreal at the same time.” Star Malcolm McDowell belied his status as a first-time screen actor with a searing performance as Mick Travis, a performance so good it convinced Stanley Kubrick he’d found the perfect leading man for his in-development adaptation of A Clockwork Orange.
The actor’s rebellious teen returns to his upper-crust educational surroundings, only to be drawn into a battle for power between students and teachers that incorporates theft, discipline, arson, and firearms, with the establishment torn down in both a figurative and literal sense.
For Linklater, it was “a film that I loved so much when I was first getting into film,” and one he showed his own children, hopefully when they were at an appropriate enough age to be exposed to its prickly subject matter. It hasn’t lost any of its power, though, with the five-time Academy Award nominee acknowledging that at its core, the themes and subtext of If… remain as resonant as ever.
“I saw how my youngsters are affected by it to this day,” he reflected. “It’s a really beautiful, radical film that should never be forgotten.” It was a hot topic of conversation among the public and censors in 1968, but once the dust had settled, If… was free to take its place as a classic, one of the greatest British films of its era, and the winner of the Palme d’Or at the following year’s Cannes Film Festival.
