The only director Malcolm McDowell saw as Stanley Kubrick’s equal: “Certainly on a par”
To many, Malcolm McDowell will always be closely associated with Stanley Kubrick. The English actor’s best-known role is that of Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick’s take on the ultraviolent world of Anthony Burgess’ novel. As the leader of a sadistic, ruthless gang of ‘droogs’, Alex is the pinnacle of a dystopian near-future, one where individualism and self-fulfilment have been pushed to extreme levels. McDowell plays the charismatic criminal to perfection, and his performance is still untouchable over half a century on from the film’s initial release.
After A Clockwork Orange’s success, McDowell was given the chance to work with more visionary minds. He’s appeared in Robert Altman’s The Player, Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral, and Tinto Brass’ insane Roman orgy Caligula. However, according to a conversation the actor had with Movieline, one name stands head and shoulders above the rest.
“Lindsay Anderson is one of the greatest directors I ever worked with – certainly on par with Kubrick,” he said. “He was a genius, to me. If…., O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital are three absolutely great movies that should be seen by anyone who’s even vaguely interested in film.”
Anderson was an English director best known for being a part of the Free Cinema and British New Wave movements in the 1960s and 70s. His debut film, 1963’s This Sporting Life, was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Canne Film Festival and scored a pair of nominations at the BAFTAs for Best Actor (Richard Harris) and Best Actress (Rachel Roberts).
The first of Anderson’s three collaborations with McDowell was 1968’s If…, a satirical drama sending up the British tradition of public schools. The film marked McDowell’s big-screen debut. He played a character called Mick Travis, a student who attempts to navigate the various pitfalls of the school system whilst trying to get through his penultimate year. If… marked the beginning of a loose trilogy, all of which starred McDowell as Travis. The next movie, O Lucky Man! from 1973, features a new version of the everyman character, this time as a young man struggling to abandon his beliefs in order to achieve success. The finale of the series, 1982’s Britannia Hospital, casts Travis as a journalist investigating the strange activities of a professor at the titular institute.
All three of Anderson’s ‘Mick Travis’ movies were nominated for the Palme d’Or and captured the imaginations of their viewers through their distorted and often disturbing takes on modern British life. If… was given an X-rating for its scenes depicting schoolboys violently beating each other, invoking several controversies that A Clockwork Orange would deal with three years later. The series is still studied and discussed to this day, with many critics eager to point out how little has changed in society since the films’ initial releases.
McDowell was clearly grateful to Anderson, who passed away in 1994, as he created a one-man stage show about the director, Never Apologize. When explaining his motivation behind the project, which was turned into a documentary film in 2007, the actor said, “it broke my heart, because a lot of people didn’t really know who Lindsay Anderson was… He was an amazing man, an amusing man. He could also be very prickly, too; he had a hell of a temper. But it was always fun with him. It was amazing just to be around him and listen to him. He was an incredible guy. Incredible.”
