
if.... is a 1968 British drama film produced and directed by Lindsay
Anderson satirising English public school life. Famous for its depiction
of a savage insurrection at a public school or boarding school, the
film is associated with the 1960s counterculture movement because it was
filmed by a long-standing cIounter-culture director at the time of the
student uprisings in Paris in May 1968. It includes controversial
statements, such as: "There's no such thing as a wrong war. Violence and
revolution are the only pure acts". It features surrealist sequences
throughout the film. Upon release in the UK, it received an X
certificate. The film stars Malcolm McDowell in his first screen role
and his first appearance as Anderson's "everyman" character Mick Travis.
Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, David Wood, and Robert Swann also
star, and Rupert Webster is featured as the young boy Bobby Phillips.
if.... won the Palme d'Or at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival. In 2004, the
magazine Total Film named it the sixteenth greatest British film of all
time. The Criterion Collection released the DVD on 19 June 2007.
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(Thanx Stephen!)