The Struggle for History: Lindsay Anderson Teaches Free Cinema

In spring 1986, Lindsay Anderson appeared in a television programme on British cinema. This was part of a series of three under the heading British Cinema: Personal View, produced by Thames Television. Anderson's contribution, Free Cinema 1956–? An Essay on Film by Lindsay Anderson, was written and directed by him. He was also the star of the programme, providing a lecture on the history of British cinema with himself at the very core, although, at the time of the production, Anderson's career was in decline and he was not involved in any film projects. Drawing on press materials, the programme itself and Anderson's personal papers in the University of Stirling library, this article analyses Anderson's personal conception of Free Cinema – according to his understanding, a short-lived documentary movement in the 1950s which eventually transformed itself into a series of feature films in the ensuing decades, particularly his own trilogy If…. (1968), O Lucky Man! (1973) and Britannia Hospital (1982). The polemic in the programme was particularly aimed at the general idea of the British Film Year of 1985 and at the successful film producer David Puttnam, at the time well known for his contribution to what was sometimes called the ‘New British Cinema’ of the 1980s. Anderson, however, dismissed Puttnam as a film-maker concerned only with Oscars and economic success, and instead lauded the qualities of ‘Free Cinema’, a realist, non-conformist and radical aesthetic, as the most artistically rewarding tradition in British cinema. The programme was highly entertaining and was generally well received by the British press, but did not really strengthen Anderson's position within the British film industry, which might, or might not, have been Anderson's intention.