A cracking read - haven't seen the film , but will do so now. Your conversation about sport at school made me think about Logan Mountstuart in William Boyd's novel 'Any Human Heart' when as a schoolboy who loathes sport, he makes sure he's a wide fielder in cricket so he can be left alone to look at the sky instead.
And p.s. It's not that I hate 'sport' or games, as such. I very much enjoyed fencing, shooting and sculling. It's more the hearty, team games stuff. The macho 'having a bath together' after the Rugby. The he-man songs... the horror. Being shouted at, 'cos I was off side or down side. 'Well done that Man!' All that stuff...
And agree about the fencing - I've never tried it but it has an elegance and panache. Have heard of eye-watering rugby 'initiation' tasks, and that in itself is a horror! All the more reason to like Logan Mountstuart!
Good news. The whole point of WEEKEND FLICKS. is to share the love. To get readers to explore new stuff. I love that Boyd book by the way. And yes, it was very much a case of running AWAY from the ball during the dreaded Rugby, or 'Rugger' as the old buffers would call it. Or 'Football' as it was called at Cheltenham. I was at some Gloucestershire 'hearty' dinner party the other day. And there was this dreary conversation along the lines of 'What team do you support, Luke?' - in the Five Nations or whatever it is called? And it was very much a case of 'I don't'... I hate Rugby'. That one didn't go down at all well. Weirdo, suspect guest... Suddenly, Cheltenham came flooding back. 'Twickers'. God, can't think of anything worse.
Always enjoy the use of the word 'buffers'. All that private school stuff (with hearty sport etc) as someone who went to the local comp, seems other-worldly to me and constantly fascinating - but I think this is probably due to Malory Towers/Brideshead fiction absorbed over the years; no doubt a midnight feast in the dormitory is miles away from the reality of the freezing rugger field and getting knocked about in the horrid scrum!
LOL. That made me laugh. No midnight feasts! Much more likely an entire dustbin of water chucked over your bed in the middle of night. Or a firework rammed up your backside. Jolly japes. That sort of thing.
Ha! Oh my god. And no doubt up until 10 years ago or so the teachers probably just ignored all this and called it 'character building'. Hilarious, unless of course it's happening to you!
"A handy alternative to wanking" - very good. Cheltenham sounds even worse than Radley, where I was 1978-83. Unlike you, I have not the slightest nostalgia for my time there.
It’s a great film. I remember buying the book too - really the script - back in 1968. My understanding, BTW, was that the black-and-white sequences arose from the fact that they ran out of money for colour stock, which was pretty expensive back then…. any thoughts, incidentally, on the relationship between this and ‘O Lucky Man’, which I also love?
Apparently not. Anderson said in an interview that it was because they would have had to shot the chapel scenes with over grainy fast high speed colour film, which he didn’t like. The solution was to use black and white- which at the same time worked well in a surreal context.
I made a point of seeing this during its brief American tour - it was an interesting indirect accompaniment to the very much more American "Wild in the Streets" which also focused on youthful rebellion carried to extremes. Even then I felt that the British some how did satire better than the Americans (and still do) and even I realized that "If" was satire. But the whole Public School system was fascinating to an American who had just escaped from our American public school i.e. state school system. I've since come to know a number of products of America's equivalent prep schools and it's still a quiet but firm "no, thank you". But George McDonald Fraser's Flashman books led to reading Tom Brown's School days and then to a number of other books associated with the school boy experience (even Kipling's Puck of Popk's Hill). But back to "If" - If found it entertaining and I confess I enjoyed the even then somewhat bizarre sight of Sten guns and Bren guns on the school roof.
Yes, thanks for pointing this out. In America, public school = state school, in England, 'public' school = private school, and 'prep' school is the private school you go to 'prepare' you for the public school before hand. In England, historically, the 'public' schools were called that because they were open to all, if you could pay the fees.
Somewhere I read Malcolm McDowell calling this the one “pure” performance in all his film work. And it’s just so full of other great performances and direction. Even the Kipling-tweaking title: hilarious genius.
All I can say is I was Radley 76-80; but I have always wondered what on earth this film means to someone who “wasn’t there”!
A cracking read - haven't seen the film , but will do so now. Your conversation about sport at school made me think about Logan Mountstuart in William Boyd's novel 'Any Human Heart' when as a schoolboy who loathes sport, he makes sure he's a wide fielder in cricket so he can be left alone to look at the sky instead.
And p.s. It's not that I hate 'sport' or games, as such. I very much enjoyed fencing, shooting and sculling. It's more the hearty, team games stuff. The macho 'having a bath together' after the Rugby. The he-man songs... the horror. Being shouted at, 'cos I was off side or down side. 'Well done that Man!' All that stuff...
And agree about the fencing - I've never tried it but it has an elegance and panache. Have heard of eye-watering rugby 'initiation' tasks, and that in itself is a horror! All the more reason to like Logan Mountstuart!
Good news. The whole point of WEEKEND FLICKS. is to share the love. To get readers to explore new stuff. I love that Boyd book by the way. And yes, it was very much a case of running AWAY from the ball during the dreaded Rugby, or 'Rugger' as the old buffers would call it. Or 'Football' as it was called at Cheltenham. I was at some Gloucestershire 'hearty' dinner party the other day. And there was this dreary conversation along the lines of 'What team do you support, Luke?' - in the Five Nations or whatever it is called? And it was very much a case of 'I don't'... I hate Rugby'. That one didn't go down at all well. Weirdo, suspect guest... Suddenly, Cheltenham came flooding back. 'Twickers'. God, can't think of anything worse.
Always enjoy the use of the word 'buffers'. All that private school stuff (with hearty sport etc) as someone who went to the local comp, seems other-worldly to me and constantly fascinating - but I think this is probably due to Malory Towers/Brideshead fiction absorbed over the years; no doubt a midnight feast in the dormitory is miles away from the reality of the freezing rugger field and getting knocked about in the horrid scrum!
LOL. That made me laugh. No midnight feasts! Much more likely an entire dustbin of water chucked over your bed in the middle of night. Or a firework rammed up your backside. Jolly japes. That sort of thing.
Ha! Oh my god. And no doubt up until 10 years ago or so the teachers probably just ignored all this and called it 'character building'. Hilarious, unless of course it's happening to you!
"A handy alternative to wanking" - very good. Cheltenham sounds even worse than Radley, where I was 1978-83. Unlike you, I have not the slightest nostalgia for my time there.
It’s a great film. I remember buying the book too - really the script - back in 1968. My understanding, BTW, was that the black-and-white sequences arose from the fact that they ran out of money for colour stock, which was pretty expensive back then…. any thoughts, incidentally, on the relationship between this and ‘O Lucky Man’, which I also love?
Apparently not. Anderson said in an interview that it was because they would have had to shot the chapel scenes with over grainy fast high speed colour film, which he didn’t like. The solution was to use black and white- which at the same time worked well in a surreal context.
I made a point of seeing this during its brief American tour - it was an interesting indirect accompaniment to the very much more American "Wild in the Streets" which also focused on youthful rebellion carried to extremes. Even then I felt that the British some how did satire better than the Americans (and still do) and even I realized that "If" was satire. But the whole Public School system was fascinating to an American who had just escaped from our American public school i.e. state school system. I've since come to know a number of products of America's equivalent prep schools and it's still a quiet but firm "no, thank you". But George McDonald Fraser's Flashman books led to reading Tom Brown's School days and then to a number of other books associated with the school boy experience (even Kipling's Puck of Popk's Hill). But back to "If" - If found it entertaining and I confess I enjoyed the even then somewhat bizarre sight of Sten guns and Bren guns on the school roof.
Yes, thanks for pointing this out. In America, public school = state school, in England, 'public' school = private school, and 'prep' school is the private school you go to 'prepare' you for the public school before hand. In England, historically, the 'public' schools were called that because they were open to all, if you could pay the fees.
Somewhere I read Malcolm McDowell calling this the one “pure” performance in all his film work. And it’s just so full of other great performances and direction. Even the Kipling-tweaking title: hilarious genius.
It’s not ‘Markland’, it’s ’Machin’. And I should know!
Wot?!
The quote at the top of your piece…