Lindsay Anderson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lindsay Anderson
Born	Lindsay Gordon Anderson (1923-04-17)17 April 1923 Bangalore, British India
Died	30 August 1994(1994-08-30) (aged 71) Angoulême, France
Education	Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire
Alma mater	Wadham College, Oxford
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1948–1993

Lindsay Gordon Anderson (born April 17, 1923 – died August 30, 1994) was a famous British film director. He made movies for cinemas, plays for the theatre, and documentary films. He was also a film critic, meaning he wrote reviews and opinions about movies.

Anderson was a key person in two important film movements: Free Cinema and the British New Wave. He is best known for his 1968 film if..... This movie won the top prize, the Palme d'Or, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969. It was also the first big movie role for actor Malcolm McDowell. Anderson also had a small acting part in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire in 1981.

Growing Up

Lindsay Gordon Anderson was born in Bangalore, South India, on April 17, 1923. His father, Alexander Vass Anderson, was a British Army officer. His mother, Estelle Bell Gasson, was from South Africa.

Lindsay's parents separated when he was young. His mother took him and his older brother, Murray, back to England.

Both Lindsay and Murray went to Saint Ronan's School and Cheltenham College. At Cheltenham, Lindsay met Gavin Lambert, who became his lifelong friend and later wrote a book about him. In 1942, Lindsay won a scholarship to study classical subjects at Wadham College, Oxford at the University of Oxford.

Lindsay served in the Army from 1943 to 1946. He worked as a cryptographer (someone who decodes secret messages) for the Intelligence Corps in Delhi, India. After the war, he returned to Oxford in 1946. He changed his studies from classical subjects to English and graduated in 1948.

His Work

Film Critic

Before he started making many films, Anderson was an important film critic. He helped start a magazine called Sequence (1947–52). He also wrote for other well-known magazines like Sight and Sound and the New Statesman.

Anderson believed that film critics should be honest and not pretend to be completely neutral. He thought they should share their true feelings and opinions about movies.

He also believed that British films needed to show more of real life. He wanted to see stories about ordinary people and places outside of big cities. This idea became known as the Free Cinema movement in the late 1950s. He started making his own short films in 1948, beginning with Meet the Pioneers, a documentary about a factory.

Filmmaking

Lindsay Anderson, along with other directors like Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson, received money to make short documentaries. One of Anderson's early short films was Thursday's Children (1954). This film was about how deaf children were educated. It won an Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 1954.

These early films showed real life in Britain. They helped lead to a style of filmmaking called "social realism" in the 1960s. This style focused on showing everyday life and struggles. Anderson's film This Sporting Life (1963) was an example of this.

Anderson is perhaps most famous for his "Mick Travis trilogy" of films. All three movies star Malcolm McDowell as the main character, Mick Travis:

• if.... (1968): A film that makes fun of strict private schools.
• O Lucky Man! (1973): A long adventure movie inspired by an old story called Pilgrim's Progress.
• Britannia Hospital (1982): A wild and imaginative film set in a hospital.

In 1981, Anderson also acted in the film Chariots of Fire. He played the role of the Master of Caius College at Cambridge University.

Anderson also wrote a book about the famous American director John Ford. The book, About John Ford (1983), is considered one of the best books written by a filmmaker about another filmmaker.

In 1985, Anderson made a documentary called Foreign Skies: Wham! In China. It was about the pop group Wham! visiting China. This was one of the first times Western pop artists visited the country. In 1986, he was part of the jury at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival.

Anderson was also a very important theatre director in Britain. He worked for many years at London's Royal Court Theatre. He directed many new plays there, including some by David Storey.

In 1992, Anderson made an autobiographical film for the BBC called Is That All There Is?. It included a touching scene with a boat trip down the River Thames.

Two of Anderson's documentary short films, O Dreamland (1956) and Every Day Except Christmas (1957), are considered classics. Every Day Except Christmas shows a day in the old Covent Garden market in London.

Death

Lindsay Anderson died from a heart attack on August 30, 1994. He was 71 years old.

Theatre Productions

Here are some of the plays Lindsay Anderson directed, mostly at the Royal Court Theatre in London:

• The Waiting of Lester Abbs (1957)
• The Long and the Short and the Tall (1959)
• Progress to the Park (1959)
• Serjeant Musgrave's Dance (1959)
• Diary of a Madman (1963)
• Julius Caesar (1964)
• Andorra (1964)
• The Cherry Orchard (1966, 1983)
• The Contractor (1969)
• Home (1970)
• The Changing Room (1971)
• What the Butler Saw (1975)
• The Seagull (1975)
• Early Days (1980)
• Holiday (1987)
• The March on Russia (1989)

Filmography

Films

Television

Documentary Short Films

Acting Roles

See also

• Kitchen sink realism

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