Abstract
In August 1977, the British Film Institute (BFI) programmed the first comprehensive retrospective of Lindsay Anderson’s films at the National Film Theatre (NFT) in London. On that occasion, the filmmaker was given the opportunity to prepare a special display about his life, career, and work in the foyer of the NFT. One of the very visible artefacts of the exhibition was a poster, hand-written by Anderson himself, which read: “The artist must bite the hand that feeds him” (Fig. 11.1). This provocative statement is not only rather symptomatic of the film-maker’s lifelong mistrust of institutions in general, but it is also relevant to the story of the complex, at times productive, but often problematic and increasingly frustrated relationship between Anderson and the BFI, from the immediate post-war period to the film-maker’s death in 1994.
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Notes
- 1.
Cyril J. Radcliffe (1948) Report of the Committee on the British Film Institute: Presented by the Lord President of the Council to Parliament by Command of His Majesty (London: HMSO).
- 2.
Denis Forman interviewed by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Christophe Dupin for the AHRC History of the BFI Research Project, 22 October 2004.
- 3.
Lindsay Anderson (1951), Editorial, Sequence, #10, New Year, p. 141.
- 4.
Anderson was working on an article on Hitchcock for Sequence, while Reisz was doing research for his book on film editing. Lindsay Anderson interviewed by Norman Swallow, BECTU Oral History Project.
- 5.
David Robinson (2003), ‘Karel Reisz’, Sight & Sound, January, p. 3.
- 6.
At the invitation of Gavin Lambert, Anderson also wrote the draft of a small book on John Ford, as part of the BFI’s ‘Index’ series. Although the publication of the book was officially announced in 1955, severe financial cuts at the Institute in the mid-1950s prevented its completion, which is likely to have irritated Anderson at the time. This draft would later form the nucleus of his book About John Ford, London: Plexus, 1981.
- 7.
Gavin Lambert (1956), ‘Free Cinema’, Sight & Sound, Spring, pp. 173–177.
- 8.
For instance in Lindsay Anderson (1948), ‘A Possible Solution’, Sequence 3, Spring.
- 9.
The exhibition was modelled on a similar one curated by Henri Langlois at the Cinémathèque française in Paris the previous year.
- 10.
Penelope Houston interviewed by Christophe Dupin and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith for the AHRC History of the BFI Research Project, 21 July 2006.
- 11.
‘Angry Young Man Turns Up at the Royal Film Show in His Pullover’, Daily Mail, 16 October 2017.
- 12.
Letter from Lindsay Anderson to Brian McFarlane, 13 March 1986, The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
- 13.
Letter from Lindsay Anderson to Penelope Houston, 6 October 1961. BFI Paper Archive.
- 14.
Letter from Penelope Houston to Sir William Coldstream [BFI Chairman], 5 June 1970, BFI Paper Archive.
- 15.
Lindsay Anderson, ‘Artistic and Creative Standards of the Institute and National Film Theatre; Publishing Department, National Film Theatre; John Players Lectures, etc’, Paper no 2a) of the 397th meeting of the BFI’s Board of Governors, 21 April 1970, BFI Paper Archive.
- 16.
A number of NFT seasons in that period were programmed in partnership with national film agencies, in particular from Eastern Europe, as it was the easiest way for the NFT to obtain prints of films not distributed in the UK.
- 17.
Anderson’s own annotated copy of Houston’s report, kept in The Lindsay Anderson Archive at the University of Stirling, confirms how clearly annoyed he was by her response.
- 18.
Copy of a letter from Mr. Hoellering to the BFI Chairman, 21 April 1970, appendix to the Minutes of the 399th Meeting of the BFI Board of Governors, The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
- 19.
The Times, 12 October 1970.
- 20.
Penelope Houston (1972), ‘O Lucky Man…’, memorandum to BFI Director Stanley Reed, 26 April, BFI Paper Archive.
- 21.
David Wilson (1973), ‘O Lucky Man’, Sight & Sound, 42: 3, Summer, pp. 126–129, and Tom Milne (1973), ‘O Lucky Man’, Monthly Film Bulletin, vol.40 no. 473, June, pp. 128–129.
- 22.
Letter from Lindsay Anderson to Penelope Houston, 1 May 1974, The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
- 23.
Lindsay Anderson interview (1976), Roughcut, no. 1, Summer issue, pp. 13–18.
- 24.
Lindsay Anderson (1976), ‘Our Film Disgrace’, The Sunday Times, 1 August.
- 25.
Letter from Penelope Houston to Lindsay Anderson, 16 March 1982, BFI Paper Archive.
- 26.
Letter from Lindsay Anderson to Penelope Houston, 19 March 1982, BFI Paper Archive.
- 27.
Chris Auty (1982), ‘England’s Fault or Anderson’s?’, Sight & Sound, Summer, pp. 205–206, and Richard Combs, ‘Britannia Hospital’, Monthly Film Bulletin, pp. 104–105.
- 28.
Letter from Lindsay Anderson to Brian McFarlane, 18 July 1985, The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
- 29.
Letter from Lindsay Anderson to Gavin Lambert, 6 March 1986, The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
- 30.
Letter from Ed Buscombe to Lindsay Anderson, 4 March 1986, The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
- 31.
Pam Cook (ed.) (1985), The Cinema Book, London: BFI.
- 32.
Letter from Lindsay Anderson to Brian McFarlane, 13 March 1986, The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
- 33.
Letter from Lindsay Anderson to Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, 27 February 1986, The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
- 34.
Letter from Lindsay Anderson to Gavin Lambert, 6 March 1986, The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
- 35.
Gerald Pratley (1989), ‘35 Days in Toronto’, Sight & Sound, Spring, pp. 94–96; Lindsay Anderson (1990), ‘Mary Astor’, Sight & Sound, Autumn, pp. 237–239.
- 36.
Bernard Kops (1992), ‘A Compassion for Faces’, Sight & Sound, May, pp. 36–37, and Lindsay Anderson (1992), Letter to the Editor, Sight & Sound, July, p. 63.
- 37.
In a letter to Gavin Lambert on 18 March 1992, he evoked a recent friendly reunion lunch organised by (now Sir) Denis Forman for Penelope Houston’s retirement, and which he, Karel Reisz and Leslie Hardcastle attended. The Lindsay Anderson Archive, University of Stirling.
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Dupin, C. (2016). The Auteur vs. the Institution: The Tempestuous Relationship Between Lindsay Anderson and the BFI, 1949–1994. In: Hedling, E., Dupin, C. (eds) Lindsay Anderson Revisited. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53943-4_11
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