If... (film) Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Stephen Farber

Critical Essay by Stephen Farber

[If …'s] first problem for an American audience is its provincial English public-school setting. Director Lindsay Anderson wants us to see the school as a microcosm of English society—an institution dominated by the same hypocritical religion, military brutality and upper class privilege that flourish even more viciously on the outside. But he lingers so long and so intensely on scenes that cannot be considered representative, that take place only in a boys' school … that the connections between school and society become more and more tenuous. The virtue of the film is its specificity. It would be easy to say that the school equals the System, but that is such a bland equation that it is quite unfair to the film's witty detail and rich texture. If … is good enough to resist generalization. Yet perhaps this strength does imply a certain limitation of the film. David Sherwin's dialogue is...
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