Mainly About Lindsay Anderson - Hardcover

Lambert, Gavin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679445986 ISBN 13: 9780679445982

Publisher: Knopf, 2000

Synopsis

Lindsay Anderson was the most original British filmmaker and theatrical director of his generation. His films If . . . , O Lucky Man!, and Britannia Hospital created a Human Comedy of life in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century and were witty, daring, and often prophetic. This Sporting Life and O Lucky Man! made Richard Harris and Malcolm McDowell international stars; The Whales of August provided Lillian Gish, Bette Davis, and Ann Sothern the opportunity to give extraordinary farewell performances.

He also directed notable documentaries in several countries: in Britain, the Academy Award-winning Thursday's Children, about a school for deaf-mute children; in Poland, The Singing Lesson, a personal impression of a group of students at a drama school. In China, he recorded the 1985 concert tour by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley of WHAM!

As a theatre director he collaborated with playwright David Storey on a series of successes (The Contractor, The Changing Room, In Celebration, Home), and he worked with such actors as John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Alan Bates, Albert Finney, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole, Joan Plowright, and Rachel Roberts.

Anderson was, as well, an outspoken and sometimes ferocious critic of British films--and of Britain itself. He was the author of the most important and acclaimed book on John Ford. And he was one of Gavin Lambert's closest friends for more than fifty years.

Lambert's book begins with his and Anderson's days as movie-struck schoolboys, becoming fast friends, growing up in the shadow of World War II. He shows us their postwar creation of and collaboration on the influential magazine Sequence--a magazine that was produced on love and a shoestring, and which shook up the British film world with its admiration for both Hollywood noir and MGM musicals (at the time unfashionable genres) and its celebration of such directors as Ford, Buñuel, Cocteau, Vigo, and Sturges.

He describes how both men rebelled in opposite directions--Anderson remaining in England, Lambert leaving in 1958 for Los Angeles--and traces their unorthodox paths through the film industry.

An illuminating, multifaceted portrait--of a friendship, of postwar moviemaking on both sides of the Atlantic, and, mainly, of the remarkable Lindsay Anderson.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

A beautifully written, thoughtful meditation on art, politics, and sexuality. Writing as much about himself as his friend, Lambert has crafted a pungent, tell-nearly-all biography/memoir that deftly elucidates Anderson's troubled personal life and the genesis of his art . . . Along the way, [Lambert] gives us a perceptive study of the psychology of artists, a history of an exciting time in British filmmaking and a fine explication of Anderson's work."
-- Publishers Weekly

About the Author:

Gavin Lambert is the author of seven novels, among them The Slide Area and The Goodby People; five works of nonfiction, including Nazimova, Norma Shearer, GWTW: The Making of "Gone With the Wind," and On Cukor; and many screenplays, among them The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Inside Daisy Clover, and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Gavin Lambert lived in Tangier for fourteen years and now resides in Los Angeles.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0679445986
• ISBN 13: 9780679445982
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384