The images on this website are protected by copyright and may not be used without the permission of the copyright holders.

Lindsay Anderson: A Personal Remembrance by Malcolm McDowell

THOM DIBDIN

Lindsay Anderson: A Personal Remembrance by Malcolm McDowell, ****
Traverse

SOMETIMES the various festivals come together to demonstrate exactly how false and artificial the division between the different art forms is.

Malcolm McDowell, the acclaimed film and theatre actor, reading from various published diaries and books about Lindsay Anderson, director of both film and theatre, was just such an occasion. Film, Fringe and book festivals all came together to create something much more than a show. It was an event.

McDowell is, in his own right, a fascinating talent. Notoriously, he was Alex in A Clockwork Orange. But it was with Lindsay Anderson that he first appeared on the silver screen. McDowell had been a struggling actor at the Royal Court until he auditioned for a role in If..., the 1968 movie about rebellion in a public school, which became a modern classic and caught the zeitgeist of the late 1960s.

Watching the films is one thing. But to see McDowell in the flesh, reminiscing about his work and using his memories to bring one of the great directors of 20th-century Britain to life is really a special experience. Interspersing written stories about Anderson with his own memories of the same incident might have caused the event to overrun, but it certainly gave it depth and passion.

McDowell read Lindsay Anderson’s account of his last meeting with the great American film director, Robert Ford, when Ford was dying of cancer.

And suddenly you understood that this was a man who knew humility. Which is a rare commodity, in any artform.

THOM DIBDIN

back

More Reviews of Lindsay Anderson: A Personal Remembrance by Malcolm McDowell

The Guardian - The Man Who Gave Me A Slap In The Face - by Malcolm McDowell

Evening News - Review of A Personal Remembrance... - by Thom Dibdin

Scotland On Sunday - Celluloid With A Conscience - by Allan Hunter

The Scotsman - O Missed Man - by Alastair Mckay

Independent - If He Could See Me Now - by Sarah Jones

Sunday Herald - Whatever Happened To The Likely Lad - by Chris Lee