Facing the Music in Scripts

Abstract

Students will be quick to recognize the hypocritical Establishment values that this film calls into question. The school in If . . . quite obviously does not fulfill its proper function-to teach rational processes. Consequently, at the end the Headmaster is unable to reason with the rebels: they have not been conditioned by their experience to reason. If . . . vividly documents the view of man as an animal. College House may supposedly be a rational institution, but its inmates, being given the model of sadistic cruelty and perversion, finally react according to their animal passions. The screenplay for If . . features Notes for a Preface (a three-page statement written by Anderson himself), a complete listing of credits and cast, ample illustrations, and a meticulously descriptive script that breaks the film down into individually numbered shots. Although these numbered shots sometimes tend to break the narrative flow and the dialogue as well and therefore somewhat impede easy reading, they also very accurately reconstruct the film in a way that can be illuminating for viewers who perhaps have never been particularly sensitive to the visual organization of a motion picture. And for this technical reason the screenplay of If . . . may be considered a more complete analytical tool than any of the other screenplays so far mentioned. A summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the screenplays reviewed here may now be in order. Obviously none is ideal, but a composite assessment would, I believe, call for: (1) front matter at least comparable to and perhaps surpassing that of the Simon and Schuster Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman; (2) a careful reconstruction of the film's visual development, aided by photographs, as found in the Simon and Schuster If . ..; (3) back matter comparable to the Grove Press/Evergreen The 400 Blows (note also that this back matter includes a listing of Scenes from the Original Scenario Omitted in the Finished Film). In addition I would ask that the ideal published screenplay list a selected and preferably annotated checklist of criticism and reviews. In working up such a checklist on If .. ., for example, I found over forty citations to articles and reviews in British and American periodicals alone, and If . . . is a fairly recent film. Also helpful would be a brief biographical statement for the director concerned and a complete filmography stressing his accomplishments (special awards and the like), after the example of the Simon and Schuster Bergman anthology. But even screenplays that lack many of these features may still be useful in the classroom, as I have found all of those under scrutiny to be.