Introduction: ‘persona non grata’

Abstract

This special issue of the Journal of British Cinema and Television started out with the intention of devoting itself to the young postwar generation of British cineastes who paved the way for the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave. It was to have included articles on Gavin Lambert, an important critical voice in British film culture of the 1950s, who was one of the co-editors of Sequence and subsequently brought new life to Sight and Sound, and on Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson and Lindsay Anderson. But as we went forward with the articles that were proposed and then completed, the latter figure dominated to such a degree that our special issue ended up becoming – to borrow the title of a memoir that Gavin Lambert (2000) wrote of his friend’s life –mainly about Lindsay Anderson. That this is so cannot be regretted in the twentieth anniversary year of Anderson’s death, but also reflects a truth about the pre-eminent role that Anderson played in the development of the group’s attitude. Although in practical terms Tony Richardson’s success with Woodfall Films brought the British New Wave to prominence, it was Anderson who first planted the seeds for a Free Cinema movement, gave most thought to what it stood for, and showed the most concern to articulate its ideals long after the movement had disbanded. Lindsay Anderson would probably have greeted the news that an academic journal was dedicating a special issue to him with a mixture of wry amusement and foreboding. Of his many dislikes, academics came very close to the top of the list. It was a world, he once wrote, ‘busily engaged in disappearing up its own backside, with critics