Tuesday 11 May 2010

New publication on Lindsay Anderson and O Lucky Man!

Another output from the 'Cinema Authorship of Lindsay Anderson' team here at Stirling University - a chapter in Don't Look Now, a new book published this month by Intellect Ltd. The book investigates film and television culture in the 1970s. Besides being very interesting anyway, and a beautiful looking book, I can highly recommend this book as it contains a chapter by our team here at Stirling ‘What is there to smile at?’ Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man!, by John Izod, Karl Magee, Kathryn Mackenzie and Isabelle Gourdin-Sangouard. As with all of our work it is based in research conducted in the material held in the Lindsay Anderson Archive at the University of Stirling.



I've enclosed the synopsis for the book below:

"While postwar British cinema and the British new wave have received much scholarly attention, the misunderstood period of the 1970s has been comparatively ignored. Don’t Look Now uncovers forgotten but richly rewarding films, including Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now and the films of Lindsay Anderson and Barney Platts-Mills. This volume offers insight into the careers of important film-makers and sheds light on the genres of experimental film, horror, and rock and punk films, as well as representations of the black community, shifts in gender politics, and adaptations of television comedies. The contributors ask searching questions about the nature of British film culture and its relationship to popular culture, television, and the cultural underground."

Here are some reviews of the book:

'The essays in this highly stimulating collection reveal, clearly and persuasively, just how diverse, energetic and imaginative British cinematic creativity was during this rather maligned decade... In shining a bright light into one of the remaining dark corners in British cinema history Don’t Look Now is a welcome and extremely valuable contribution to the field.' – Professor Duncan Petrie, University of York

'Long overdue for a closer look, this volume provides a comprehensive, wide-ranging and stimulating range of new scholarship on British cinema and television in the 1970s. ' – Professor Sarah Street, University of Bristol

3 comments:

  1. Hi Kathryn,

    At the Orkney Archive we have a few letters which were sent from Lindsay Anderson to Margaret Tait. Do you know if there is any Margaret Tait material in the Lindsay Anderson Archive?

    Congratulations on the book, it looks great!

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  2. Hello,

    Yes, Sarah Neely had mentioned to me that there were letters from Anderson to Margaret Tait - it's amazing how all these connections come together. I love Margaret Tait's work so I was really excited to hear about this. If I'm up in Orkney again I'd love to come by and see them.

    I haven't come across anything yet but that's not surprising as I've been cataloguing material that is categorised by the film, journal or television programme that Anderson was working on. I am now working on the A-Z correspondence files, currently on the letters 'P and Q', so if I find anything when I reach'T' I'll let you know. Certainly there's been nothing so far but the most likely place would be in these files.

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