Paper published on audience reception to Lindsay Anderson's 'Britannia Hospital', examined through material in the Anderson Archive

Back in May I wrote about a conference I went to in Edinburgh in March, where I presented a paper examining the relationship between Lindsay Anderson and his audiences, based on archival evidence in the Lindsay Anderson Collection relating to Britannia Hospital (1982). The Edinburgh International Film Audiences Conference was organised by Ailsa Hollinshead, Lecturer in Sociology at Edinburgh Napier University. A selection of papers from the conference have now been published in the online film journal Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies.

Well, I'm pleased to say that the paper which I presented, which I co-authored with Karl Magee (with thanks to John Izod and Isabelle Gourdin-Sangouard for their help) is part of the selection of papers published in Volume 6 of the journal. I really enjoyed the conference and thought all the papers were really interesting so it was great to get the chance to re-read some of them in the journal.

I've included the abstract from our article below and you can read the article here:

Britannia Hospital was the final part of a trilogy of films directed by Lindsay Anderson which started so successfully with If…. in 1968 and continued with O Lucky Man in 1973. However, Britannia Hospital, released in 1982, was condemned by the critics and largely ignored by the public, a disappointing end to the trilogy. This paper is going to look at aspects of the relationship between the director and his audience by examining the strains exerted on this relationship by the promotion and critical reception of Britannia Hospital. The Lindsay Anderson Archive at the University of Stirling provides the main source material for this through: Anderson’s correspondence with friends, fans and critics; ideas for the advertising campaign for the film; and correspondence with the distribution companies.

Edinburgh International Film Audiences Conference 2009

LA/1/09/3/12/1 Draft for Britannia Hospital advertising
campaign © Lindsay Anderson Collection, University of Stirling

This post is slightly late - only two months! In March I attended the Edinburgh International Film Audiences conference at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh along with two of my colleagues Karl Magee and Isabelle Gourdin. The conference was really interesting as were the people and it just had such a lovely atmosphere but what was particularly special about this conference to me was that it was the first time I have given a conference paper! I shan't bore you with how nervous I was beforehand but suffice to say, I was quite apprehensive. I think it went quite well though, and I even enjoyed the presenting, once I got over the nerves! The subject of my paper was the reception of Lindsay Anderson's 1982 film Britannia Hospital.

LA/1/9/6 Press cutting, The Daily Mail, 18/05/1982 © Lindsay Anderson Collection, University of Stirling

The quotation above, from the Daily Mail, is a striking example of the general reception of the film by the critics in Britain.

Here is just a brief summary of the abstract put forward for the conference:
The film took a critical swipe at several elements of British society and its pessimistic view of the country was not appreciated by a nation fighting in the Falklands. The effect on the audience of negative press stories and poor reviews will be examined as will Anderson’s reactions which can be found in the letters he wrote to the critics who savaged his film.
Anderson replied to the fans who wrote to him, thanking them for their positive feedback on the film, and that personal aspect of the relationship between the director and his audience will be examined through a study of this correspondence.
The film’s failure at the British box office caused difficulties when it came to promoting Britannia Hospital in other countries. The search for an audience led down very different routes with advertisements presenting the film as a sub ‘Carry On’ romp in the US, an art-house movie in France and a video nasty in Australia. Anderson’s correspondence with the various distribution companies concerned with the film’s release provides an insight into its marketing, files enlivened by the director’s criticisms about how the promotional campaigns were conducted.

I've included a few examples below of posters from the promotional campaigns for the film from various countries which highlight the various ways in which the film was promoted in different countries.

LA/1/09/5/3/5 Advertisement for the Italian opening of
Britannia Hospital © Lindsay Anderson Collection,
University of Stirling

LA/1/09/5/3/4 Advertisement for the Australian
opening of Britannia Hospital © Lindsay Anderson
Collection, University of Stirling

I thought I would finish up with the image below of the headless corpse. This is taken from a scene in the film and this was the angle that Lindsay Anderson originally wanted to take with the British advertising campaign. However in a letter to Nat Cohen, a film producer, Anderson admitted “I could also see that the image of the headless torso waving a Union Jack … was not a good idea in view of the wholly unexpected turn that public affairs have taken during the last month or so” (LA/1/9/3/6/8, 18/05/1982). I know it wouldn't have done the advertising campaign, or the reception of the film, any favours but wouldn't it have been great if this was the image that had actaully been used in the British campaign?!

LA/1/09/3/12/1 Draft for Britannia Hospital advertising campaign
© Lindsay Anderson Collection, University of Stirling