Alan Poul is a creative force and has been a key component in standout dramas such as Six Feet Under, The Newsroom, Swingtown, and Tales of the City. Poul is an Emmy and Golden Globe winner, and his latest achievement is the Max series Tokyo Vice, based on Jake Adelstein's 2009 memoir, which wrapped up its second season last spring.
More: Alan Poul: Tales of The City (The Treatment, 2019)
For his Treat, Poul delves into Lindsay Anderson's 1969 film If… which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes that year, but according to Poul has been largely forgotten. It marked the film debut of a young Malcolm McDowell as the rebellious student Mick Travis. Set in an English public school, the film offers a raw and voyeuristic glimpse into the harsh hierarchy and revolt of three students against the everyday verbal and physical abuse endured by many students. For Poul, a closeted gay teenager in Philadelphia, it was the first “queer” film he saw, and it left a profound impact on him. He recounts the film's exploration of subtle homoerotic themes, along with its unusual filmmaking techniques. These include the filmmaker using black and white and elements of magical realism, which were innovative for the time.
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This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I want to talk about Lindsay Anderson's 1969 film, If.... It won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, made a splash in the US, and has since been largely forgotten.
Basically, it's the story of an English public school, which means the elite boarding schools over there, and it's a scripted but almost plotless film about watching life: the hierarchy of the kids, the underclassmen and the upperclassmen, and then how they are brutalized by the whips — the seniors who are entrusted to carry out orders from the administration — and then the administration itself. The film begins realistically, almost documentary-like, because the director had a background in documentaries. Then slowly, as you're watching, [it] becomes more and more untethered from reality.
It really opened my mind and kind of blew my mind because what happens is there are fantasy elements that begin almost stealthily, introducing themselves into the film. [But] at the end of the film, famously, our three hero renegade students — led by Malcolm McDowell, in what I think was his first major role — stage a full-on armed rebellion against the school. [They] find a cache of automatic weapons and mercilessly mow down faculty, students, parents, and visiting Royals alike.
It was the first really queer film that I saw. And so growing up, you know, as a closeted, not even fully self-aware gay kid in suburban Philadelphia, the film has explicit homoerotic elements in terms of the three rebels. One of them takes a younger boy as his lover and there's a shot of them sleeping peacefully together in their bed at the dorm. And then also, on a more meta level, it looks at the homoeroticism that underlies the entire English public school system in terms of the bullying that becomes sexual in nature (sometimes in terms of the vaguely S&M atmosphere). [And] in terms of corporal punishment. So it was queer both on a metaphorical level and on a literal romantic level. I had never been exposed to that kind of imagery. … This is 1969 so it wasn't like you could turn on the TV and see Will and Grace.
The movie somewhat randomly switches back and forth from black and white to color. It seems the beginning of the movie is staged more verité style, and then it becomes more and more structured with very unusual shots and unusual shooting patterns. The way that the filmmaking develops over the course of the film is part of the story, because the story is about untethering yourselves from these horrible, sadistic conventions and learning how to break free.