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Lindsay Anderson - In his own words
Letter from Anderson to Carole Brandt (Illinois State University) written in 1975 re the transfer of In Celebration from stage to screen (LA 1/8/3/6).
"In Celebration" was filmed because the American Film Theatre wanted to take it as a subject, particularly because they were happy to do another film with Alan Bates. David Storey was willing to allow the American Film Theatre to produce the film, because they were prepared to take it at full length, without making severe cuts. The elimination of Reardon* was not through demands from the producers, but because the tension of a film is more difficult to sustain than the tension of a play. In my view, it would have been impossible to sustain the cinematic movement and interest of the film, if we had been forced to open the second half with the introduction of a new character (although this worked well in the theatre), particularly in view of the long speeches given to Reardon which had no direct bearing on the central dramatic situation.
I was asked to direct the film as having been responsible for the original stage production. I made it a condition that I should be able to do the film with exactly the same cast as we had had in the theatre in 1969. This was because I could not imagine the parts being played better, and also because I had a sense of loyalty to the artists who had served the play so magnificently when it was first produced.
I do consider this transference successful. I also consider that any kind of "opening out", or severe abridgement of the theatrical text, could only have weakened the work. Interestingly, David Storey and I were invited to make a movie of "In Celebration" shortly after its original production. We decided not to accept the invitation, since it obviously would have been necessary to have made far more radical changes than we have done in the existing film. It was only possible to make the faithful transcription of the play because of the particular conditions and requirements of the American Film Theatre. The particular nature of "In Celebration" called for the kind of compression which we achieved, I think, in the existing film.
As a company we didn't find the transformation of the original production to the screen particularly difficult. In fact I think our work was enormously eased by the fact that the actors had played their roles five years before. Their performances had matured, and there was a kind of ease and familiarity between them which made them even more like a real family than they had been when we performed the play originally on the stage. From my own point of view, there was the technical difficulty of sustaining the movement and cinematic interest of so purely a dialogue piece, and in such restricted physical circumstances. But I found that the power of the camera to penetrate into the characters, and to give the whole work a far more subjective feeling than was possible on the stage made the film a valid creation and a new experience in its own right.
Critics and academics are apt to talk much too exclusively in purely 'aesthetic' terms. It doesn't seem to occur to them that one of the functions of a film version of a play like "In Celebration" is to enable millions more people to see it, and to see it in a definitive interpretation, than would be possible if it were only played in a theatre. Of course the experience of seeing it on the screen, as opposed to on the stage, is a different one. Interestingly the film is if anything a more absorbing and a more demanding experience than the work when it is staged in the theatre. We are closer, I think to the sensibility of the author, particularly as it is expressed through the sensibility of Steven.** It is noticeable that there is less laughter when the film is shown, than when the play is performed in a theatre.
* A character played by the actor Fulton Mackay in the original stage version.
** Character in play and film played by Brian Cox.
© University of Stirling 2004
