It is, however, easy for audiences to assume that the film is solely out for a commentary on the British schooling system and he clear, willingly unchecked abuse of power within them during the era- but, much like how school in and of itself works, the schooling is only the first half of an equation that grows into a larger problem. because, for all intents and purposes, the plot is purposefully meandering and distorted, thanks, in part, to Anderson’s love of weaving between fantasy and reality without clear delineation in fact, it’s often seldom delineated at all. It can be hard to place a definitive reading on If…. (It should be noted that McDowell’s acting in this scene, with the camera focusing on his face as he’s punished, served as the inspiration for how he would later portray Alex DeLarge in Kubrick’s adaptation of A Clockwork Orange.) Pushing the boundaries of the system doesn't come without a cost, however, resulting in a particularly brutal scene where all three boys are each violently caned across the backside by the Whips, who take their time in particular with Travis himself. (If you’re gonna go, go for broke, I suppose.) After their day of admittedly quaint rebelliousness, the boys retire to Mick’s dorm - a small room adorned with pictures of war, famine, sex, and anguish plastered all over the walls - to drink and discuss revolution. This embrace of, and abuse of, positions of authority doesn’t fly so right to the rebellious trio, ensuring that antics ensue, including Travis and Wallace stealing a motorbike, after which Travis fantasizes about wrestling the waitress in a cafe - known only as “The Girl,” to underscore that her individual identity is less important than that as a fantasy figure for Travis - as she pretends to be a tiger. If school is intended to prepare students for the real world, College tells them to know their place and obey their superiors, no matter the cost. Even the housemasters - older boys in their final year of school - treat underclassmen as slaves through a variety of tasks and abuses for their pleasure. The movie’s “College” is, for the most part, portrayed as a traditional example of British schools in all their dehumanizing glory: the stuffy old headmaster remote from the rest of the school, leading teachers who display a similarly dispassionate stiff upper lip at all times. Upon his return, Travis finds his old cohorts, Wallace and Knightly - fellow final year students - and the three begin to fall into their usual scheming and adolescent silliness under the noses of their superiors, unaware that things will end quite as explosively as they do.
#The invisibles grant morrison movie
The inciting incident of the movie comes early on as Travis, one of the movie’s three protagonists and the central figure of the entire story, returns to school - simply named “College,” obviously denoting the fact that it essentially represents every British public school of the era - as quiet, but rebellious as ever, hiding his well-grown mustache under layers of scarves in order to hide them from the “whips” who maintain a despotic order in the school’s social structure.
After all, there’s no denying that Invisibles creator and beloved British pop culture figure Grant Morrison knows a thing or two about the themes of If….
#The invisibles grant morrison series
While the quote certainly feels crass in the wake of what we’ve seen repeatedly on the news in recent decades, it also felt like something noticeably familiar - but perhaps that’s because I have re-read the 1990s counter-culture comic book series The Invisibles pretty recently.
Amid the backdrop of the dark-oak walls and properly pressed suits, Travis plainly, and very earnestly, tells his friends, “One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.”
There’s a scene in Lindsay Anderson’s If… that stuck out the first time I watched it: Malcolm McDowell - whose adolescent fresh face makes its big debut in the film industry as the iconic character Mick Travis, via this 1968 gold-star classic - lies in his private school uniform on a bed among pictures of military members, bloodied fields, and crying children from magazine and newspaper clippings, hiding away from the “spare the rod, spoil the child” mentality of his prefect peers.
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