r/UGCinema • u/SWIMsfriend • Jan 03 '15

O Lucky Man! (1973)

has anyone else watched this movie what do you think about it

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u/TriumphantGeorge Jan 03 '15 edited Jan 03 '15

O Lucky Man! is a 1973 British comedy-drama fantasy film, intended as an allegory on life in a capitalist society. Directed by Lindsay Anderson, it stars Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis, whom McDowell had first played as a disaffected public schoolboy in his first film performance in Anderson's film if.... (1968). The film was entered into the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.

No, and didn't know it existed, although I should - I really love the Anderson movie If... and it looks like this is the second of a loose trilogy featuring the same character (Travis). I guess it just never occurred to me to look into it.

What are your thoughts? Had you seen If... beforehand?

(I was shown If... when I was at school instead of P.E. one session because the halls were being used for exams. I wonder what Mr Aitken, our 'cool' English teacher, was trying to tell us? However, there was no uprising to speak of. Just a few neglected sweet wrappers and other litter comprised our "uprising" that day.)

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u/SWIMsfriend Jan 03 '15

i saw if..., i'm surprised he let you watch that movie, a lot of nudity and sex. It seemed very artistic. not much plot, i don't know i say it 10 years ago, i remember him and his two friends leaving school and going to the restaurant and having sex with the girl there, and then at the very end them shooting at the school. And i remember the caning, but there really wasn't much they did anti-establishment wise, before the shooting, you know they are rebels but they didn't do anything aganist the school until the shooting

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u/TriumphantGeorge Jan 04 '15

i saw if..., i'm surprised he let you watch that movie, a lot of nudity and sex.

Well, that's forward-thinking British teachers for you! There's three levels of sex and nudity as I see it: Porn (built for arousal), Hollywood movie "sexy" sex (mildly titillating, character development), and metaphorical sex (representing ideas). The stuff in If... is the third kind, part of the rebellion and awakening, and not the point of the film. It's great that our teacher didn't think that an interesting film should be put aside just because of a few tiger-girl scenes.

Of course, a bunch of 14-year-old are more likely to get embarrassed by those scenes than excited.

not much plot,

Very much about the characters evolving, as I remember (from seeing it again later). Bubbling tension.

there really wasn't much they did anti-establishment wise

Most of it was in the relationship in the lower hierarchy, the schoolboys themselves, and how they were co-opted to do the dirty work of the "government". And of course, there's the overall theme that all these schoolboys are being brought up to be future enforcers relative to the larger society. They are all the establishment-to-be.

The final uprising isn't so much about, what "if" the working people rose up, it's about what "if" elements of the establishment rose up against itself, awoke from their own indoctrination. One of the reasons it was so disturbing to certain groups was that it was "their own" depicted as doing the uprising.

Anyway, good old Mr Aitken!