Movie: If ...(a longer clip)
I suppose most readers of this blog are familiar with
the movie If .... Here is a longer version of the clip we
saw here.
It is set in an English public school and involves
three senior boys Wallace, Knightly and Travis (played by Malcolm McDowell).
The three known as the Crusaders are beaten by
prefects (known as whips) while stretched across a beam in the gymnasium for
being a general nuisance and having a bad attitude.
The film is often written about by cinema critics or
academics. One such is Nicholas Johnson who wrote about the film as part of a doctoral
thesis on representations of teachers and schools in British films.
He writes of the scene in the clip, “The Crusaders are
summoned to the whips’ study, where they are accused of being a general
‘nuisance to the house’, and having the wrong ‘attitude’. They are to be
beaten. Denson takes the opportunity to lambast Travis for his indecency, but
when Rowntree declares they have become a danger to morale of the house, Mick [Travis]
cannot conceal a smirk. Denson draws attention to the school motto on his
blazer pocket: I serve the nation. ‘You haven’t the slightest idea what it
means, have you?’ Calmly, Travis answers: ‘Do you mean that bit of wool on your
tit?’ Rowntree passes judgement, but asks if they have anything to say. Mick
has:
‘The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you
give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy-bear to Oxfam, and expect us
to lick your frigid fingers for the rest of your frigid life.’
“The loathing in Rowntree’s eyes reflects his disgust
for a class traitor; for Travis' attack on Rowntree is an assault on those
middle class values eulogised in headmaster’s pep talk and chapel sermon alike:
on patriarchal charity that requires a deferential recipient and an unbitten
hand: on fake expressions of largesse that keep the powerful powerful, and the
powerless in their place.
“It is a mark of filial ingratitude that must invoke a
father’s wrath, and as Zeus punished Prometheus for daring to show man fire,
and God had his own son crucified for giving man the key to everlasting life,
so now the head of house must beat the wayward son into submission, for daring
to question the unwritten rules of their game. One at a time, the three
Crusaders must be ‘crucified’ on the beam, with Wallace and Knightly receiving
four strokes of the cane each, but Travis getting ten.
“Down in the sweat room, the juniors seem to hear every stroke, and understand that their messiah is suffering on their behalf. Peanuts, the scientist, looks through his microscope and sees bacteria multiplying in their culture. And we know that in this culture of arbitrary violence and cruelty, such malevolence breeds hatred and a need for revenge just as surely: it is the zero conditional. Travis meekly thanks Rowntree before leaving the gym, but whilst beaten, he is not vanquished. After the crucifixion must come the resurrection.”
There is much more to the plot than this and you can read more here.
The movie is available
on streaming services.
Picture and movie credits: Paramount
For more Movie Clips, click here
More
items including Prefects, click here
Traditional School Discipline
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