The Cinema Authorship of Lindsay Anderson

Was Lindsay Anderson the cinematic auteur that his private writings indicate he wanted to be; and if so how should his authorship be understood? His private thoughts and ideas about his films differed significantly from what might be drawn from his public statements and attitudes. Inevitably his own ambitions for the films varied from the way they were received by producers, reviewers and audiences.

This research proposes to compare the Information gleaned from Anderson's diaries and other personal papers (including correspondence with friends and colleagues) with an analysis of the way the films were received in the first instance as projects and then as finished texts by the various publics to which they were addressed. Taking these diverse perspectives into account will enable the researchers to produce a fuller account than currently exists of Anderson's relationship to the work that carries his name on screen.

The knowledge gathered about this director will then be generalised to reflect on the various concepts of authorship in the cinema that have been proposed in the half century since the European New Wave and, where appropriate, to revise those earlier ideas.

To gain these ends, the proposal specifies the compiling of an item-level descriptive Index of both the correspondence and the diaries. These papers will give access which would not otherwise be feasible to details of Anderson's life and Ideas not previously in the public realm.