ABSTRACT
In France the film has undergone an extraordinary metamorphosis at the hands of Luc-Godard, Resnais, Truffaut and the critics of Cahiers du Cinema. The American film, rethinking its terms of reference and clinging largely to well-tried formulas, adjusts to the new writing and the changed behaviour patterns. Joseph Losey, an American, born in 1909, spent his early years in the theatre where he came under the influence of Brecht. It is chastening to read in Tom Milne’s book, Losey on Losey, of the pressures brought to bear on directors at that time, ‘an almost physical thing’, Losey declares. Lindsay Anderson is that rare phenomenon in films, the wholly political animal. Ken Russell, born in 1927, is of the increasing number who learned their trade in television, and the people first hear of him in connection with the BBC 2 programs of the 1960s.
