Relating If... to the school curriculum
However, the question film education officers and teachers face in deciding to incorporate If... into areas of the contemporary curriculum, is what resonance does the film hold for young audiences today?
If... can also be linked to the History curriculum for studying Britain in the 60s and to the Citizenship curriculum.
If... as a critique of the triptych of power: Church, State and Monarchy
If... engages with discourses, in circulation in the late 1960s, which questioned the role of the Church, the State and the Monarchy.
Contemporary school students might be forgiven for not making very explicit connections between these three cornerstones of power in British life - that is, until they are given opportunities to explore them. It is not necessary to labour the point, but before viewing the film students could be encouraged to explore some issues about the organisation of power in Britain, to help them gain some context in approaching If... and its unusual themes for the first time. This is explored in detail in relation to the GCSE English curriculum below, but could also be usefully explored in the context of Citizenship studies.
If... in GCSE English
EN1 - Speaking and Listening
Use non-fiction material to generated interesting ideas for discussion prior to viewing the film. Some suggestions for examining news coverage are offered below and may be easily supplemented with an Internet search of news-sites prior to undertaking work, guardianunlimited.co.uk, for example.
Speaking and Listening opportunities involve group discussion and interaction. Students should be encouraged to participate effectively and take different views into account.
A number of issues raised by If... could be given some resonance among students by relating them to current issues such as: the nature of school rules and practices of power in schools, the role of the monarchy in modern life, the need for consensus or conformity to certain rituals, and so on.
The death of the Queen Mother on 30 March 2002, created a media-wide event that indicated the royal family's and government's desire to marshal the nation into a common grieving period, but also generated battles amongst different branches of the media about the correct protocol and suitable manners of reporting the loss. A brief investigation of these different responses, a sample of which is provided below, may give students an immediate insight into what are otherwise invisible institutions of power.
In If... the institution of power is the public school - governed by out-of-touch schoolmasters, the clergy and the army. The external structure of power is emulated within the population of school students, reproducing a hierarchical structure of elders exploiting the younger; or the powerful taking advantage of the powerless. Travis experiences this first-hand when made to take a cold shower for failing to obey the orders of the House Prefect, and later when caned for failing to conform to the Prefect's rules.
In most contemporary comprehensive schools the relationship of the school to the monarchy, the army or the clergy is unlikely to be felt by students. Schools were advised (rather than instructed) to give opportunities to students for viewing the Queen Mother's Funeral. Unlike America, British students do no pledge allegiance to the flag and in secular schools will learn about religion, rather than practise it directly. However, the news coverage of the Queen Mother's funeral removed the screen from these invisible structures, allowing students to view how these structures work firsthand.
Students could study the three extracts below and comment on what they think the reports suggested. This is likely to be moderated against their own experiences and opinions and against their own engagement with the particular issue.
Extract 1
Jonathan Freedland wrote in The Guardian (April 10, 2002),
"Stop all the clocks," demands the poem. Halt time in its tracks; let the world stand still. That, WH Auden knew, is what every mourner wants and can never have. But for the Queen yesterday, for two transforming hours, the impossible seemed to come true.
She came to bury her mother in a building nearly 1,000 years old in a ceremony that could have taken place a century ago. Surrounded by kings and queens, and dukes and duchesses from faraway lands, guarded by soldiers in uniforms of an antique past, they recited prayers and verses as old as England."
Extract 2
Donald Trelford, former editor of The Observer, summarised the news response to the Queen Mother's funeral in The Evening Standard 10 April 2002, as
"... a game of two halves as news desks, confused at first about what their readers really think about the Royals, eventually caught up with the sudden outpouring of public feeling - not so much of grief or emotion or even royalism, but of national pride and a sense of being a part of history - tinged with affection and respect for someone they recognised as a fellow human being and felt they had known all their lives, who had never wavered from the old values and had come to symbolise the country's fortunes throughout the 20th century." Associated Newspapers Ltd
The row about the BBC's coverage of the announcement and coverage of the Queen Mother's death gave a useful insight into the power and respect commanded by Royalty and the relationship of the media to the institutions of power in representing it.
Extract 3
Daily Mail: 02 Apr 2002: BBC told staff: Don't wear black by Harriet Arkell
The corporation [BBC] was forced on to the back foot as the row over its coverage escalated. Prince Charles was said to be so incensed at the BBC's 'disrespectful' coverage that he asked ITN to film his moving tribute to his grandmother in a calculated snub.
"The BBC's decision to scale back coverage of the death, and screen medical soap opera Casualty hours after the Queen Mother's death, provoked fury among both royals and members of the public. A senior royal aide said: 'The fact that Prince Charles, who discussed this with the Queen, went to ITN for his tribute speaks for itself. The whole family is disappointed and hurt at the disrespectful tone and length of the coverage.' As national broadcaster, the BBC would traditionally have been expected to film the Prince's tribute to the Queen Mother, as it filmed his tribute to his aunt, Princess Margaret."
EN2 - Reading
Under Knowledge, Skills and Understanding, students are expected to be given opportunities to examine moving image texts. In selecting If the central focus of analysis for students could be the form and structure of the film. They could also look at particular aspects of the style to explore how the film is working to convey its messages and values.
Students should be prepared for work to undertake, while viewing the film, or. The film breaks neatly into eight sections. Students should be encouraged to make notes on each section while watching the film, using this viewing chart (PDF, 9k). This will help them in discussing the film immediately after viewing it.
After viewing, ask students in groups to pool their observations and attempt to make some general remarks on the film. They should be encouraged to provide examples from the film to support their response.
- Are there common ways of each section beginning?
- What are the repeated ideas in each of the sections?
- What devices does Anderson employ to suggest freedom? Think of music used, the kinds of clothes, decoration in rooms?
- What do you think the film is trying to say about the nature of power, and do you think this is achieved successfully?
EN3 - Writing
Students could be invited, after earlier discussion and close reading of the text, to write towards this question for coursework:
What significance does If... have for a modern audience?
Here it would be expected that students would demonstrate:
- ability to develop a logical argument and cite evidence
- use some persuasive techniques
- develop their own view, taking into account a range of evidence and opinions
- reflect on the nature and significance of the subject matter
While students may be unfamiliar with the particular conditions of If's original release, that is, what Britain was like in 1969, they experience, first-hand and on a daily basis, the structures of power within the school and family. Studying If... provides an opportunity to reflect on this experience explicitly and to engage with broader debates about the nature of power that are still played out in different contexts in 2002, like anti-globalisation protests. They can be encouraged to explore these contexts and consider the applicability of If... to experiences they may have. For students who have links with contemporary movements, these connections may be clearer, than for those who do not.
If... the poem compared with If... the film
At KS3 and KS4 is pupils are expected to learn about the importance of the English literary heritage, exploring how and why texts have been influential and significant, along with the ways in which the text has had appeal and importance over time.
Rudyard Kipling's poem If... has been widely taught and included in anthologies over time. It has been the springboard for a wide range of media campaigns (Centerparks, to name one), calling as it does on the virtues of patience and restraint.
The text of the poem cannot be reproduced here but is widely available, and can be accessed by a simple Internet search through Google.
Kipling's poem begins:
- 'If you can keep your head when all about you
- Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
- If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
- But make allowance for their doubting too,'
The beginning establishes a central philosophical question: how, as human beings, do we maintain our dignity and our civility, our sense of fairness and justice, when chaos is all around us?
The poem acknowledges that we are constantly challenged by 'lies', 'Or being hated', or 'hear(ing) the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves'. It progresses in the third verse to suggest that life is a game of chance, of making some gains and losing others, of recovery and constant new beginnings. If, Kipling poses, you can endure the knocks and kicks of life, then
- 'Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
- And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!'
Anderson's choice of title for his film can be argued as a reply to Kipling's summation of the growing pains towards manhood. The title exists ironically, to offer a rather different, anarchic interpretation of becoming a man. In the film, becoming a man involves the obliteration of all those who represent the repression of the soul.
Students could use their viewing charts (PDF, 9k), to measure the kinds of images provided in the poem with those in the film. It would be helpful for students to focus their comments around some particular sequences of the film. Some key sequences, that focus on the struggle towards a sense of justice, are:
- Between 12 and 14 minutes: A series of humiliating rituals and the dormitory rules
- At 17 minutes: The dormitory inspection sequence.
- At 23 minutes: The History lesson
- At 29 minutes: Mick's study and the images of his ideas
- At 32 minutes: The 'sconing' episode
- At 40 minutes: Shaving of Jenson and the shower sequence
- At 49: 30 minutes Escape from the school
- 54-57 minutes The café sequence
- 97-103 minutes Final scene: 'losing their heads'
Students could do an interesting piece of coursework for the GCSE English folder by producing written comparison between the images in the film and the images in the poem. This would give them experience of discussing irony and imagery. It would also enable them to explore how ideas are formulated in different texts, with different purposes and audiences, produced at different moments in time.
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