By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Mike E. Kaplan
Country: united_kingdom
Year: 2008
Running time: 111
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1024965/
Bruce says: “Although NEVER APOLOGIZE has a documentary label, it is a screen adaptation of Malcolm McDowell’s one-man show that originated on stage. Wearing a tuxedo jacket, an open white shirt and baggy jeans, McDowell, a raconteur par excellence, enthralls his audience with story after story about his personal career, life in show business and the wonderful career of his friend and mentor Lindsay Anderson. He does wicked impersonations of John Gielgud and many others and he reads excerpts from Anderson’s diaries and letters. McDowell has carefully scripted his vignettes and he moves from one to another with grace.
“Getting off to a bad start in his acting career, McDowell forgot his script when he auditioned for IF… During the audition he got physically aggressive with the actress with whom he was reading lines; she retaliated by knocking him to the floor. Anderson merely said ‘Thank you. We’ll let you know.’ The rest is history. Anderson was impressed by the passion McDowell displayed during the audition. McDowell became famous overnight and he subsequently made three other films with Anderson – O LUCKY MAN!, LOOK BACK IN ANGER and BRITANNIA HOSPITAL. IF… won the Palme D’Or at Cannes. McDowell speaks about his gliding through the hoopla of the festival with the ‘nerve of youth.’ McDowell did not get off as easily as it appears; Anderson was determined to make an actor of him. To improve his movement Anderson had McDowell take fencing lessons so that he would be more self-aware of his every movement and gesture. Anderson quizzed McDowell on movies saying, ‘If you are going to be in movies you should know something about them.’ In that regard Anderson was an expert, having begun his artistic career writing on film. He constantly despaired over the state of British film saying it was ‘a monument to good taste,’ in other words, awful.
“While he presided over a tightly knit group of friends, Anderson had no romantic involvements of his own. Anderson was what McDowell calls a ‘celibate homosexual,’ a man who continually falls in love with the unattainable, often the leading men in his films such as Richard Harris and McDowell himself. McDowell touches on the bi-polar problems of Rachael Roberts, Anderson’s leading actress in THIS SPORTING LIFE and the horrible rows Anderson had with Jocelyn Herbert, the renowned set designer with whom he worked during the years he was an artistic director at the Royal Court Theatre.
“McDowell touches on skirmishes Anderson had with Alan Bates and John Schlesinger. Stories of Anderson’s visit to John Ford (In 1983 Anderson wrote the highly regarded profile ‘About John Ford.’) as he was in the final throes of his bout with cancer and Anderson’s observations on the acting styles of Bette Davis and Lillian Gish are absolutely wonderful. NEVER APOLOGIZE should be seen by anyone who has love of both theatre and film. 4.5 cats”