One man’s dreams of success take him on a Byzantine journey through the various stations of the British class system in this politically charged black comedy from director Lindsay Anderson. Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) is an ambitious young man who is looking to get his foot on the first rung of the ladder of success by landing a job as a salesman. After the death of Imperial Coffee’s leading drummer in the North, Travis’ charm and enthusiasm so impresses manager Mr. Duff (Arthur Lowe) that he’s given the job, and after some coaching from Gloria Rowe (Rachel Roberts), Travis sets out to find his fortune in the coffee trade.

Travis’ desire for success quickly sets him on a curious odyssey in which he happens upon a secret sex club for businessmen, finds himself the subject of random seductions by lonely women, is captured and tortured by military intelligence agents, submits to medical experiments at a bizarre private clinic, hitches a ride with a traveling rock band led by former Animals keyboardist Alan Price, falls in love with a beautiful young bohemian named Patricia (Helen Mirren), goes to work for her father (Ralph Richardson), who happens to be a singularly corrupt political figure, and eventually lands in prison after he’s implicated in a deal to sell chemical weapons to the Third World.

As Mick’s strange tale progresses, we periodically visit Price and his band in the recording studio or rehearsal hall, as they work on songs which serve as both mirror and counterpoint for Travis’ progress. O Lucky Man! was the second film in which Malcolm McDowell would portray Mick Travis for director Lindsay Anderson, following If…, and preceding Britannia Hospital; the film’s surreal undercurrent was reinforced by the casting, in which nearly all of the principle actors play two or three roles.

	
O Lucky Man (Lindsay Anderson, 1973).576p.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2 h 58 min
Size: 	4.64 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x576 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	3 409 kb/s
BPP: 	0.241
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch E-AC-3 @ 224 kb/s
#2:  	English 2.0ch AAC LC @ 96.0 kb/s (Commentary by Malcolm McDowell, Alan Price and screenwriter David Sherwin)

https://nitro.download/view/B3BA60CC961440B/O_Lucky_Man_(Lindsay_Anderson,_1973).576p.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English, English HOH

The post Lindsay Anderson – O Lucky Man! (1973) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Desire as persistent and intense as the sunshine on a bright summer day is what teases out madness in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. The objects, or goals, of these desires are disparate, though they all spiral out following the 1900 disappearance of three young women and a teacher from the Appleyard School during a trip to the small titular ridge on St. Valentine’s Day. The vanishing of these women is central to the plot, but Weir’s film is never as fascinated with the reasons for this absence as it is with the characters left in its inexplicable wake. Cliff Green’s script, adapted from Joan Lindsay’s novel of the same name, never goes about teasing what could have happened to these women at Hanging Rock, instead focusing on the wild cupidity that erupts in the surrounding community in reaction to the mystery.

For many of the characters, the loss of Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert), a popular student at Appleyard, is what’s most potently felt, due to both her beauty and her ethereal otherness, as if she was always connected to some intangible beyond, even before evaporating into thin air. Right before Miranda and three of her classmates go wandering up Hanging Rock, their mistress, Mademoiselle de Poitiers (Helen Morse), eerily declares that Miranda is a Botticelli angel. One would likely assume that it’s merely a reference to her physical beauty, but she’s also alluding to Miranda as a figment of imagination, and Weir makes the interplay and conflict seen in the void between proven fact and imagination part and parcel of this incomparable psychological thriller.

This would match with Lindsay’s thinking, as the writer prefaces her novel with a short but pointed statement about her apathy in discerning the difference between fact and fiction. And as the film goes on, there’s an increasing displeasure in the acts of those who stunt creation and fantasy in the name of history and rules, which are here wielded as weapons of restraint by the Appleyard School. When Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) bans one student, Sara (Margaret Nelson), from the picnic, she demands she read over a few classical poems, which Sara ignores in favor of writing her own poetry, which she’s quickly reprimanded for. Sara, an orphan, eventually falls victim to a familiar institutional rule, as her lack of tuition becomes reason enough for Mrs. Appleyard to throw her out on the street, without money or support.

Through Sara’s sad end, and the school’s reaction to the return of Irma (Karen Robson), one of the disappeared young women, Weir and Green suggest that an obsession with reason and logic, and adherence to the rigid contours of history and fact, brings about inhumanity and decidedly unreasonable behavior. Whatever happened to the missing young women on Hanging Rock is effectively haunting and strange, but it’s ultimately not nearly as bewildering as the way the other schoolgirls (and teachers) turn on Irma, who’s tied up and persecuted for information by her classmates. Miranda’s disappearance brings about manic self-doubt, regret, paranoia, and anger in the students, but also stirs up dark feelings in Appleyard’s neighbors. In the case of Michael Fitzhubert (Dominic Guard), a young privileged man who merely gazed at Miranda from afar while dining with his parents, a crusade to find Miranda leaves him catatonic and only serves to violently rouse the students at Appleyard even further.

It’s not much of a surprise then that Picnic at Hanging Rock ends with the unseen suicide of Mrs. Appleyard, an unmovable symbol of order and protocol, corrupted by power over allowances, conduct, and education. Even as human desire (for total knowledge, possession, sex, and even oblivion) brings about very real horrors in life, however, Weir doesn’t soften the rampant fear of death and the beyond. His sun-hued, bucolic images, sculpted by music by Bruce Smeaton, Gheorghe Zamfir, and Marcel Cellier, along with Bach, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky, convey nature’s eerie, ambivalent power over all. It’s the characters’ ceaseless need to fully understand, outsmart, and undermine nature’s sway that drives them into fervor and, often enough, leads them to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Peter Weir - (1975) Picnic at Hanging Rock.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 47mn
Size: 	2.10 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x576 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 358 Kbps
BPP: 	0.167
Audio
#1:  	English 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/F6833875CC6530B/Peter_Weir_-_(1975)_Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock.mkv
or
https://nitro.download/view/5478F96C3F671B5/Peter_Weir_-_(1975)_Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock.part1.rar
https://nitro.download/view/00B0D7035576513/Peter_Weir_-_(1975)_Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock.part2.rar
https://nitro.download/view/F8EA7A1F436134D/Peter_Weir_-_(1975)_Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock.part3.rar

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Peter Weir – Picnic at Hanging Rock [Director’s Cut] (1975) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
In Northern England in the early 1960s, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver. Machin lodges with Mrs Hammond, whose husband was killed in an accident at Weaver’s, but his impulsive and angry nature stop him from being able to reach her as he would like. He becomes increasingly frustrated with his situation, and this is not helped by the more straightforward enticements of Mrs Weaver.

3.11GB | 2h 14mn | 954×576 | mkv

<https://nitro.download/view/343F6B10CA221BF/This_Sporting_Life_(1963)_–_Lindsay_Anderson.mkv

Language(s):English+commentary
Subtitles:English (muxed)

The post Lindsay Anderson – This Sporting Life (1963) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis
The sights and sounds of industrial Nottingham resonate with a grimy thud as Arthur Seaton works his tedious factory job. Through ale, women and practical jokes, he vents his frustrations against the “establishments” of work and marriage… until his reckless ways lead him to a night that changes his life. Forced to reevaluate his convictions, Arthur must decide exactly what he stands for.

+Commentary by film historian Robert Murphy, with writer Alan Sillitoe and cinematographer Freddie Francis

1.81GB | 1h 29m | 960×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/4AA9C1B5C2D4B23/Karel_Reisz_-_(1960)_Saturday_Night_and_Sunday_Morning.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:English

The post Karel Reisz – Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Sheila’s 14. Her father abandoned her as a baby, her mum’s in jail and she’s stuck in a
children’s home. Every family that’s tried to look after her has found her too difficult. Now
Anne and John Howland want to foster Sheila. But if they can’t make a home for her, her
future looks bleak…

Starring Oscar Nominated actress Rachel Roberts (This Sporting Life, O Lucky Man!) as
Anne and sensitively directed by Charles Frend (The Cruel Sea, Scott of the Antarctic) Girl
on Approval is a major example of the British New Wave, a brilliant study of troubled lives.

https://nitro.download/view/96F03A7343DF0A4/Girl_on_Approval.avi

Language:English

The post Charles Frend – Girl on Approval (1961) first appeared on Cinema of the World.