MovieChat Forums > If.... (1969) Discussion > Significance of the girl

Significance of the girl

posted 12 years ago by illidgesj
15 replies | jump to latest

Watching the film for the first time last night, I was wondering about the girl's significance. From a linear perspective both Mick and Johnny both leave the confines of the school, go into town, and then proceed to what I presume are the outskirts to a café. This is where they first encounter the girl serving behind the counter. Later on, she seems to have some association with the school (i.e., being on the premises). How is this possible in an all-boy public school? It all seems very ambiguous as to why she's there in the first place, and more to the point, why she's so keen to help out in a mass shooting spree.

Thanks in advance.

[–] AnyID 12 years ago

One school of thought is that she is fictional, the realisation of the boys' desires. So, possibly the bike theft occurs and they meet her but the sex and subsequent sightings - including the perhaps deliberately unrealistic one through the telescope and her presence when the arms cache is discovered - are daydreams. Or she never existed. Her taking part in the final shootings also suggests that that action too is wish fulfilment rather than fact.

[–] idgreenwood 12 years ago

I subscribe to this school of thought. Indeed, you might like to pinpoint, illidgesj (have I got that name right?) the moment at which pretty much everything switches from 'reality' to 'fantasy', and ponder whether it ever switches back again. Anderson and Sherwin constantly blur the borders, safe in the knowledge that at British public schools of the time (and, who knows, since) the routines, rituals and hierarchies would defy rational belief among any who had not actually experienced them.

[–] puirt-a-beul 11 years ago

My thought is that The Girl was archetypal, a kind of blend of Anima and Shadow — for Mick, presumably, but also to some degree for the Crusaders as a group.

She appeared when Mick was emotionally driven and contemplating action — when Mick was looking at her (as in the moment with the telescope) is also a moment when he's looking at himself. And I think it's really noteworthy that the climax of the film, the assassination of the Headmaster, is carried out by The Girl, with great deliberation and a look of smug triumph on her face.

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[–] inko8 11 years ago

i saw that moment as a play on words; the headmaster kept saying "boys, boys, boys," in his plea for peace, so who was not addressed? "The Girl." and in so being excluded, she was immune to his speech. this leads me to believe that there was a hint of the reaction of marginalized populations (by gender, ethnicity, class, &c.) to orthodoxy and authoritarian legitimacy.

therefore, the "great deliberation and a look of smug triumph on her face" were earned by exclusion.

"Ugh! I don't like this." --Ambrose Bierce

[–] Eponymous-too 11 years ago

People are seriously overthinking this. It's simply some subpar writing on the part of the filmmakers, like many other films have. It was an excuse to get a pretty girl into the film, and off camera to probably try to get her into bed by giving her a part. It's as simple as that.

"My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs stretching all the way back to the Whale Rider."

[–] ronfirv 11 years ago

Possibly not a country mile off the mark with your comment!

[–] [email protected] 10 years ago

Eponymous-too...what are you on?? You seriously think she's only in the film as 'eye candy' and that she got the part by, what, sleeping with the director? Sleeping with Lindsay Anderson..the gay director of If...

You twat!

[–] meguroutsubo 8 years ago

I think that "eye candy" remark was closer to the mark than we'd like to admit.

If there was no hetero love interest in the film, distributors might have balked at giving the film a wide release. And keep in mind that there was no Blockbuster video in 1968 — your film went to the theaters, and then to network TV, and if they refused to run it for being a "gay" film, then your revenue stream has officially been dammed up. You couldn't make up the rest of your profits until the rise of the VHS and Beta, circa 1979.

Keep in mind that most of the male characters had stated names, even if they were not easily remembered. I remember "Jute," but not "Machin" or "Cox", yet these kids have names. Christine Noonan's character is simply "The Girl." Her inclusion might have been made at the last minute to secure financing: "Put in some sexy girl so we can put her in the commercials."

And FWIW, not to slur Ms. Noonan, RIP, because we have no idea how she got the part. But hypothetically speaking, if a director was gay, then an actress who wanted a part would seduce the producer, not the director, because the producer hires/fires directors.

It wouldn't be the first time a leading lady was including in a film just for eye candy — reading Roger Ebert's review of The Bridge On The River Kwai, he remarks that the love story between William Holden and Anne Sears was largely unnecessary to the main thrust of the story.

[–] antvolley 9 years ago

Sorry but I think that's rubbish, Lindsay Anderson was a fimaker of great integrity and artistry and wouldn't just "stick a pretty face in there" to appease and pander to the audience/execs/whoever.

Hot lesbian witches!

[–] saint_sophie 10 years ago

I had the impression that The Girl didn't actually exist at all. Or rather, she existed until she slapped Mick at the cafe. The rest was Mick's imagination/idealism. I also wondered if the shooting at the end was actually 'real'. There were lots of things which didn't ring true in the film, like thievery of the motorbike, how Mick and Johnny escaped the premises unnoticed, how Mick viewed the Girl in the telescope, and how she assisted with the Shooting. I think a lot of it was done to keep you guessing.

So yeah I think she was based more on idealism and desire. Fantastic film.

[–] AnyID 9 years ago

Saint Sophie, I think you've got it with the suggestion that she is mythic (as is the film's climax). To suggest that she's there for prurience or casting couch reasons is crass beyond belief.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] henrimaine 8 years ago

As for the reality of the girl - I think a reasonable theory would be that the naked wrestling in the cafeteria and seeing her through the telescope were imagined by the boy. All the other scenes with the girl can be described as being "real".

[–] ronfirv 8 years ago

All but sure you are correct.

[–] AnyID 8 years ago

I tend to think she's mythical, as unreal but wished for as the ending, as (puzzlingly) symbolic and imaginary as the Chaplain in the drawer. Each of her appearances stretches credibility: at the end of a telescope, actually on the school premises when the LDV munitions are found, massacring the parents. The only plausible appearance (bar the sex scene in Mick's imagination) is the cafe, but even that follows a very difficult to believe, unpunished theft of motorbike in full school uniform. Like that wonderful escape from College House, she seems to make sense as a presence of soaring imagination.