Last night I started reading Never Apologise: The Collected Writings, by Lindsay Anderson. I know I’m not alone in thinking how undervalued, and sadly obscure, Anderson is today, as both a filmmaker and a film thinker. I’ve always been inspired by his work and the approach he used to make films. In the late 50’s he helped draft a manifesto of sorts for a “Free Cinema.” As editor Paul Ryan explains, to Anderson the notion of Free Cinema was largely just a way of making sure that disparate films could be shown together, “to give journalists something to write about.” But I think the manifesto is pretty wonderful:

No film can be too personal.
The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments.
Size is irrelevant.
Perfection is not an aim.
An attitude means a style.
A style means an attitude.
Implicit in our attitude is a belief in freedom, in the importance of people and in the significance of the everyday.