Editing Lindsay Anderson (section)

=== Film criticism ===
Anderson was passionate about film and with his friend [[Gavin Lambert]], and Peter Ericsson and [[Karel Reisz]], co-founded ''[[Sequence (journal)|Sequence]]'' magazine (1947–52), which became influential. Anderson became a prominent film critic.<ref name=":2" /> He also later wrote for the [[British Film Institute]]'s journal ''[[Sight and Sound]]'' and the [[left-wing]] political weekly, the ''[[New Statesman]]''.<ref name=":0" /> 

In a 1956 [[polemics|polemical]] article, "Stand Up, Stand Up" published in ''Sight and Sound'', Anderson attacked contemporary critical practices, in particular the pursuit of [[objectivity (science)|objectivity]]. Taking as an example some comments made by [[Alistair Cooke]] in 1935, in which Cooke had claimed to be without politics as a critic, Anderson responded:
{{Blockquote|The problems of commitment are directly stated, but only apparently faced. …The denial of the critic's moral responsibility is specific; but only at the cost of sacrificing his dignity. … [These assumptions:] the holding of liberal, or humane, values; the proviso that these must not be taken too far; the adoption of a tone which enables the writer to evade through humour [mean] the fundamental issues are balked."<ref name="StandUp" />{{clarify|date=December 2017}}}}

Following a series of screenings which he and the [[National Film Theatre]] programmer [[Karel Reisz]] organized for the venue of independently produced short films by himself and others, he developed a philosophy of cinema that was expressed in what became known, by the late-1950s, as the [[Free Cinema]] movement.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | year = 2002 | encyclopedia = Encyclopedia of Contemporary British Culture | publisher = Routledge | location = London | editor1-first = Peter | editor1-last = Childs | editor2-first = Mike | editor2-last = Storry | title = Anderson, Lindsay | page = 23 }}</ref> He and other leaders in the field believed that the British cinema must break away from its class-bound attitudes and that non-metropolitan Britain ought to be shown on the nation's screens. Anderson had already begun to make films himself, starting in 1948 with ''Meet the Pioneers'', a documentary about a conveyor-belt factory.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hedling|first1=Erik|last2=Dupin|first2=Christophe|title=Lindsay Anderson Revisited: Unknown Aspects of a Film Director|date=2016|publisher=Springer|location=UK|isbn=978-1-137-53943-4|page=02|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CP1jDAAAQBAJ&q=Lindsay+Anderson+free+cinema}}</ref>

Anderson was invited to join the [[British Film Institute]]'s Board of Governors in 1969 with the aim of bolstering support for independent British directors, but left the role after a year.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sterritt |first=David |date=Winter 2012 |title=Book Review: The British Film Institute, the Government and Film Culture, 1933–2000 by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith; Christophe Dupin |journal=[[Film Quarterly]] |volume=66 |issue=2 |pages=56|doi=10.1525/fq.2012.66.2.55 }}</ref>