Modernism and the crisis of modernity: society and the individual in Lindsay Anderson’s O Dreamland

Abstract

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article looks into British filmmaker Lindsay Anderson's documentary O Dreamland, about an amusement park in Margate. Through an in depth analysis, it discusses the production of the film against the wider cultural background of Britain in the 1950s. It thus includes mention of the Angry Young Man, as depicted in art, film and literature, critical social studies, such as Richard Hoggart, reflections in contemporary political and psychological analyses, such as the New Left and R. D. Laing's work on schizophrenia, as well as the context of the film as presented through contemporary film critics as well as recent film criticism on Anderson.