In its 1992 obituary, The Independent wrote that Lindsay Anderson “may well have been the most important individual in post-war British cinema.” And yet, like a long line of uncompromising directors, he found it increasingly difficult to attract industry support. He made only a handful of films in a 30-year career. At the end of his life, after a projected adaptation of The Cherry Orchard was rejected by one executive with a letter that read: “Dear Mr Chekhov, I’m afraid this isn’t quite the kind of thing we like to make,” he was reduced to shooting a documentary about the pop group, Wham.