This is a problematic documentary. It depicts certain scenes in New York City between October 1967 and March 1968, shot by the independent film maker, Peter Whitehead. It is a very personal documentary, and Whitehead appears in a large number of scenes, and we hear his lengthy ruminations on the state of the United States and the war in Vietnam (in actual fact his commentary is frequently inaudible, as it has to compete with rock music that is being played at a higher volume than his voice).
The film contains several striking scenes: of an elevator (and elevator shaft), of a montage inspired by Marilyn Monroe, of debates between NYC residents, and the occupation of Columbia University buildings.
However, the negatives outweigh the positives. The film is often maddeningly tedious and prolix. Whilst we are forewarned that it is a series of vignettes, they are too frequently disconnected. The quality of the camera work (and of the print) is highly variable. The various scenes are supposed to revolve about the subject of Vietnam - and they do, to some extent, but then the effect is dissipated by wandering off to art galleries. There is far, far too much of Whitehead himself and his cavorting with a not overly interesting model in her flat. No doubt some viewers will be left wondering what was actually going on in NYC whilst he was gazing at the TV or filming the pouting of his girlfriend. Some of his previous films had been devoted to the world of rock and fashion in London (a real blind alley), and he can't throw it off his predilection for it - worse, he tries to integrate the worlds of fashion and politics. The effect is quite unhappy, although it is possible to argue that in the mid-1960s these worlds did indeed elide. Unfortunately, Whitehead also comes across as a caricature of a modish, floppy haired public schoolboy and varsity man. And to continue in an ad hominem vein, there is a scene in which a piano is smashed and a live chicken is first rubbed and then dashed brutally against the wreckage, which is acutely painful to watch. It is hoped that Whitehead's subsequent career as a falconer was in part an atonement for his complicity in that lamentable episode.
Much of what is interesting in this film - the scenes of the peace march in Washington, the riot at the Pentagon, the threnody of Robert Lowell - seems to have been taken from the TV. I cannot be sure of that - but it looks as though it was second hand material. This can be excused only on the ground that the great majority of the American people watched the events of 1968 unfold via the tube, and that Whitehead was sharing that experience. However, the footage of Robert Kennedy at a political meeting seems authentic.
I think that Whitehead would have done better to have spent his entire time in Central Park. That is where he obtained some of his best material: middle aged matrons complaining about the excessive coverage of hippies; an orthodox priest fulminating against communism at a meeting of the Russian community; a woman decrying the expenditure on ordnance; 'flower children' playing in a pond...
However, the real meat was taken at Morningside Heights, and in particular at Hamilton Hall and the Seth Low 'Library'. There is an interesting scene in which a piper plays in a stairwell whilst a fellow protester dances a reel, and we do get a little feel for how the sit-in changed from being fairly placid to anarchic and then violent as the NYPD moved in. The treatment is quite one-sided - no attempt is made to see the Columbia sit-in from the viewpoint of the University authorities (though we do see a couple of nervous chaplains with first aid armbands). This is quite predictable, as the sit-in was largely a self-indulgent affair by the radical section of the student body. The violence of the police shocked many hitherto complacent New Yorkers (who had associated the political violence of the time with the south and Newark), but sympathies were not entirely with the protesters. I dimly recall Alistair Cooke (admittedly something of an establishment figure, but formerly on the liberal left) writing of his dismay at the sight of president Grayson Kirk's office in the Seth Low Library, and of all his books having been torn and trashed. What sort of sentient, humane protesters wreck a library? Whitehead remarks, very acutely, that opposition to Vietnam had become an article of faith amongst everyone under the age of 25, irrespective of the merits or demerits of American involvement - there was an absence of genuine argument amongst the young themselves. Rage and intolerance had infected the student population (arguably the most pampered in history), which then preceded to act in a monolithic, almost fascistic manner. This line of argument is one of the many threads with which Whitehead toys, and then discards.
The film contains several striking scenes: of an elevator (and elevator shaft), of a montage inspired by Marilyn Monroe, of debates between NYC residents, and the occupation of Columbia University buildings.
However, the negatives outweigh the positives. The film is often maddeningly tedious and prolix. Whilst we are forewarned that it is a series of vignettes, they are too frequently disconnected. The quality of the camera work (and of the print) is highly variable. The various scenes are supposed to revolve about the subject of Vietnam - and they do, to some extent, but then the effect is dissipated by wandering off to art galleries. There is far, far too much of Whitehead himself and his cavorting with a not overly interesting model in her flat. No doubt some viewers will be left wondering what was actually going on in NYC whilst he was gazing at the TV or filming the pouting of his girlfriend. Some of his previous films had been devoted to the world of rock and fashion in London (a real blind alley), and he can't throw it off his predilection for it - worse, he tries to integrate the worlds of fashion and politics. The effect is quite unhappy, although it is possible to argue that in the mid-1960s these worlds did indeed elide. Unfortunately, Whitehead also comes across as a caricature of a modish, floppy haired public schoolboy and varsity man. And to continue in an ad hominem vein, there is a scene in which a piano is smashed and a live chicken is first rubbed and then dashed brutally against the wreckage, which is acutely painful to watch. It is hoped that Whitehead's subsequent career as a falconer was in part an atonement for his complicity in that lamentable episode.
Much of what is interesting in this film - the scenes of the peace march in Washington, the riot at the Pentagon, the threnody of Robert Lowell - seems to have been taken from the TV. I cannot be sure of that - but it looks as though it was second hand material. This can be excused only on the ground that the great majority of the American people watched the events of 1968 unfold via the tube, and that Whitehead was sharing that experience. However, the footage of Robert Kennedy at a political meeting seems authentic.
I think that Whitehead would have done better to have spent his entire time in Central Park. That is where he obtained some of his best material: middle aged matrons complaining about the excessive coverage of hippies; an orthodox priest fulminating against communism at a meeting of the Russian community; a woman decrying the expenditure on ordnance; 'flower children' playing in a pond...
However, the real meat was taken at Morningside Heights, and in particular at Hamilton Hall and the Seth Low 'Library'. There is an interesting scene in which a piper plays in a stairwell whilst a fellow protester dances a reel, and we do get a little feel for how the sit-in changed from being fairly placid to anarchic and then violent as the NYPD moved in. The treatment is quite one-sided - no attempt is made to see the Columbia sit-in from the viewpoint of the University authorities (though we do see a couple of nervous chaplains with first aid armbands). This is quite predictable, as the sit-in was largely a self-indulgent affair by the radical section of the student body. The violence of the police shocked many hitherto complacent New Yorkers (who had associated the political violence of the time with the south and Newark), but sympathies were not entirely with the protesters. I dimly recall Alistair Cooke (admittedly something of an establishment figure, but formerly on the liberal left) writing of his dismay at the sight of president Grayson Kirk's office in the Seth Low Library, and of all his books having been torn and trashed. What sort of sentient, humane protesters wreck a library? Whitehead remarks, very acutely, that opposition to Vietnam had become an article of faith amongst everyone under the age of 25, irrespective of the merits or demerits of American involvement - there was an absence of genuine argument amongst the young themselves. Rage and intolerance had infected the student population (arguably the most pampered in history), which then preceded to act in a monolithic, almost fascistic manner. This line of argument is one of the many threads with which Whitehead toys, and then discards.