Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968) User Reviews

Watch it for Patricia Gilbert and Susan Anspach

[mollytinkers · 7/10 · 28 July 2022]

After reading the handful of IMDb reviews, I believe the ongoing debate about how well Greaves executed his directorial vision is justified. I do like that I still wonder how much was planned and how much was impromptu. However, I'm not convinced the film makes a point.

What was so much fun for me is Patricia Gilbert's performance. In the beginning of her "screen test", I found her mesmerizing. She's angry, she's loud, she's enraged. Ironically, in a different "screen test", she downplays it, even lamenting when not filming that she thought she'd over-acted prior.

I was surprised by Susan Anspach's appearance. I recognized her from Five Easy Pieces with Nicholson, as well as other projects. It was a welcomed delight.

Although I will be watching this again when given the opportunity, I won't seek it out. I also don't recommend it for those looking for your typical, Hollywood send-up. It's for cinema addicts who enjoy experimental fare.

A question into the role of direction itself

[Polaris_DiB · 7/10 · 10 January 2008]

How important is the director, anyway? In this film, made in the politically tumultuous times of the late 60s where questions of social organization were prime conflicts, asks that question by making a movie that turns the camera away from the action and only begs to reveal the director, William Greaves. It is an important work, as it shows like no other movie shows the difficulties in blocking, organizing, and setting the scene; it reveals the role of the crew, something most directors frankly would like to disappear completely and that the invisibility of is essential for suspending disbelief; and it also puts into consideration the role of performance and scripting and how they match/don't match reality and what that has to say about how the director ultimately influences reality (if at all).

The documentary, or pseudo-documentary, or fictional narrative (whichever you prefer, via your interpretations of the themes) has its brain in the over-educated, over-intellectual crew, its guts in the lost performers struggling to understand the vague and ambiguous directions, and its heart in the director, who stands in as the desire to portray, to represent, to express without any idea how to do any of those things or why he wants to do it. It's a film that purposefully repeats banalities just to see if they can become more than banalities. It's a film that sometimes shows the multiple shots simultaneously, just to leave the editing to the audience and also reveal how disturbingly different shots change perspective.

It's an important work, and something that everyone interested in the industry and process of film-making should watch and understand. It, like many experimental films, has no real mass-audience appeal--it's not for them. It's for the industry, and its for the 60s, asking what to do with a group-effort medium that still relies on a single "voice" and "author".

--PolarisDiB

We can't work it out

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 7/10 · 28 September 2021]

It's simple.

It's a documentary (or is it?) about people trying to film a scene, and the people filming the scene are themselves being filmed, and Miles Davis is playing consistently in the background, and there's interludes where people talk behind the scenes about the nature of the film they're both in and making - including whether they're actually acting or not, and whether anyone will see the film, and how things may or may not be edited - and all the while, everyone has to deal with various interruptions as well as general existential dread and confusion, and then a very interesting homeless man (or is he?) hijacks the film and it then ends, and then there's an apparent part 2 made almost four decades later.

I might've missed something.

Like I said... simple.

Criterion Collections most recent genius addition

[Bryceroxx · 10/10 · 30 December 2006]

A film of high intelligence and activity. As well as being a strong capsule of the time and persona that was the 60's, the film is also TRULY a surprise in its forward-thinking themes and the unique presentation of the system of power in a group. William Greaves appoints himself to the authoritative role in the group. He asks his crew members to film and film and keep filming. First the two actors, then the crew filming the actors, then the entire set including bystanders, policemen, and finally a homeless man whose been living in bushes in Central Park for 9 weeks.

Greaves edits the film (thousands of feet) together and surprisingly makes a strong narrative with an interesting arc and motivations. Don't expect to be bored by this film. Each of crew make for engaging conversationalists and often times are voicing the thoughts that the observer has watching this film. Greaves does well at integrating the multiple camera takes using synchronized three-in-one pictures and other attention shifting methods.

In the end, the film will really only be effective if it's what YOU'RE looking for: if you're looking for some abstract arty film that feeds your own self-indulgent ego while never having a point, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a film that will have you talking and thinking long afterward about the desire for honesty and sincerity in documented "reality" and the inevitable transparency that comes of it, then this is the perfect film.

I Can Look You in the Eye and Say, Unflinchingly, the Words: "GENIUS! Pure, Unadulterated GENIUS!"

[TonyKissCastillo · 10/10 · 14 February 2016]

......................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA...and ORLANDO, FL

After my first viewing: Total shock! Upon some reflection, I didn't feel I was ready to write a review, so I watched the Special Features segment on William Greaves (At 1 hour, almost as long as the film) and then watched SYMBIO again. Here's the comment I was going to use after viewing once: "Is it an extremely original concept in film-making? Yes, undoubtedly! Is it enjoyable and watchable? For me, at least, the answer to that is 'Not so much' 7*" Just how stupid am I, anyway? (Rhetorical question, that!)

Here I am, nearly 66 years old, yet it wasn't till yesterday that I became aware of William Greaves! Can't remember the last time I could look anyone and everyone in the eye and say the words, with soulful and unabashed conviction: "GENIUS! Pure, Unadulterated GENIUS!" Sitting here at my computer, focusing on authoring this review, the SYMBIO-experience has inspired me to an extent unparalleled by any other film in recent years.

My job now: Articulate this in a way that, in turn, will inspire you to watch and perhaps produce a review of your own. Here, perhaps the most challenging aspect of review-writing is to avoid anything resembling a spoiler. Don't read the Blurbs. One definitely contains a spoiler, which could easily deprive you of the joy of "Getting It" all on your own! The two things which stand out most in retrospect? First, the sheer simplicity of the applied concept itself is truly inspirational, in and of itself. Second, that it took a 1/4 of a century, after the fact, for Mr. Greaves to get a decent screening and begin to get some of the recognition he so sorely deserved for this cinematic milestone.

Couldn't help but notice that SYMBIO-was shot in August 1968, just a few months after the release of Stanley Kubrick's 2001. What do both films have in common? Well, thematically, not much, really. But it's hard to imagine someone like Greaves not having seen it soon after its release, so...Who knows? We could always ask him!

10*.....ENJOY/DISFRUTELA!

Any comments, questions or observations, in English o en Español, are most welcome!

A knowing anarchy loosely presided over by Greaves

[sethhmartin · 27 December 2001]

It would be hard to put a numerical rating on this movie, as it is essentially a movie created inside out, with the `action' being performed by the `actors' as the hard nut on the inside, and the more free-flowing production process as the body of the film – this process being captured on several 35mm cameras rolling continually -- on the outside. Not to say there is nothing important about the `action,' which centers on an arguing couple in Central Park – in fact, there is a certain anarchy of purpose in the two characters' criticism of each other (using pithy, well-worn movie expressions) that mirrors a knowing anarchy in the production loosely watched over by Greaves. The film is open-ended, suggesting that the production process will continue even after the `failure' of more than one pair of actors to claim their roles for themselves. There is something about Symbiopsychotaxiplasm that suggests failure, whether it's the suspicion of the crew that Greaves lacks direction, or the sort of floundering behavior of the actors when they are not reading their lines. But that too is part of Greaves vision. Early on in the film one of the production staff laments Greaves' opacity, saying that the director tends to answer questions with very vague statements that make one wish they hadn't asked the question in the first place. It is this mysteriousness within Greaves (`what is he doing?') that gives the film its skeleton, and makes it much more than simply a Happening in the Park.

More interesting to read about than to watch

[cherold · 3/10 · 24 March 2015]

This film is a real curiosity. It's the work of a successful documentary filmmaker who seems to have wanted to document what happens in a chaotic film production by creating a chaotic film shoot and then filming it.

There are three camera crews, one to shoot a series of actors performing a two-person scene, one doing a basic "making of" style documentary that watches over the filming process, and a third crew there to film a more general making-of-the-making-of film.

As the days go by, the camera crews become increasingly frustrated, unsure of what the director has in mind and wondering if they are possibly working on a disaster. They decide to film themselves discussing this, with arguments as to whether this is all part of the director's plan and whether, if it is, it's a good plan.

It's certainly a different sort of documentary, but I didn't find it all that interesting. It's slow moving and wanders aimlessly.

Is it, as some people feel, a profound meditation on reality? I found it hard to feel it is. What reality are we looking at? Actors struggling with bad dialogue? A crew frustrated by a lack of purpose and direction? These things might be interesting in a documentary of an actual movie, but this is more like one of those movies that tries to emulate bad movies and fails because it's too precious. The reactions provoked by someone trying to provoke reactions are closer in spirit to a TV reality series like Survivor than to something that tries to document a real situation.

Like a lot of avant-garde filmmaking though, what you bring to this movie is more important than what this movie brings, which is why some people are blown away by it.

I will say that I think the director got the movie he wanted, so it can be seen as a successful experiment. But I found it virtually unwatchable.

Love Or Confusion

[valis1949 · 10/10 · 1 August 2009]

In 1968 when, "SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM: Take One", was released, it came from out of nowhere, and struck like a psychedelic thunder bolt. Afro-American actor and film maker, William Greaves, aimed to forever alter the 'news-reel' style of documentary film-making, and to this day, there has never been anything quite like it. The movie is a film about 'the making of a film', and intentionally written and directed so as to create as much controversy and contradiction as possible. Set in New York's Central Park, the action and scant dialog concern a couple who fight and bicker about homosexuality and abortion. The woman wants out of the relationship, and the man wants an explanation. Near the end of this interaction, a drunk homeless man interrupts the proceedings and offers his commentary, and personal back-story. Then, after the principle footage has been shot, the film crew add their own views of the film-maker and what they feel is his inept handling of the movie. And during the entire film, multiple cameras are employed to record the action within the scene, and extraneous commentary by cast, crew, and onlookers. I would certainly recommend this film to anyone who has an interest in Avant Garde film makers such as Andy Warhol, John Cassavetes, or Jim Jarmusch. William Greaves attempts to show that a thing cannot be truly observed and understood because the viewing itself would alter the reality. "SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM: Take One" can be seen as a cinematic representation or application of The Uncertainty Principle. This is only one possible explanation, and Greave's true intent is certainly open for speculation. Above all else, this film seeks to confound, confront. and stimulate, and without a doubt, succeeds admirably.

Gross waste of film stock.

[st-shot · 2/10 · 31 March 2014]

From its overtly innocuous title to its jabbering cast and crew this "artistic happening" bleeds sophomoric pretense by the gallons in a film filming a film with another cameraman filming both. It is a disturbing waste of film stock to witness as cast and crew go around in circles breathing life into a moribund idea where little if anything outside of annoyance and frustration are achieved. While the concept is intriguing the realization is a sloppy mess of lack of communication as director William Greaves looks ill prepared from the get go as he turns his film students loose in Central Park. It's all avant lard as Greaves directs a pair of actors in a torpid fiction scene followed by discussion while a cop and homeless man try to give the doc guerrilla theatre credentials with lack luster intrusion. Meanwhile the camera runs eating up footage on the mundane as Greaves hazily pontificates and his crew attempts to make sense of what is going on, venturing ideas on the purpose and point of the exercise in a staff meeting with Greaves excluded. Some see it as genius, some see it as a waste of time. I am solidly with the latter.

In the era of video and re-usable tape this monstrosity might be longer and even worse but at least it would not be committing the sin of wasting all that film stock on superfluous chatter and the hope something might be worth lensing on a mound or foot bridge in Central Park. Instead we have a clueless director and his acolytes bumping into each other with little to say or add to a film ( or films) in disarray which seems to be its purpose when it is more than evident this screen testing is for a film that will never get made but needed to get this faux cinema verite off the ground. A documentary whose lynch pin is based on a fiction is a bad place to start and it it makes Symbiowhatever little more than a pretentious self mockery.

CAN LOOK YOU RIGHT IN YOUR EYES AND SAY.... "PURE GENIUS!"

[Tony-Kiss-Castillo · 10/10 · 16 February 2024]

I AM IN SHOCK!!!

After my first viewing, I was in shock! After some reflection, I really didn't feel one viewing was enough to write a review, so I watched the Special Features segment on William Greaves (At one hour, almost as long as the feature itself!) and then I watched the entire movie again...Here is the comment I was going to use after just my first viewing: "Is it an extremely original concept in film-making? Yes, undoubtedly! Is it enjoyable and watchable? For me, at least, the answer to that question is 'Not so much!'

8*******" Boy, just how stupid am I, anyway? (Rhetorical question, of course!) Here I am, at 76.2 years of age, and it wasn't until yesterday that I became aware of the name William Greaves! I really can't remember the last time I could look anyone and everyone in the eye and say the words, with soulful and unabashed conviction..."GENIUS!... Pure, Unadulterated GENIUS!"

Sitting here at my computer, focusing on authoring this review, the SYMBIO-experience has inspired me to an extent unparalleled by any other film in recent years. My job now: Articulate this in a way that, in turn, will inspire you to Queue, watch and perhaps produce a review of your own. Here, perhaps the most challenging aspect of review-writing is to avoid anything resembling a spoiler. Don't read the NF Blurbs. One definitely contains a spoiler, which could easily deprive you of the joy of "Getting It" all on your own! The 2 things which stand out most in retrospect? First, the sheer simplicity of the applied concept itself is truly inspirational, in and of itself. Second, that it took a quarter of a century, after the fact, for Mr. Greaves to get a decent screening and begin to get some of the recognition he so sorely deserved for this cinematic milestone.

Couldn't help but notice that "SYMBIO" was shot in August 1968, just 3 months after the release of Stanley Kubrick's 2001. What do the 2 films have in common? Well, thematically, not much, really. It's hard to imagine a person like Greaves not having seen it, so...Who knows? We could always ask him! REVISED RATING... 10**********

ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

The magic of film-making

[moviemanMA · 10/10 · 16 July 2009]

This is a documentary unlike any other. It has so many layers and shows us so much that trying to analyze it all at once is nearly impossible. Documentarian William Greaves shows us the process of film-making from a different perspective. We see the struggles of the actors, the director, the sound crew, and everybody else trying to hang in there and make this film successful. If this was just about a movie being made it would be ordinary. What Greaves does is make it more complex by having a crew film the actors, and then this will be filmed by another crew, only to have another crew film the whole thing. Three cameras, each with a different goal. It has an almost dizzying affect on you but at the same time is exciting. I like the parts where the crew organizes together and discusses what is going on. Even they are somewhat in the dark as to what Greaves is trying to do. Half see this as an experiment while the other half sees it as a chaotic and confusing failure. No matter what side you choose, you can't argue that Greaves doesn't get you involved in this process.

Ahead of its time

[whereismikeyfl · 10/10 · 2 January 2011]

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm points the way toward so many later development in film. It manipulates reality by provoking the hapless cast, crew and bystanders to play roles by provoking them. The director of the film uses his own behavior as a Rorschach test. The whole genre of reality television as well as avant-garde documentary styles are anticipated in this film.

In addition to its historical importance the film is fascinating on its own terms for anyone who likes to think about the nature of performance vs. reality. Gender, race, sexuality and the march of time also make appearances.

Criterion has done its usual terrific job in rescuing this forgotten masterpiece from undeserved obscurity.

Grade School

[tedg · 28 May 2007]

This was recommended by a reader, and I'm glad to have seen it. But that's only because I'm interested in anything that contributes to the vocabulary of folding or self-reference. But I would not recommend this to you as a film experience. It is a clever idea: film acting students in Central Park doing a screen test. The lines they play with are capriciously malleable. Meanwhile a camera documents the events behind the first camera. There's sometimes a third camera as well, and from time to time that camera focuses on a discussion of the crew. They're discussing — with amazing vacuity — the advanced implications of the film.

In other words it is explicitly self-referential in the simplest of ways. There are many more clever folds in the film world, and certainly from that period, so this isn't rare or even novel. It would be something to recommend if all this relatively sophomoric enlightenment had been turned to something that had blood and muscle of some kind.

But it hasn't. Its one tool in a collection of several that have to be applied to the real building material of life. It lacks any of that and isn't a particularly sharp tool at that.

Perhaps Part 2 1/2 will be worth it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Arty, pretentious, hilarious

[meagher-5 · 5/10 · 29 December 2006]

I agree with the previous reviewer: it is extremely difficult to peg this film to a numerical rating. It depends on what you are looking for: if you are looking for a thought-provoking film about the performance of self, look elsewhere. Better yet, read some Erving Goffman. If, however, you want to laugh at people's ridiculous behavior before cameras, and reality television is too subtle for you, this is the perfect film.

The film begins with the instantly unlikeable director, William Greaves, holding court in Central Park. He instructs the several cameramen to film each other and himself in an affected-European-accent-of-unknown-provenance (it approximates British most closely, though I am certain Greaves is a domestic product); further, that the theme of the film is "sexxxxxuality," he purrs, when he is distracted by a woman on a horse trotting them-ward. "Oh, get her! The woman with the TITS!" Awkwardly gratuitous and downright silly.

This sets the tone for the rest of the film, during which two profoundly untalented actors chew their way through Greaves' painful script about the couple's married life. No cheap shock is spared, as it is revealed that she has had abortion after abortion: "one after another you've killed my babies!"; and he is a closeted homosexual: "I saw you looking at him, that fag-got that everyone knows about!" NOTE: "Take 2 1/2" (2003) includes the dramatic reunion of two other actors, also ostensibly from the desk of Greaves. The wife's character, we are informed, has been to Europe (natch.) where she has had a successful recording career. (This actress clearly went to dialog class with Greaves.) The husband has an "adopted" daughter in the music industry, who is getting mixed up in drugs. It's just like the smarmy, unctuous crew member says in the "candid" (see below): it is truly the story of every-couple USA.

The best (or rather the worst) parts are the "candid" marijuana-fueled "behind-the-scenes" conversation among the crew members, who AGONIZE over the director's (quite transparent) intentions; the "meaning" of the film; the "authenticity" of the experience, etc. Many complain about the abysmal writing. Greaves later confronts the mutineers on the set, where his initial defensiveness gives way to self-satisfaction: apparently this was the whole idea! It's SUPPOSED to be bad! The really remarkable thing, as far as I'm concerned, is that the director, actors and crew apparently saw the film and released it anyway. Not only is it awful beyond awful, it makes them all look like pretentious, self-indulgent and woefully inept art-school weasels. Every line made me laugh through gritted teeth.

Meta-Narrative Entropy

[ZephSilver · 9/10 · 5 February 2020]

A film that folds in on itself, where the lines between acting and acting natural is an equally weighted farce. Everyone is playing a part even when off-camera. Hiding behind their persona built up to appease others, or lost within the persona they've interjected themselves into when performing on film. Egotistical self-aggrandizing small-players all trying to assert their pseudo-philosophy about content that was in itself a lack of content.

It's such an utter takedown of perceived reality while operating under the confines of a camera lens that it's hard to even draw the lines between its genius and self-serving conceit.

And somewhere between where the true answer lies and the fabrication takes over is where the appeal can be found. Transient glimpses of something resembling "purposeful chaos" that keeps the viewer from looking away.

A reality that falls victim to the entropy of unguided celluloid. Directing byways of not. Acting byways of not. Development byways of not. It's a documentary-hybrid about nothing that becomes something by the mere fact that tangible film exists to support it.

A documentary-film hybrid about a documentary being filmed based on the 2nd filming crew that's documenting the filming process of the 1st film crew, while this 1st crew in question is in the process of shooting a screen test for a film with no clear beginning or end. Yeah... let THAT metacontextual mindfuck sink in.

A seemingly complex idea with ultimately vapid results

[Stay_away_from_the_Metropol · 1/10 · 1 February 2022]

This is one of the biggest wastes of time I've ever had recommended, and one of the most worthless "films" I have ever seen receive a wide release, especially one that's spanned decades. Criterion...really?

Watching this movie is like watching an expansive behind-the-scenes special for a movie that doesn't actually exist. Behind-the-scenes features are rarely that interesting unless it's one of your favorite movies, so imagine how boring one would be for a low-budget movie that consists purely of two people having conversations at a park?

I found absolutely NOTHING of value through viewing this. At first, I felt like it at least may be a worthwhile time warp into 1968 when it was shot, but that whole idea quickly loses its charm when the vapidity of the content itself becomes apparent. I found no connections between the scripted conversations occurring as part of the fictional film and the film crew discussions regarding the making of the film. There is nothing to take from any of these conversations, or "characters"...This may be what I consider the greatest failure of an experiment in the format of a film, EVER made. That's just me...

A Film About Nothing

[deborah-tequilamockingbi · 30 July 2011]

I gave this film a three only because it kept me interested enough in watching all of it. The film was an interesting experiment but brilliant? That's a stretch, at best, but for its time a big maybe, perhaps. It's a film about nothing but it is a film that is also filled with egomaniacs, misogynists, wannabes and hangers-on. I saw more talent from the candid crowd shots than I did the cast and crew combined of what the third party film crew was filming when the lens was actually focused or the view finder wasn't fixed at a treetop because someone was holding the running camera under their arm. It was a depressing journey on a continuous loop going nowhere, a carousel of blathering idiotic dialog and smug pseudo-intellectualism. It is an interesting time capsule but it's cringe inducing for any woman to watch. The interesting aspect is how many women were involved in the film crew (as well as the actresses) and not one of them flinched at the blatant and nasty undercurrent of misogyny that flowed throughout which was about the only constant this film accidentally chartered a course on and that was the subsequent impact this film left in its cinematic impact and wake.

Mutiny on the Milgram Movie Set

[ThurstonHunger · 8/10 · 1 August 2022]

If you welcome something definitely different, please seek this out. Stop reading this review and all others, and set aside an evening for the full DVD (1 + 2.5 and definitely the supplements).

Orson Welles' had his mirror scene in "Lady From Shanghai" William Greaves sends cameras after cameras and as the actors rehearse and rehearse the cameras drift off. The story disappears, the film folds in upon itself and out upon the film-making moment.

A homeless drunk wander in to deliver a soliloquy, the cameras not only allow it, the director more than welcomes it.

Sure it's like sailing on a raging ocean without a rudder. Fiction has had untrustworthy narrators for a long time, but a film with an untrustworthy director....

Right from the beginning there's something about the Miles Davis riffing, it's more a jam than a song, and yet it drives you forward. There's something about that music and this film, the cast/crew it just vibrates with late 60's energy.

Just as some music requires you to dump a linear set of expectations, here you have to be willing to watch three or more levels of improvisation before/behind/off and after the camera. (Editing this must have been a trip!)

forgot that movies are supposed to entertain

[PIST-OFF · 5/10 · 30 December 2018]

An audition for a fake movie scene is played out over and over again. the filming of this movie is in turn being filmed as a "making of" or "behind the scenes". and both the fictional movie and it's "making of" movie are being filmed by a third crew. all of it intercut with behind the scenes meetings of the crew trying to ascertain what the director of it all (Greaves) wants. it is not certain how much any of these meta-layers is intentional or scripted

how you approach this depends on what you ask of a film. if you seek unbridled entertainment, seek it elsewhere. if you seek an intellectual meditation on the nature of fiction (or at least quasi-intellectual) this is the place for you. if you believe that movies should both entertain and enlighten, again this is not for you.

that Greaves acts shocked that few would want to bankroll a film that used up to 100 hours of expensive film stock for a movie with a very very VERY limited commercial appeal is proof positive of the terrible effect that DuChamp had on all of the arts. calling attention to the nebulous boundaries by which something is classified as "art" is old hat by the time this came out and anyhow works better couched in word better than image.

as a quasi intellectual exercise this might be great for late high school and college aged students to watch and then rhapsodize about later over a few mind altering chemicals. it is not recommended for anyone who's over 30 and has their feet planted firmly on the ground.

Just being different doesn't make it good

[Lennie_G · 2/10 · 29 July 2022]

It was a novel idea To make a movie like this. My suspicion is: a few other documentarians thought about the idea before and discarded it for a good reason.

It doesn't have a point. It is simply confused people who become argumentative and are encouraged to keep at it.

Very Good Documentary About the Making of Three Things

[Michael_Elliott · 1 August 2011]

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968)

*** (out of 4)

Incredibly fascinating little gem from director William Greaves works as a feature film but also a documentary. Basically what we have here is Greaves shooting an actual feature dealing with a husband and wife fighting about their life while walking through Central Park. That's the "feature" side of things. While they're shooting this they also have two separate cameras picking up all the drama and action going on in real life. So, the film is one where we get to see the actual feature being shot but also a documentary covering the making of the actual movie. I can't say I had ever heard of this movie before it popped up on Turner Classic Movies but part of what makes being an open-minded film buff so great is that you often come across gems that you might not have had you simply didn't expand in your viewing habits. It's really hard to explain this feature or why it works so well but I found it to be rather fascinating because there are moments where we get a third aspect of the "film" which is when the production crew are gathered in a room where they discuss where the film should go and their opinions on whether or not Greaves is doing a good job directing. These three aspects of a "film" are so interesting that you have to wonder why someone didn't try doing a picture like this a lot earlier and while there are certainly some creaky moments, overall this is a rather genius thing to try and pull off and you really can't help but applaud the director. There are some very funny moments in the behind-the-scenes section including a bit where they're filming and a group of people gather to watch and the director has to explain to them what they're doing and why they need to be quiet so that they don't ruin the scene. There are other moments where the crew fight about how much film is left, there's a sequence with a cop wanting to see some permits and then of course there's the actual film being shot, which contains a couple actors who are very good in their parts. It's also interesting to see the actors playing their parts and coming up with ideas to run past the director. I think what I really pulled away from this movie, unlike any other documentary, is how everyone working on a film thinks they're the most important part. The actors are focused on their job. The director has his job. The crew have their job and everyone is so focused on what they're doing that it's hard to really see what the other person's job is and why it might be just as important. This movie certainly isn't for everyone but those who enjoy movies about making movies should find themselves entertained.

The Search For Truth

[Bolesroor · 6 August 2011]

Truth is what remains after we have rejected everything that is untrue.

That is how we define our world, ourselves, our very reality. We are- whether we know it or not- constantly questioning, constantly searching for truth in our lives- from the most simplistic and straightforward to the universal eternal questions: the truth about love, and sex, and God, the truth about men and women, and the meaning of life. "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm" is a movie that brilliantly turns the medium of film- and its devices- into the ultimate litmus test of truth. That's all the movie is: the search for truth, experienced in multiple levels of reality and reflecting off itself in a series of mirrors.

It's so much more simple than other reviewers make it sound. When critics start dusting off arcane technical descriptions and pretentious French terminology I usually run screaming in the opposite direction. William Greaves uses the simple idea of a film crew shooting a scene in the park as a departure point for a look at what is real. Is the scene real? Is it intentionally terrible? The absurd, stilted dialogue and over-the-top performances seem to suggest it's a smokescreen for something else, and yet there are times when the actors find Truth in the awful scene by transcending the premise and dialogue and reaching an emotional core. This is the very definition of acting, so in a strange way this zero-budget, atrociously-written scene succeeds more than many big-budget "legitimate" Hollywood films. But then Greaves includes footage of the actors as themselves rehearsing and discussing the scene… does seeing their actual personalities and hearing their own opinions enhance or detract from their performances? Or is this aspect of the film scripted as well? We don't know, and it's the absolute ambiguity that makes this movie magnetic and fascinating.

The second level of the film is the behind-the-scenes documentary, which in many ways is the most pure form of cinema ever created. The camera captures the struggles and setbacks of the cast and crew on location, including intruding police officers, crowds of excited on-lookers, and even an eccentric homeless man to reveal the reality of what goes on during a shoot. The crew is frustrated, confused and almost mutinous over the director's seemingly careless attitude about the movie. It says a lot about Greaves' open-mindedness as an artist and a man that he's willing to include this footage that openly questions his talents and motivations. Clearly he's as willing to expose himself to scrutiny as his actors and his crew. That's commitment, and the key to the movie for me. The fact that Greaves included scenes that showed him in an unflattering light convinced me that the man is as pure a film artist as there ever was. Boldly, fearlessly, he stands completely vulnerable on screen in his own film and trusts the audience to judge him for themselves.

The third level of the film is unprecedented and probably the most fun. Thirty years before the invention of DVD Director's Commentary the crew gathers and gives a running commentary on the movie- while it's still in production- and surprisingly questions whether or not the film has any value at all! Their passion is contagious... these are clearly all talented individuals who genuinely care about the project they're working on, and although they have different opinions they basically all arrive at the same conclusion: the movie is a disorganized mess. They're absolutely right, but few of them had the foresight to see that it's the sprawling, imperfect, fun-house atmosphere that makes it such a rich and rewarding experience.

Just watching this movie will make you smarter about movies, if not life in general. It will make you question what you once blindly accepted, it will engage you and challenge you in a way that no other film ever has or probably ever will, and for that alone it is a tremendous success and exceptionally valuable. It is a time capsule of not only an era when artistic pursuits were much more nobly considered, but of a unique cinematic experience in which the audience, cast and crew all switch places like a magical game of musical chairs and in which the truth reveals itself to be just as maddeningly elusive as in real life.

The first time I saw the film I was convinced the drunken homeless man who preaches to the crew was an actor playing a part in a staged segment of the behind-the-scenes documentary. The second time I saw it I was sure he was absolutely real.

Let me know if you figure it out, won't you?

GRADE: A

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm.

[TxMike · 28 June 2021]

Are we, prospective viewers, supposed to be impressed with the title "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm"? It certainly piqued my interest, enough to get the DVD from my local public library. Plus I have an attachment to the 1960s, as I finished college, got married, started my career, and had my first child.

However I simply could not get into this, I watched some, skipped a bit, watched some more. I was not entertained and I could not find anything intellectually stimulating about it.

I see that there are a few really positive reviews here, it makes we wonder if they really are that high on it, or are they simply trying to do a favor to the producers and distributors of this film. There are also what I will call "balanced" reviews, discussing pros and cons, I would trust them more if I were reading reviews to see if I wanted to invest my time. I suppose I probably should have done that first.

Groundbreaking experimental film

[lor_ · 20 June 2023]

My review was written in March 1991 after watching the movie at a Midtown Manhattan screening room.

This fascinating experimental film, which combines fictional and documentary techniques in innovative fashion, was shot in 1967 but never released.

Like Michael Roemer's "The Plot Against Harry", similarly 20 years on the shelf, it's an artifact modern audiences could appreciate. It offers a fresh look at society and filmmaking trends of the adventurous '60s.

Making his first fiction feature, documentarist William Greaves chose the challenging assignment of becoming a filmmaker-provocateur, using a screenplay "Over the Cliff" as the basis to instigate a revolt among his actors and his crew against directorial tyranny.

This is set against the backdrop of auteur filmmaking, in which Jean-Luc Godard and especially John Cassavete were using cinema verite techniques in fictional formats. Greaves takes his crew to Manhattan's Central Park in springtime an repeatedly shoots the same scenes of a marital breakup, using a succession of free different couples in the roles.

"Take One" focuses on one thespian team, stage actors Patricia Ree Gilbert and Don Fellows (latter frequently seen as an American in British films of the '70s and '80s), who ultimately question the lack of direction Greaves is giving them. Hazard of the verite technique occurs when Gilbert storms off in disgust as Greaves interrupts her big scene before the payoff, and his camera crew is unprepared to capture on film the remainder of this high point incident.

What makes "Take One" uniques is a series of segments Greaves did not direct: after several days of shooting, the crew clandestinely assembles and films their own bull sessions (with the director absent) criticizing Greaves and pondering what can be done to save the "Over the Cliff" feature. Their comments are fascinating, and Greaves leaves this material in as part and parcel of his freeform filmmaking design.

Especially effective is sound man Jonathan Gordon's later eruption in which he tells Greaves to "drop the euphemisms" and lectures the writer-director on how his banal dialog would benefit from unexpurgated contemporary jargon.

This house revolt is exactly what Greaves wanted and demonstrates realistically, rather than satirically, how even the lowliest crew member often could give valuable input in a foundering production if such collaboration were encouraged (or permitted).

Use of split-screen techniques presents simultaneous different angles of the same "Over the Cliff" scene being shot as well as views of the crew. Film also documents the intrusion onto the set of an alcoholic who takes center stage briefly to inject his nihilistic, post-Beatnik but anti-hippie stream of consciousness.

Much of this film is quite funny though Greaves' Machiavellian approach to bamboozling his cast and crew is a bit hard to take at times. He reportedly shot enough footage for several features (a "Take Two" sequel is permitted in the end credits), and included among the cast not shown here is Susan Anspach in what would have been her film debut pre-"The Landlord".