Tonight's movie was "Medium Cool" (1969), a Criterion release that I found at Northridge Libe. I remembered the title from way back when I was a kid, so I figured I'd give it a try. "Medium Cool" was written and directed by Haskell Wexler, who you may know was one of the greatest cinematographers in motion picture history, a legend really. I am not sure if he ever wrote or directed any pictures besides this one, and I don't feel like IMDBing it right now (though if you do, have at it) but if "MC" is his only directorial effort, it is an apt one, because the movie is all about how the news media, and thus the camera, both covers the news and more importantly helps to shape it. Wexler as a cameraman wanted to make a point with his movie, and the point not only holds up half a century later but easily applies to our world today. In fact, substitute 2017 for 1968, when the movie takes place, and you would think time had stopped for the past fifty years, because the political and societal atmospheres are very similar and in fact, some of the comparisons are downright eerie in their exactness. Watching this movie, you would think we've gone nowhere in all this time, and in fact, in 1968 we may have been advancing at a faster rate, as we were at least in the process of sending men to the Moon.
"Medium Cool" plays like a documentary for the first 40 minutes or so. Long time star Robert Forster plays a news cameraman in Chicago who, along with his soundman ("Newhart"'s Peter Bonerz), is constantly on the go, filming the tempest of confrontational activity that was taking place in the Windy City in '68, a year like no other. I was a child of the 60s, and the thing about that decade was that so much stuff happened every single year that each year felt like three. 1968, though, was the year everything went off the rails, and that year - with the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in a span of two months, and then the crazy and violent Democratic Convention in Chicago later that Summer - seemed like a neverending tumult. And those were just the Main Events of '68. So much else was happening, and I mean So Much......it was a year that changed the world.
"Medium Cool" is meant to capture the American aspect of that year of revolution, and so it's POV is set in Chicago. Robert Forster is a fearless cameraman, ready to enter into any situation and begin filming, even in ghetto neighborhoods were it is made clear to him that he is not welcome.
Meanwhile, an entire side story is intercut into all the political action. Forster meets and falls in love with an innocent bystander to the proceedings, a young woman from West Virginia who is fairly new to the big city. She lives with her young son in an impoverished section of town; she and Forster meet because of the boy's attempt to break into Forster's car. Thus is developed a contrasting tale of life in West Virginia, which is interspersed with occasional scenes of the rural culture there, reminiscent of an older, simpler American era, with a heartfelt focus on religion. Wexler to his credit depicts this culture in a straightforward manner, just as he shows what is happening in the larger world outside the country. It's all America, from the country folks to the city folks. We are all in this together, and the camera shows us everything. In that way we are definitely united.
"Medium Cool" works best when Something Is Happening, like when Forster and Bonerz go to an apartment in the ghetto to interview a black man who has turned in to the police ten thousand dollars he discovered in the back of his taxicab. The man is a good man, an honest hardworking guy, but he lives in a neighborhood with self-educated black revolutionaries, smart guys who are up against The Man as they see it, and they see the cabdriver as an Uncle Tom who is behaving as a Negro rather than a Black Man. He turned in the money because he felt it was the honest thing to do, but his friends and neighbors see it differently. They think he should have kept it.
Forster the cameraman covers all of this, and is not intimidated (he is also a former amateur boxer), but mainly he feels that it is his job simply to film and let the camera tell the story.
This aspect of the movie is so right on the money that, again, it could apply maybe even more today than in 1968.
The love story does not mix as well into the action as Wexler probably intended it to, and so once again you have the problem of a non-director directing. This time, though, it is a minor problem, as both storylines eventually coincide to bring about a surprise ending, one that has a very ironic twist given the film's premise that The Camera Sees All, and thus results in a dual citizenry of Participants and Voyeurs.
Us Versus Them, or vice versa, or something to that effect.
It's not a classic movie in the story or plot sense, but as a recreation of the Chicago-based events of 1968, it's a virtual Time Capsule, and because Haskell Wexler was also the cinematographer, it feels like you are Right There and In The Moment. Just one great shot after another. 1968 in a nutshell.
I give "Medium Cool" two thumbs up. Though it is not a super-compelling story plotwise, and though it's documentary scenes feel only loosely connected, it still works as a whole movie, and as stated, because it is about 1968, in Chicago, it is a serious and necessary recording of American history at a time of change that resulted in the America we live in today fifty years later. We have changed and gone nowhere in the meantime. ///
Today I just hung out at The Tiny for the most part, except for a couple of CSUN walks, one afternoon and one evening. Chilling has a restorative effect and so I will chill until I am restored, haha. Just hung out, read my book ("Critical Mass"), played some guitar and worked on a drawing.
Elizabeth, I saw your post about "40 Degrees in Wisconsin = Top Down In The Car". Man, you guys are hard core, lol, because I would be A Popsicle in that car haha. Luckily it was t-shirt weather here, unbelievably still in the 80s in late November and supposed to be 90 tomorrow.
My Goodness, SB.
I hope your day was good. See you in the morning. :):)
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