list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Medium Cool on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Medium_Cool/22269/default.aspx Title: Medium Cool
Year: 1969
Director: Haskell Wexler
Plot: "I love to shoot film" is the sanguine motto of TV lensman John Cassellis (Robert Forster) in Haskell Wexler's 1969 Medium Cool, a semi-documentary investigation of image-making and politics. With his soundman, Gus (Peter Bonerz), John films such events as gruesome car wrecks with frosty detachment, considering himself a mere recorder of circumstances, his only responsibility to get his film in on time. Even his girlfriend, Ruth (Marianna Hill), cannot understand or penetrate John's complacency. Encounters with signs of the late '60s times, however, raise John's consciousness about the implications of his job, as he films a verbal attack by black militants on the media's racism, gets fired after he objects to having that footage turned over to the FBI, and meets Vietnam War widow Eileen (Verna Bloom). John witnesses the violence of the state firsthand as he and Eileen search for her son amidst the real-life demonstrations and riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. Even though he realizes the political power of pointing a camera at anything, John finally cannot extricate himself or his loved ones from a culture obsessed with recording any sensational, gory incident. Scripted (from a novel by Jack Couffer), directed, and shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer and political activist Wexler, Medium Cool systematically questions the ideological power of images by combining documentary techniques such as "talking heads" and cinéma vérité with staged scenes between the actors. By the time Wexler and his crew start filming Forster and Bloom among the actual events at the convention, all barriers between fiction and fact are broken down, as Wexler's assistant can be heard warning, "Watch out, Haskell, it's real," when tear gas is thrown. The footage of cops clubbing people in the crowd is real, but Wexler's presence also turns it into part of a fictional story, revealing filmed "reality" to be as artificially constructed as any other fiction, subject to the interpretation of whoever holds the camera and, perhaps, to larger institutions of power. Funding Medium Cool partly out of his own resources, Wexler had free reign during production, but when the execs at Paramount saw the result, they were not pleased. Despite the timely subject matter, Paramount delayed and then curtailed the film's release, tempering its impact on critics and audiences. Regardless of that record, Medium Cool stands as a vital late-'60s film for its incisive narrative and formal dissection of the visual politics of "truth," and its awareness of how coolly seductive televised violence might be as entertainment, especially in a historical moment marked by incendiary images of political assassinations, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and counterculture protests. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 1
Number of Lists: 7
Number of blog posts: 4
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:00:45 GMTMedium Cool1969Haskell Wexler"I love to shoot film" is the sanguine motto of TV lensman John Cassellis (<a href="/players/P____90191/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Robert Forster</a>) in <a href="/players/P___116529/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Haskell Wexler</a>'s 1969 Medium Cool, a semi-documentary investigation of image-making and politics. With his soundman, Gus (<a href="/players/P____82387/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Peter Bonerz</a>), John films such events as gruesome car wrecks with frosty detachment, considering himself a mere recorder of circumstances, his only responsibility to get his film in on time. Even his girlfriend, Ruth (<a href="/players/P____32327/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Marianna Hill</a>), cannot understand or penetrate John's complacency. Encounters with signs of the late '60s times, however, raise John's consciousness about the implications of his job, as he films a verbal attack by black militants on the media's racism, gets fired after he objects to having that footage turned over to the FBI, and meets Vietnam War widow Eileen (<a href="/players/P_____6834/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Verna Bloom</a>). John witnesses the violence of the state firsthand as he and Eileen search for her son amidst the real-life demonstrations and riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. Even though he realizes the political power of pointing a camera at anything, John finally cannot extricate himself or his loved ones from a culture obsessed with recording any sensational, gory incident. Scripted (from a novel by Jack Couffer), directed, and shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer and political activist Wexler, Medium Cool systematically questions the ideological power of images by combining documentary techniques such as "talking heads" and <I>cinéma vérité</I> with staged scenes between the actors. By the time Wexler and his crew start filming Forster and Bloom among the actual events at the convention, all barriers between fiction and fact are broken down, as Wexler's assistant can be heard warning, "Watch out, Haskell, it's real," when tear gas is thrown. The footage of cops clubbing people in the crowd is real, but Wexler's presence also turns it into part of a fictional story, revealing filmed "reality" to be as artificially constructed as any other fiction, subject to the interpretation of whoever holds the camera and, perhaps, to larger institutions of power. Funding Medium Cool partly out of his own resources, Wexler had free reign during production, but when the execs at Paramount saw the result, they were not pleased. Despite the timely subject matter, Paramount delayed and then curtailed the film's release, tempering its impact on critics and audiences. Regardless of that record, Medium Cool stands as a vital late-'60s film for its incisive narrative and formal dissection of the visual politics of "truth," and its awareness of how coolly seductive televised violence might be as entertainment, especially in a historical moment marked by incendiary images of political assassinations, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and counterculture protests. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide1Slightly Tagged (1-5)743http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t15535pbvzf.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Medium_Cool/22269/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/11/3/36899.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 11/3/2008 11:00:45 AM
Body: Late last Friday, word began to circulate that social historian and famed lefty Studs Terkel had died at the age of 96; Roger Ebert, Chuck Tryon and filmmaker Steven Bognar are among the many who have offered memories and appreciations. I went on YouTube this morning to find footage of the man, and I stumbled on this clip of Terkel talking about his participation in Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool. The nine minutes of footage were collected by Paul Cronin, ostensibly for his documentary on the making of Medium Cool,  Look Out Haskell, It’s Real. Make sure to watch it all the way through to find out what happens when Cronin calls Terkel “The Poet of Chicago.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:00:45 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog11/3/2008 11:00:45 AM Late last Friday, word began to circulate that social historian and famed lefty Studs Terkel had died at the age of 96; Roger Ebert, Chuck Tryon and filmmaker Steven Bognar are among the many who have offered memories and appreciations. I went on YouTube this morning to find footage of the man, and I stumbled on this clip of Terkel talking about his participation in Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool. The nine minutes of footage were collected by Paul Cronin, ostensibly for his documentary on the making of Medium Cool,  Look Out Haskell, It’s Real. Make sure to watch it all the way through to find out what happens when Cronin calls Terkel “The Poet of Chicago.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/11/3/36898.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 11/3/2008 11:00:33 AM
Body: Late last Friday, word began to circulate that social historian and famed lefty Studs Terkel had died at the age of 96; Roger Ebert, Chuck Tryon and filmmaker Steven Bognar are among the many who have offered memories and appreciations. I went on YouTube this morning to find footage of the man, and I stumbled on this clip of Terkel talking about his participation in Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool. The nine minutes of footage were collected by Paul Cronin, ostensibly for his documentary on the making of Medium Cool,  Look Out Haskell, It’s Real. Make sure to watch it all the way through to find out what happens when Cronin calls Terkel “The Poet of Chicago.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:00:33 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com11/3/2008 11:00:33 AM Late last Friday, word began to circulate that social historian and famed lefty Studs Terkel had died at the age of 96; Roger Ebert, Chuck Tryon and filmmaker Steven Bognar are among the many who have offered memories and appreciations. I went on YouTube this morning to find footage of the man, and I stumbled on this clip of Terkel talking about his participation in Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool. The nine minutes of footage were collected by Paul Cronin, ostensibly for his documentary on the making of Medium Cool,  Look Out Haskell, It’s Real. Make sure to watch it all the way through to find out what happens when Cronin calls Terkel “The Poet of Chicago.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/25/34347.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/25/2008 3:01:09 PM
Body: Forty years after the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, protesters are looking to repeat history in Denver this week. In fact there’s even a group calling itself “Recreate ‘68″, and if you’re a true internerd, you’ve already seen the popular YouTube clip of the crowd chanting “Fuck Fox News” at a Fox News correspondent (check out the other side here). After so many attempts at making parallels between ‘68 and ‘08, I’m a little bored of the nostalgia, and I think the retro attitude is past the point of showing its ineffectiveness. Earlier this year, I groaned at the use of a modern (though really, mostly decade-old) soundtrack in the ‘68 DNC-set animated documentary Chicago 10. Yet two years prior to that film’s 2007 premiere at Sundance, I had already seen a failed attempt to callback ‘68 with the Medium Cool homage This Revolution, the trailer for which is today’s clip of the day. Apparently there was another even less successful try at recreating Haskell Wexler’s film in ‘04, titled Medium Hot (see its trailer here). So, seemingly more appropriate, there’s sure to be some amateur filmmaking going on in Denver this week in hopes of making yet another Medium Cool Redux. But as disappointing as the end product would be in terms of redundancy and retrogress, it’s also unnecessary since we’re already getting footage from all sides of the streets immediately thanks to YouTube. Plus, while it was interesting to see actual protesting and rioting going on amidst Wexler’s film, it was about more than capturing those specific real-life events. If you’ve never seen the original film, you can check it out in parts on YouTube, beginning with part 1/11. If you have seen it, or you’re only intrigued about the most significant segment, skip to part 10. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:01:09 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/25/2008 3:01:09 PM Forty years after the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, protesters are looking to repeat history in Denver this week. In fact there’s even a group calling itself “Recreate ‘68″, and if you’re a true internerd, you’ve already seen the popular YouTube clip of the crowd chanting “Fuck Fox News” at a Fox News correspondent (check out the other side here). After so many attempts at making parallels between ‘68 and ‘08, I’m a little bored of the nostalgia, and I think the retro attitude is past the point of showing its ineffectiveness. Earlier this year, I groaned at the use of a modern (though really, mostly decade-old) soundtrack in the ‘68 DNC-set animated documentary Chicago 10. Yet two years prior to that film’s 2007 premiere at Sundance, I had already seen a failed attempt to callback ‘68 with the Medium Cool homage This Revolution, the trailer for which is today’s clip of the day. Apparently there was another even less successful try at recreating Haskell Wexler’s film in ‘04, titled Medium Hot (see its trailer here). So, seemingly more appropriate, there’s sure to be some amateur filmmaking going on in Denver this week in hopes of making yet another Medium Cool Redux. But as disappointing as the end product would be in terms of redundancy and retrogress, it’s also unnecessary since we’re already getting footage from all sides of the streets immediately thanks to YouTube. Plus, while it was interesting to see actual protesting and rioting going on amidst Wexler’s film, it was about more than capturing those specific real-life events. If you’ve never seen the original film, you can check it out in parts on YouTube, beginning with part 1/11. If you have seen it, or you’re only intrigued about the most significant segment, skip to part 10. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/cinemarian/archive/2008/5/12/28722.aspx Post By: CinemaRian
Post To: CinemaRian Blog
Post Date: 5/12/2008 9:57:02 PM
Body: More like Maximum Lame. I am not sure if there is another era of filmmaking that has dated as badly as the early phase of the New Hollywood movement. At the time so many of these films appeared to be bold and striking, even experimental, now many of them come off as preachy and obnoxious. Watching Medium Cool made me appreciate the few good films from this phase, The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy even more. The basic "experimental" aspect of Medium Cool is the fact that it straddles the lines between fiction and documentary, as fictitious characters interact with real events. But that's all. It's not that something interesting happens from this interaction, as it did in Borat. In fact, what's real is the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where a riot broke out and the Mayor of Chicago was accused on the convention floor of using "Gestapo tactics" to stop the protestors. Needless to say, this material is interesting, and a very good documentary could be made from it. But the writer and director, Haskell Wexler (a famed cinematographer) has built the movie around an ass-boring story of a love affair between TV news reporter (Robert Forster) and an Appalachian wife (Verna Bloom) whose husband is in Vietnam. Because this is an "artistic" film, we got lots of scenes of (boring) everyday life. The prime political element of the film (aside from the knee-jerk liberalism, of course) is that the reporter and his partner (Peter Bonerz, later to go onto fame as the dentist on The Bob Newhart Show) cover tragic news stories emotionlessly. Wexler uses every heavy handed trick and metaphor in his critique of the media. The director thinks that the media should stop reporting dispassionately and get involved in helping people. Maybe he's right, but I didn't need this sermon to tell me. Of course, Medium Cool was hailed as an instant classic upon its release, but time has not been kind to it (as early as 1985 Danny Peary called it "an interesting period piece"). That might be the best way to look at it-it's naïve insistence on its simplistic viewpoint reminded me when of the junk I thought when I was a teenager. Did people really think movies like this were going to save the world? Especially when they are so boring they'll put everyone to sleep? Medium Cool (1969)
]]>Tue, 13 May 2008 01:57:02 GMTCinemaRianCinemaRian Blog5/12/2008 9:57:02 PMMore like Maximum Lame. I am not sure if there is another era of filmmaking that has dated as badly as the early phase of the New Hollywood movement. At the time so many of these films appeared to be bold and striking, even experimental, now many of them come off as preachy and obnoxious. Watching Medium Cool made me appreciate the few good films from this phase, The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy even more. The basic "experimental" aspect of Medium Cool is the fact that it straddles the lines between fiction and documentary, as fictitious characters interact with real events. But that's all. It's not that something interesting happens from this interaction, as it did in Borat. In fact, what's real is the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where a riot broke out and the Mayor of Chicago was accused on the convention floor of using "Gestapo tactics" to stop the protestors. Needless to say, this material is interesting, and a very good documentary could be made from it. But the writer and director, Haskell Wexler (a famed cinematographer) has built the movie around an ass-boring story of a love affair between TV news reporter (Robert Forster) and an Appalachian wife (Verna Bloom) whose husband is in Vietnam. Because this is an "artistic" film, we got lots of scenes of (boring) everyday life. The prime political element of the film (aside from the knee-jerk liberalism, of course) is that the reporter and his partner (Peter Bonerz, later to go onto fame as the dentist on The Bob Newhart Show) cover tragic news stories emotionlessly. Wexler uses every heavy handed trick and metaphor in his critique of the media. The director thinks that the media should stop reporting dispassionately and get involved in helping people. Maybe he's right, but I didn't need this sermon to tell me. Of course, Medium Cool was hailed as an instant classic upon its release, but time has not been kind to it (as early as 1985 Danny Peary called it "an interesting period piece"). That might be the best way to look at it-it's na&iuml;ve insistence on its simplistic viewpoint reminded me when of the junk I thought when I was a teenager. Did people really think movies like this were going to save the world? Especially when they are so boring they'll put everyone to sleep? Medium Cool (1969) http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/teacher/MemberTagFilms.aspxteacher
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