Dreams

 

Psychocinema

 

Mistery Roach

by Roger Erbert

"Ladies and gentlemen, you can go mad on the road. That is precisely what this film is all about." - A voice, probably Frank Zappa's, in "200 Motels"

We have been hearing for a long time that videotape is going to revolutionize filmmaking, and now here is the vanguard of the revolution. Whatever else it may be, Frank Zappa's "200 Motels" is a joyous, fanatic, slightly weird experiment in the uses of the color videotape process. If there is more that can be done with videotape, I do not want to be there when they do it.

The movie is a kind of magical mystery trip through all the motels, concert halls, cities, states and groupies of a road tour of the Mothers of Invention. No attempt is made at documentary accuracy (to make a thunderous understatement). All of the cities are lumped together into Centerville, "a real nice place to raise your kids up," and the sanity of the film can be gauged by the fact that Ringo Starr plays Frank Zappa as "a very large dwarf."

Zappa's mixture of mediums -- rock, electronic music, the Royal Philharmonic, dance, overlapping visuals -- pushes the videotape process almost to its extremes. Zappa's kind of mixture isn't new (Harry Partch's "Celebrations on the Courthouse Square," an experimental 1962 stage production, anticipates everything in "200 Motels"). But mixing it on film is new.

Videotape reportedly allowed Zappa to film the entire movie in about a week, to do a lot of the editing and montage in the camera and to use cheap videotape for his final editing before transferring the whole thing to a surprisingly high-quality 35mm image. Because videotape made it so easy to slosh on more special effects, Zappa wasn't stingy; some people may find the movie's multidimensional feel too overbearing.

In a way, maybe, overbearing is the word for this movie. It assaults the mind with everything on hand. When there are moments of relative calm -- say, during the animated sequence, or during the rare moments when only one image is on the screen we find ourselves actually catching our mental breath. The movie is so unrelentingly high that you even wish for intermissions.

Still, the music is there, a lot of it, and because the movie doesn't stop for the music or anything we never get the sense that this is an illustrated album. It is also not another record of a road tour; It breaks with the tradition of "Don't Look Back," "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" and the rock festival movies. It is also not quite in the same family tree as the Beatles movie, but it's in a tree, all right. One with enough branches for everyone but wild tigers snapping at your toes.

"200 Motels" is not the kind of movie you have to see more than once. It is the kind of movie you can barely see once: not because it's simple, but became it's so complicated that you finally realize you aren't meant to get everything and sort everything out. It is a full wall of sight-and-sound input, and the experience of the input -- not its content, is what Zappa's giving us. "200 Motels" is out of Howard Johnson by Tinker Bell, with Aquarius setting.

l'originale è qui:

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/200-motels-1971

Magic fingers

200 motels (1971). Questo che in apparenza è un tortuoso e confuso film è diventato un classico e così la sua parte canoro - orchestrale eseguita oggi come un’opera lirica. A metà tra Head di Bob Rafelson e Tommy degli Who è un condensato di situazioni al limite del comprensibile e dell’irriverente. Per sfuggire a qualsiasi interferenza Frank Zappa preferì girarlo negli studi Pinewood, nei pressi di Londra, creando un’impresa che supera di gran lunga il più acclamato musical dell’asse Broadway - Hollywood pur ricorrendo a scalcagnati attori che sono nel contempo famosi musicisti: Aynsley Dunmbar, George Duke, Howard Kaylan e Mark Wolman per citarne qualcuno, affiancati in situazioni paradossali da Ringo Starr e Keith Moon. A sua gloria citiamo solo alcuni motivi tra i più riusciti che vengono eseguiti live durante il corso della visione: Mistery Roach, Lonesome Cowboy Burt, Magic Fingers,i quali risultano godibili anche strappati dalle immagini.

Acid, electric, strangest of all, Elvin Jones: Zachariah

By Daniel Spicer

The psychedelic period of the late 1960s/early 1970s produced a number of movies that sought to incorporate youth music with film. From the elegiac tragedy of Easy Rider to the Monkees’ Day-Glo comedy Head, the best of these represented and reflected the era’s curious mix of turbulence and naïveté.

And then there was Zachariah. This head-scratcher from 1971 was directed by George Englund (who’d previously worked with Marlon Brando on 1963’s The Ugly American) and featured a script by cult US comedy troupe The Firesign Theatre, with a storyline loosely based on Herman Hesse’s hippy-pleasing novel of spiritual discovery Siddhartha. It tells the tale of the improbably beautiful and white-toothed Zachariah (played by John Rubinstein) who, with his equally dreamy young friend, Matthew (a 21-year-old Don Johnson, later of Miami Vice fame), sets out to pursue the glamorous life of a gunfighter. Clearly, the film broadly falls into the genre of Acid Western, alongside classics such as Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand, released the same year, and Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garret and Billy the Kid from 1973: movies that attempted to address countercultural concerns (Zachariah and Matthew’s first scene together has them sharing a joint), within the Western milieu. But, while most films of this genre explored serious themes and maintained an element of verisimilitude, Zachariah blasts off somewhere else entirely. Almost singlehandedly creating a new genre, the publicity blurb excitedly trumpeted it as ‘the first and only Electric Western.’

In this instance, ‘electric’ essentially means ‘psychedelic rock.’ The opening scene captures power trio The James Gang rocking-out in the desert with huge amps plugged right into the sand, while Zachariah runs around firing a pistol into the air. It’s the kind of temporal incongruity you might find in Thomas Pynchon’s epic Western novel Against the Day, in which dynamite-chucking anarchists get bombed on peyote and hallucinogenic explosive putty. But Zachariah becomes still more disorientating as its protagonists’ adventures lead them into surprising encounters with a range of real-life musicians. San Francisco’s psychedelic pioneers, Country Joe and the Fish, play The Crackers – a gang of inept outlaws whose performances induce unrestrained go-go dancing in respectably attired frontierswomen; fiddler Doug Kershaw – aka The Ragin’ Cajun – makes a lightning cameo with a yodelling piece of plot exposition; and, strangest of all, Elvin Jones, arguably the greatest jazz drummer of all time and veteran of the late John Coltrane’s Classic Quartet, turns up as the suave gunslinger, Job Cain, shooting a man dead before bashing out a drum solo.

The result is oddly surreal – but not in the way that Jodorowsky’s nightmarish Western allegory, El Topo(released in 1970) is surreal. In tone and execution, Zachariah seems closer to the closing scenes from Mel Brooks’ screwball Western spoof, 1974’s Blazing Saddles, in which the cast spills off the set and into the bustling streets of downtown 1970s Burbank. Zachariah’s fairly negligible storyline makes a half-hearted lunge at profundity – clumsily advocating pacifism and brotherhood – but it’s so flimsy that, in the end, all that’s left is the music: an eclectic mix of rock, pop, folk and jazz that fails to hang together with the conviction of the equally wide-ranging soundtrack to Antonioni’s 1970 countercultural lament Zabriskie Point.

Ultimately, the fact that the soundtrack to Zachariah has been out of print and unavailable for so many years hardly seems to matter. You probably had to be there.

L'originale è qui:

http://www.soundandmusic.org/features/sound-film/found-soundtracks-zachariah

Western Siddharta

La visione di Zachariah (1971) di George Englund fa ergersi nella mente del mangiatore di film tutta una serie di accostamenti con altre opere cinematografiche  sue contemporanee o anteriori. Esse abbracciano lavori di autori intellettuali europei come di abili commercianti hollywoodiani. Ma questo dato è comune a tutti i film della counterculture  sia che venissero realizzati nella coste west o  east  statunitensi.  Zachariah è pressoché inedito in Italia. Non attirò dapprima i distributori italici come successivamente i canali televisivi. Per fortuna c’è il “ vostro/nostro tubo “.

Per alzare il tono gli autori fanno ricorso a Herman Hesse, scrittore molto in voga tra i giovani di allora. Zachariah cerca l’avventura e il rischio per colpa della sua pistola comprata per corrispondenza, finendo col meditare sulla vacuità e vanità degli uomini.

Oggi a noi interessa l’aspetto musicale del film che si amalgama bene col progressivo svolgimento delle immagini, facendo  uso ora di partiture originali di Jimmie Haskel, ora di musica roots alla maniera di Dug Kershaw, ora di un arrangiamento velocizzato dell’overture del Guglielmo rossiniano, ora della folk-psichedelia di Country Joe and the Fish, dell’acid rock della James Gang e, infine, data la presenza del bronzeo Elvin Jones  esecutore  di un tellurico assolo di tamburi, del jazz d’annata. Non poteva essere altrimenti data la mole di contaminazioni dissipate nell’opera da parte di chi ha scritto e sceneggiato Zachariah.

The panoply of creative quandaries

The panoply of creative quandaries, Aquarius and Inferno, "a Dick Clark production." The distressing world at large is stated in fragments on a dark screen (bombings, toxic advertisements, demonstrations) until the image is pulled together into the yearning face of the young runaway (Susan Strasberg) about to enter Haight-Ashbury at the sticky height of the Summer of Love. San Francisco ‘68: Every room like a thrift shop, folks on the floor and baby lizards in the fridge, bead necklaces strewn like serpentine, Jack Nicholson with a clip-on ponytail not quite miming a number that sounds like Jimi Hendrix played backwards. The ingénue is Puccini’s Mimi, surely, gone deaf after literally regurgitating the old generation’s negativity like motor oil; her search for an estranged brother (Bruce Dern, with tangled tresses that change his zealous gaze back and forth from Jesus to Charles Manson) leads to a bacchanalian garden already carrying the seeds of its own destruction. "Talk about lack of communication, man!" Richard Rush’s inventive camera revels in all countercultural fauna and flora, peeping into crystal orbs and grooving to sitars and tambourines, while Nicholson’s screenplay continues The Trip’s treatment of the artist in crisis (concluded the following year in Easy Rider) in a multiplicity of portraits -- Henry Jaglom as a psychedelic poster designer armed with LSD tablet and power saw, Max Julien as a drummer turned stoned Lancelot, Dern as the Seeker last seen smiling inside a bonfire. (From his rooftop den, the shamanic Dean Stockwell scoffs at the "big plastic hassle" of selling out.) The kaleidoscopic crescendo builds to a lyrical-sinister lightshow in the Golden Gate Bridge before crashing down to earth, "reality is a rotten place to be." Cinematography by Laszlo Kovacs. With Adam Roarke, Linda Gaye Scott, Ken Scott, The Seeds and The Strawberry Alarm Clock.

--- Fernando F. Croce

L'originale è qui:
http://www.cinepassion.org/Reviews/p/PsychOut.html

Reality is a rotten place to be

“ Reality is a rotten place to be."

"I hope this next trip is a good one!" 

Dave

Nel 1967 Jack Nicholson presentò due lavori alla American International Pictures aventi come tema la realtà giovanile di quegli anni che si liberava tra allucinogeni di varia efficacia e movimento hippie, i figli dei fiori. Scenario la West Coast tra Los Angeles e San Francisco. Dei due The Trip, Il Serpente di Fuoco (1967), accreditava la sua firma e veniva diretto da Roger Corman; mentre in Psych-out Il Velo sul Ventre (1968) la firma di Nicholson veniva oscurata. La critica favorì e favorisce l’opera di Roger Corman molto meno la seconda,di Richard Rush. La differenza è irrilevante. Psych-out ha intreccio vivace per via di un gruppo di personaggi che entrano ed escono dalla scena, cui fa da contorno una massa giovanile variamente abbigliata che inscena feste all’aperto e danze all’interno, e, infine, per un maggior intervento di musiche e canzoni che hanno origine dalla stessa messa in scena o la commentano. Interprete comune alle due pellicole era Susan Strasberg, ma anche Bruce Dern, affiancata in Psych-out  dallo stesso Jack Nicholoson che nei titoli viene dopo Dean Stockwell.

Jenny, ragazza sorda per via di un trauma infantile, ha alle costole la polizia perché fuggita dal riformatorio. E’ in cerca del fratello maggiore, Steve detto the seeker (il cercatore); scultore, santone e strafatto di droga. L’aiutano i membri di una rock band denominata Mumblin Jim. Questi ultimi sono in cerca della fama e dei soldi. La ragazza mancherà l’incontro con il fratello ma riacquisterà l’udito a seguito di un finale trauma.

Se in The Trip gli allucinogeni venivano usati per sperimentare i mondi della mente in Psych-out  sono un accessorio della vita che conducono i giovani tra anticonformismo, vita all’aria aperta, feste, balli e rivolta contro il potere. A questo proposito ricordiamo che si era nel vivo della guerra del Vietnam per cui quegli stessi giovani avevano in tasca il precetto alle armi e il posto sull’aereo che li porterà, dopo essere stati tosati e acquietati, a distribuire Napalm in Indocina.

Essendo una produzione James H.Nicholson and Samule Z. Arkoff il film per merito d Laslo Kovacs, datore delle luci, è portato avanti con il segno caratteristico della A.I.P., il fantastico  che risale ad Edgar Allan Poe e il basso costo. Kovacs per le scene oniriche come nei balli di massa usa mettere davanti ai riflettori mascherine fisse o rotanti che creavano il caleidoscopico mondo dentro la mente.

Quello che interessa noi è il già  accennato strato sonoro. Autori della maggior parte delle canzoni che si ascoltano durante la visione sono gli Strawberry Aklarm Clock. Sul finire degli anni sessanta, assieme ai Doors, era il gruppo più seguito dai giovani hippies; ancora Grace Slick e compagni o i Grateful Dead dovevano assurgere come portabandiera di quel movimento. Tuttora la musica degli Strawberry Alarm Clock confina quegli anni così come la grafica e la cartellonistica uscita fuori dal movimento hippie.Le loro canzoni si caratterizzavano principalmente per l’uso frequente dell’organo Hammond e avvolgenti melodie . Già il titolo di un loro hit, riproposto nel film, Incense e Peppermint (che poi sarebbe incenso e mentine) la dice tutta. Gli Strawberry ebbero vita brevissima, come i Seeds di cui si ascolta Two Fingers Pointing On You. Vita più lunga ebbe RustyYoung qui all’inizio della carriera a capo di un oscuro gruppo chiamato the Boenzee Cryque. Continuerà dapprima con i Buffalo Springfield, ancora oggi band di culto e, massimo della gloria, con i Poco, gloriosa formazione di country-rock.

HEAD, the album

The Monkees had been haphazardly recording since late 1967 for "The Birds, the Bees, and the Monkees". They all went into the studio and recorded separately and were left with too much material to fit on one album. When it became definite that they were to make a movie, work on the soundtrack album officially began in early 1968. Although not all of the songs were specifically written for the film ("Can You Dig It", for example, was demoed during the Headquarters sessions), the songs that eventually became the soundtrack were handpicked by Rafelson, Nicholson and the other Monkees. 
The first song recorded for HEAD, "Circle Sky", was first recorded on December 9, 1967. "Circle Sky" was recorded by Mike and his friends Bill Chadwick, Keith Allison (among others) and is the source of much debate between Mike and Peter. This recorded version took three sessions to complete and was originally not going to be on the soundtrack. Another version of "Circle Sky" was recorded nearly six months later, only this time it was a live concert by the Monkees at Valley Auditorium in Salt Lake City, UT on May 21st. Rafelson had envisioned a concert sequence for the film, so the Monkees trekked over to Utah to give thousands of Monkees fans a full concert where they were to play "Circle Sky" live for the movie. They recorded everything but the vocals that day, and returned to the studio three days later to cut Mike's vocal. Yet sadly, this energized performance of "Circle Sky" was left off the soundtrack album in place of the original studio version without the other Monkees. The inclusion of this version is unknown, some suspect that Mike or Jack Nicholson may have included it on the soundtrack for various reasons. No one really knows why, not even Nez himself; "I don't have any idea how that happened. I think that The Monkees always played it better. I can't remember a studio version being better than the way we played it live. 'Cause live it was just pure unbridled energy." Nevertheless, the live version remains the more popular cut today and is the version that appears on all box sets. 
The second song recorded for HEAD was another Nilsson tune, "Daddy's Song", which was in Davy's "Broadway rock" style. "Daddy's Song" features the usual Monkee cohorts (Keith Allison, Bill Chadwick, Eddie Hoh), and Monkees' (Mike Nesmith ). Interestingly, this song was originally sung by Mike (that version appears as a bonus song on the HEAD CD) in January of 1968. When it was decided that the filmmakers needed a song for Davy's dance sequence, the Monkees recut it in April of 1968 with Davy on vocals. This song was originally considered as a strong second single from HEAD, though it ended up only being released in the U.K. 
Peter's two HEAD tracks, "Long Title" and "Can You Dig It" were recorded in January 1968, along with his other songs "Lady's Baby" and "Merry Go Round". Peter's songwriting around this time was more prolific than ever, yet none of his compositions except for the two on HEAD were ever released. "Long Title" was a rousing power trio song that he had written in mid 1967. He explains; "I remember very well that the song just fell out of me one day. I was just playing those chord changes on the guitar and opened my mouth, and that's what popped out. Once I had the first verse, the second verse followed the theme for the first verse. The weird thing is that the song has been prophetic. I had no idea that that was going to be my attitude about anything having to do with music when I wrote the song. It just came out that way. I wrote the lyric in London." The song features Peter's pal Lance Wakely on guitar, Buddy Miles on drums, and Peter on guitar, bass, and vocals. 

"Can You Dig It?" was something Peter had been messing around with since his college days. He demoed an instrumental version during the Headquarters sessions, with a slightly different guitar part. The lyrics were written on the set of the TV show and were inspired by the Tao Te Ching. This song was first recorded on January 28, 1968 with Peter on electric guitar and bass, Lance Wakely on accoustic guitar, Dewey Martin (from the Buffalo Springfield) on drums. Buddy Miles is supposedly on the track, and it's rumoured that Stephen Stills played some role. Who knows. The song was originally recorded with Peter on vocals, but Schneider asked if Micky could sing it, since the song was to come right after Micky's solo scene in the movie. "CYDI" was recut with Micky on vocals in March of 1968. The movie version of "CYDI" actually has a different mix than the one on the soundtrack. I must say, I think the movie version kicks ass a tiny bit more than the soundtrack one. But maybe that's just me. 
The next song recorded, "Porpoise Song" began the phase of recording specifically for the movie. "Porpoise Song" was a psychedelic, dreamy, acid trip of a song that was specifically written for the movie by Gerry Goffin. The song was recorded with minimal Monkee input, chosing to use session players like Leon Russell, Ken Bloom (from the Lewis and Clarke Expedition) & Danny Kortchmar making the only Monkee involvement the vocal work by Micky and Davy. Micky insists to this day that Goffin wrote this song with him in mind; "I was told that by somebody. If you listen to it, it's about me committing suicide. It was written for the movie. It wasn't a song that she pulled out of a drawer. 'Riding the backs of giraffes for laughs,' I'm sure, was a reference to Circus Boy. At least I was told that." "Porpoise Song" was the only HEAD track released as a single, and it didn't fare well, mainly because it was unlike any other Monkee song to ever be released as a single. The teenybopper's didn't want their idols releasing psychedelic, drug induced songs. Needless to say, the song only got to #62 on the charts, and was only on there for six weeks. 

The last full song to be recorded for HEAD was "As We Go Along", a roaming, mellow accoustic number penned by Carole King and sometimes Rafelson paramour, Toni Stern. "As We Go Along" was recorded on May 30th, 1968 and features an incredible combination of the best session players and producers. None of the Monkees were involved, other than Micky's vocals, instead, "AWGO" features Neil Young (!!!!!), Ry Cooder (!!!!), Ken Bloom (from Lewis and Clarke Expedition), Carole King (!!!), and Danny Kortchmar on guitar. No wonder it's a kickass song. Neil freakin Young plays on it. Legendary arranger Jack Nitzche also participated. Yet even with these heavy names, "As We Go Along" never charted. It was released as the B-side to "Porpoise Song" and ended up bubbling under at #106 on the Billboard Charts. Yet even today, the song remains a favorite to many Monkees fans, and to the Monkees themselves. Peter remarks; "Carole King is an astounding creature. The 'Porpoise Song' is a great song, and I think 'As We Go Along' is even better. Carole King could write with anybody. She could write with Mike Nesmith, after all!" Micky agrees; "That was a bitch to sing. It was in 5/4 time or some bizarre signature. I had a lot of trouble picking it up. Typically, we didn't have a lot of time to rehearse this stuff. We were filming. I'd go in, and they'd play the song a few times. I remember that was a tough song to sing, but I loved it. I still love it. It's actually one of my favorites." 
The last two 'songs' recorded for HEAD were Ditty Diego, which was recorded in July of 1968, and Happy Birthday To You, which was recorded in August. "Ditty Diego" is unique in that it's probably the only pop song that Jack Nicholson received writing credit for. "Ditty Diego" (original title: "Movie Jingle") is the unofficial theme song of HEAD and serves to sum up the plot of the film. "Happy Birthday To You" was recorded to complete the "MIKE BIRTHDAY PARTY" sequence and featured three part chanting from Peter, Micky, and Davy. 
The remainder of the album consisted of collages of sound bites from the movie and Ken Thorne's instrumental tracks put together by the album's co-producer, Jack Nicholson. "Opening Ceremony", "Supplico", "Gravy", "Superstitions", "Dandruff", "Poll", and "Swami-Plus Strings" all serve the purpose of promoting the film and filling out the rest of the album. These sound bites are noteworthy, however, because of Nicholson's witty editing techniques. 
HEAD the album was released to the public on December 1, 1968 and was their first album not to reach the TOP 5 on the album charts. By this point in time, the Monkees' popularity was waning, as they were all getting older, getting married, and not in the public eye as much. This added to the fact that teen magazines were promoting newer and groovier teen idols like the Cowsills, Bobby Sherman, Sajid Khan and Brenden Boone (whoever the fuck that is), caused their fan base to look elsewhere. HEAD did reach #45 on the charts, perhaps buoyed by the single "Porpoise Song", but it was not on the charts for long and even today, it hasn't gone gold. The release of HEAD was an important one in Monkee history. It was the last Monkees album of the 60s to feature all four Monkees, the only Monkees album in the 60s not to feature a song by Boyce and Hart (maybe that's why HEAD is so good?), and it was the last Monkees project to have involvement from Rafelson and Schneider. It also is considered one of the Monkees' best works as a group. With the failure of the movie and the soundtrack, the Monkees began to start re-thinking their role in the whole Monkee project, and after HEAD, a lot of their interest in the band and project was lost. HEAD the album expresses the themes of the movie as well; the fight between the band and those who try to control them. While Mike and Peter both participated in the recording and writing of the songs on HEAD, the 'singles' and most of the songs were authored by the same people that were hired by Donnie Kirshner, and feature minimal Monkee involvement. This is perhaps to say that while they did "overthrow" the PTB during Headquarters, ultimately, the PTB never lost control of the Monkees music career. This concept is summed up in the movie of HEAD with the prophetic ending when Big Victor (aka RCA Victor, who owned Columbia/Colgems) captured the Monkees in the tank. 
But enough analysis, HEAD remains the weirdest Monkees album in history and also one of their best. I highly recommend it to anyone. 

L'originale è qui:

http://www.psycho-jello.com/monkees/headman.html

Headzapoppin

Scrivere su Head (1968) di Bob Rafelson è circoscriverlo. Non è sul film ma intorno ad esso. The Monkees è stato più un fenomeno commerciale che artistico. Nato nella metà degli anni 60 dalla mente di Bert Schneider e Rafelson, sulla scia dei Beatles, allora più luminosi della folgore. L’opera non fa altro che raccogliere situazioni già sperimentate nella serie televisiva omonima, esportata in tutto il mondo americanizzato. Ma c’è Jack Nicholson. Se Robert De Niro è uscito fuori dal post Vietnam e Marlon Brando dal secondo conflitto mondiale, Jack Nicholson è quello venuto fuori dalla rivolta di Berkeley. In Head appare per qualche momento indossando la stessa camicia che rivedremo poi in Five easy pieces capolavoro del 1970 dell’accoppiata Rafel/Nichol-son. Qui egli è sceneggiatore insieme al regista e forse suo aiuto come autore di testi eseguiti da Monkees, e chissà cos’altro. The incidental music è di Ken Thorne ma le principali canzoni canonizzate dal gruppo portano la firma di Gerry Goffin & Carole King, Carole King & Tom Stern, Harry Nillson, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, questi due ultimi , componenti della band. Tutte nascono dalle situazioni poco normali della pellicola, una, eseguita live, da un concerto montato apposta per far vedere l’isteria che il gruppo produceva sulle ragazzine americane che saranno ancora infantili nella vecchiaia. Tra queste canzoni c’è uno dei migliori motivi di quegli anni, dovuto alla penna di una cantautrice che ancora oggi viene scoperta e periodicamente riscoperta: Carole King; la canzone porta il  titolo As We Go Along, alla cui esecuzione pare abbiano preso parte pure Stephen Stills, Neil Young e Grace Slick regina della psichedelia. Se classifichiamo il film nella psichedelica è dovuto, come già detto, ai vari episodi che nel film si creano e dove il quartetto esce ed entra dai set canonici del cinema USA: il western, l’horror,i l sentimentale, il musical e via di questo passo. Senza dubbio si può affermare che è una produzione America International Picture di Roger Corman con la spesa di qualche dollaro in più. Il momento più psychedelic è situato pochi minuti dopo l’inizio del lavoro, ripreso poi verso la fine, quando con il sottofondo di Porpoise Song i quattro nel profondo del mare, o della mente, nuota in un incanto di supporto negativo/positivo solarizzato, controtipato e colorizzato presso gli studi della Technicolor – il tutto manualmente quando ancora il creatore di Adobe Premiere e Photoshop doveva essere concepito – insieme a sirene e sirenette. Ma lasciamo ad ognuno la sua personale visione, come del breve ciclo Cine-Psycho-elico.

Cine_Psyco_Delic

Il breve ciclo che oggi si presenta ha come tema la musica giovanile; in particolare quella esplosa in America sul finire degli anni 60 del secolo scorso: la psichedelica. Questa ha partorito a sua volta l’acid e il progressiv. Alla prima psichedelia si rifà Head  di Bob Rafelson e, culmine, Psych-out   di Richard Rush. All’acid  rimanda Zachariah  di George Englud ed ultimo , 200 Motels  di Frank Zappa, al progressiv.  200 Motels di Zappa, che appare come attore in Head, ha pure connessioni al suo interno che vanno a sconfinare nell’avanguardia, specie europea, come anche nel jazz e nel musical. Volendo in esse possiamo trovarvi anticipazioni o rimandi all’ Easy Rider di Dennis Hopper o allo Zabriskie Point di Michelangelo Antonioni, opere molto più ricordate di quelle che scorreremo. Le additiamo per il clima che fermentava in quegli anni nella West Coast degli USA e getta.