R | 1h 51min | Comedy, Drama, Music | 20 August 1969 | Color, ws
Director: Arthur Penn
Stars: Arlo Guthrie, Patricia Quinn, James Broderick, Pete Seeger.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064002/
Watched online, ok print.
5 songs performed in the Soundtrack.
7th of 14 film director credits for Penn, immediate prior release is Bonnie and Clyde ('67).
According to the story told here (& in the song), dumping a VW bus full of trash down a ravine that already had trash, getting arrested and pleading guilty, was the event causing the Army no to accept AG for induction. Did the song start a rash of petty crimes among potential draftees?
The hippie lifestyle certainly is not made to look attractive here. We get a drug addict who's fighting his addiction, but succumbs and OD's to death. AG gets harassed for having long hair in the Montana town where he's in college, and his music professor hates folk music.
Free love looks messy, with jealousy and regret just like the squares get.
The most interesting thing to me was contemplating the Draft. I'm fortunate that I was female, so I didn't have to think about whether I would serve if drafted. That's a really tough question.
Also interesting: would the hippie movement and the drug culture have caught on so strongly if we were not in Vietnam? It seems like we had this big ugly thing that impacted many individuals and families, and caused young people to strongly reject the values of the generation "in charge".
I don't like looking at this time again. I wonder when, or if, that reaction will subside.
distr. UA, dir. Penn; 6-
