Medium Cool (1969)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Haskell Wexler

Writer:

Haskell Wexler (writer)

Release Date:

1970 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Beyond the age of innocence... into the age of awareness

Plot:

TV news camera find himself becoming personally involved in the Violence which erupts around the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Plot Keywords:

Violence | Ghetto | Fired | Protest | Television Reporter

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Robert Forster	...	John Cassellis
Verna Bloom	...	Eileen
Peter Bonerz	...	Gus
Marianna Hill	...	Ruth
Harold Blankenship	...	Harold
Charles Geary	...	Buddy
Sid McCoy	...	Frank Baker
Christine Bergstrom	...	Dede
William Sickinger	...	News Director Karlin
Robert McAndrew	...	Pennybaker
Marrian Walters	...	Social worker
Beverly Younger	...	Rich Lady
Edward Croke	...	Plain-clothesman
Doug Kimball	...	Newscaster
Peter Boyle	...	Gun Clinic Manager

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:R (Ontario) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:R (re-rating) (1970) | USA:X (1969) | UK:X

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

H & J

Trivia:

The line "Watch out, Haskell, it's real!" was actually dubbed in after the shooting. It was supposedly what Haskell Wexler was thinking to himself and he wanted to include it. Verna Bloom literally stands out in the film because of her yellow outfit. Bloom said she picked the outfit because she thought her character, a woman of modest means, would wear something like that. It just happened to contrast with what everyone else was wearing, so you notice her.

Quotes:

John Cassellis: Jesus I love to shoot film.

Movie Connections:

References "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962)

Soundtrack:

Oh No

Superb integration of the political and social aspects inherent in the film medium.

Haskell Wexler's film generated much debate on just where American Cinema was headed upon its release in 1969. Its narrative revolves loosely around the relationship of a TV cameraman and a lower-class widow living in Chicago during the summer of 1968. The true focus of the film is on the Democratic National Convention and its devastating effects on that city during the "long hot summer" it was subjected to. With the care of an expert social journalist Wexler films the riot caused by the civil authority in that city with an unfaltering naturalism that Soviet Realists would kill for. His cinematographic gifts are never called into question as he edits the body of the film with patches of documentary and staged scenes. It's to the credit of the filmmaker that in one section a fellow cameraman has to admonish him as to the danger he is apparently embroiled in as he shoots a sequence. This wonderful play on the reflexivity so rarely admitted in film is reason enough to give this challenging but brilliant work of art a chance to leave its mark on you.