Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For: Heat - 1979

HAIR 1979lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2012/10/hair-1979.html

Not having been a huge fan of the original stage production of Hair (Gerome Ragni, James Rado, and GaltMacDermot’s legendary “American Tribal Love - Rock Musical”), I think I’m one of the few to find Milos Forman’sscreen adaptation—which deviates significantly from the source material in that it actually has a plot—to be a flawedbut vastly superior improvement upon the original. The music was always great, but only the movie version got meto care about who was doing the singing.Evolved from the free-form, counterculture, guerrilla theater experience taking place on college campuses acrossthe country in the late '60s, Hair debuted on Broadway to great acclaim and much brouhaha in 1968 (nudity,swearing, hippies…on Broadway?) almost a year after 1967s so-called "Summer of Love" signaled both thepinnacle and simultaneous pop-cultural co-opting of the hippie/flower-child movement. Yet, much like A Chorus Line,Hair, when viewed today, is one of those Broadways shows whose reputation as a groundbreakingcultural phenomenon may be a little hard to fully comprehend.

As a 10 year-old living in San Francisco’s Haight St. district in 1968, I was too young to have been a participant inthe whole Flower Power scene, but when it came to bearing witness to all the social and political changes afoot, Ihave to say I had the best seat in the house. Even then it was odd to think of one's neighborhood as the hub of a"movement" the entire nation was talking about. Mostly I remember the poster stores, the head-shops, the buttonswith slogans, the streets full of panhandling hippies, and vibrant color everywhere...especially in the clothing.(Sartorially speaking, the hippie movement hit my older sister pretty hard. Once recognizable by her Catholic Schooluniform, virtually overnight, sandals, love-beads, headbands, tie-dyed tops, and tinted granny-glasses became herstandard mode of dress. It was like a Timothy Leary reversal of The Stepford Wives.)

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Ren Woods (Sparkle, Xanadu) sings the hell out of "Aquarius" in the film'svisually explosive opening sequence.

Never fully the blissed-out, flowers & freedom era depicted by the nostalgia-prone, I recall the late '60s as a timeundeniably colorful and charged with a kind of “winds of change” electricity (each day brought something new infashion, language, ideologies, music), yet also a time seriously untethered and terrifying. I’ll always remember howconfounding it was to be surrounded by so much talk of peace and love while the TV filled my head with nightmareimages of Vietnam, the Zodiac Killer, assassinations, riots, and Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan. I suspect thehopeful message proffered by Hair's anti-war themes struck a chord with a disheartened America favoring thepromise of a Utopian “Age of Aquarius” over what seemed to be the existing dark specter of Barry McGuire's “Eve ofDestruction.”

Treat Williams as George Berger

John Savage as Claude Hooper Bukowski

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Beverly D'Angelo as Shelia Franklin

Annie Golden as Jeannie Ryan

Dorsey Wright as Layfayette (Hud) Johnson

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Don Dacus as Woof Daschund

Had Hair been granted a film adaptation back in the late '60s or early '70s - when Hollywood awkwardly courted theyouth market by green-lighting any and every druggy, nonsensical, counter-culture script that came along (Skidoo;Head; Alex in Wonderland; Angel, Angel,Down We Go ); there’s a good chance the show’s somewhat meanderingfree-form structure would have reached the screen intact. Mercifully for me, the passage of ten years and one flop1977 revival contributed to the perception of Hair as a timepiece too dated for unaltered big-screen transitioning.This precipitated the enlistment of playwright Michael Weller (Moonchildren) to fashion an honest-to-god storylinearound Hair’s marvelous score of songs, and, in lieu of the then-requisite bearded twenty-something fresh out of filmschool to helm the project, we have Oscar-winning director Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), aman who was actually making films about '60s youths in the 60s (his 1971 comedy Taking Off is a favorite).Certainly in the late '70s the climate for Hair was right, what with the proliferation of films being released dealing withthe '60s and the Vietnam War: Coming Home (1978), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Apocalypse Now (1979).

If one goes into Milos Forman’s Hair with any expectation of the film being a faithful adaptation of the Broadwayshow, watching the movie is likely to be a disappointing experience. The order of the songs has been rearranged,their intent altered, and many of songs are sung by totally different characters. I think the best and most rewardingway to view the film is to look at is as a completely different animal; an artistic expression unique unto itself. Wherethe play invited us “outsiders” into the world of the hippie tribe onstage, getting to know them through vignettes andpantomimes draped over a thin schematic structure. Foreman’s film maintains the perspective of the outsider andtells the story of Claude Hooper Bukowski (Savage), a naïve Oklahoma farm boy let loose in Manhattan for twodays prior to his induction into the army. Depicted as an innocent adrift in a strange land, Claude is taken under thewing of a small band of hippies (their unofficial leader, Berger [Williams] first seen burning his draft card) andintroduced to drugs, the girl of his dreams, and, most likely, the most fun he’s ever had.

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Forman and Weller fashion a very entertaining and ultimately moving film out of what could have been just atimepiece jukebox musical. The film maintains the play's irreverent tone and captures rather wellthe generation gap conflicts and authority figure clashes that exemplified the era, but (and this is a big plus for me)never resorts to the kind of ageist oversimplification of that whole "don't trust anyone over 30" sensibility. Forman'sHair has an originality that far surpasses most adapted screen musicals, and a powerful and sensitively renderedfinal act that gets to me each and every time.

I Got LifeBerger (Williams) disrupts a dinner party to the consternation of all but an

admiring Charlotte Rae (seated, dressed in pink).

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILMThe experience of seeing a film based on a musical you’re very familiar with can be like going over a check list. Youfind yourself subconsciously keeping tally of how the film measures up to what you are already know. Hair destroysall of that from the first frame. It’s one of the most ceaselessly surprising musical adaptations I’ve ever seen.Whether structurally, musically, or visually, Hair consistently goes in directions different from where you think it’sheaded. Just as things seem as if they will remain rooted in realism (the film makes great use of Manhattanlocations), up pops a surreal or stylized sequence that totally blows you away. And the effect is exhilarating andexciting. All of a sudden the old feels brand new and you’re actually listening and watching, not comparing.

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In one of Hair's more charming examples of an unexpected twist; an anticipatedviolent confrontation between loitering hippies and mounted police turns into a

challenge dance routine.

PERFORMANCESIn populating his cast with relative newcomers to film (Savage, Williams, D’Angelo) and those making their screendebut (Dacus, Golden, Cheryl Barnes) Milos Forman succeeds in bringing a kind of ragged freshness to the filmthat’s perfect for the material. The more experienced do most of the heavy lifting, although newcomer Annie Goldenis surprisingly good and a standout in her scenes. John Savage, fresh from The Deer Hunter, sidesteps the obviousclichés and makes his more reactive character into someone a great deal more dimensional than I would haveexpected possible. Treat Williams, saddled with an unfortunate wig, does the impossible by making an otherwiseinsufferably smug character into someone sympathetic and likeable. I think perhaps I’m fondest though of BeverlyD’Angelo who is always such an offbeat and fascinating comedienne. I always wondered how Robert Altman everpassed her up. She seemed tailor-made for his ensemble pieces.

Making her film debut, Cheryl Barnes walked away with unanimous raves for hersearing rendition of "Easy to Be Hard."

THE STUFF OF FANTASYOf all the numerous delights and surprises in Hair, the film’s one true inspired stroke of genius was in getting TwylaTharp to do the choreography. An unassailable talent and legend in the world of dance, I’ve never cared for her work

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either before or since; but here, with her loose-limbed, eccentric, wholly stylized flailings evocatively capturing thelook (and, more importantly, the feel) of the era…her work is beyond perfect. Nothing else would have worked. Notjazz, not literal recreations of dances of the era. Tharp's choreography (and whomever was responsible for theclever staging and some of the witty visual concepts) are ideally suited.

Ellen Foley(above center) sings the virtues of "Black Boys" while below, Charlayne Woodard, Nell Carter (center),and Trudy Perkins give equal time to "White Boys." The surprise twist given this number is hilariously ingenious andthoroughly audacious.

Melba Moore and Ronnie Dyson (members of the original Broadway castof Hair) perform "3-5-0-0" at an anti-war demonstration staged in front of the

Washington Monument.

Frequently, musicals have trouble sustaining their momentum through the third act, but Hair is one of the few movie7/8

Nell Carter - 1980

musicals that come to mind that lack any downtime. It's extremely well paced and never lags for me. Even aftermultiple viewings. For every sequence of note I've mentioned, there are about three others that I don't have room togo into. Suffice it to say that the "Hare Krishna" number is one of those "worth the price of admission" sequences,and that it's more fun to discover the myriad actor cameos and conceptual surprises on your own.

THE STUFF OF DREAMSThe highest compliment I can pay Milos Forman's adaptation of Hair is that he has succeeded in excising virtuallyeverything I never cared for in the play (chiefly its morally superior proselytizing and romanticizing of the young) andcreated a film of considerable heart and maturity. More even-handed than the theatrical production, I find inForman's version of Hair to be a film that sees the past with a clarity born of distance. Sentimental, yes. Idealistic,yes. But the one thing it isn't is nostalgic. I like how it looks at the '60s: it holds both hippies and the Establishment totask, yet still finds it to be an era of optimism and hope.

THE AUTOGRAPH FILES

Copyright © Ken Anderson

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