October 1 - 7:00pm

Medium Cool

Haskell Wexler (1969) 110 mins

Fascinating & groundbreaking docu-drama centring on a TV newsreel cameraman (Robert Forster) & his attempts to capture events leading up to & including the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Director-writer-cameraman Wexler stages his drama amidst the actual traumatic events of the era, providing a brilliant McLuhan-esque meditation on race, war, politics, gender & the mass media’s role in the violent conflicts surging through American society. Vincent Canby called it “a kind of cinematic Guernica, a picture of America in the process of exploding into fragmented bits of hostility, suspicion, fear & violence”. Music by Mike Bloomfield.

Preceded by An American Time Capsule Charles Braverman (1968) 3 mins. Condenses 200 years of American history into 3 volatile minutes.

Imported 35mm print.

* Followed by Petulia at 9.05pm .

* Screens as part of the Cinema '68 Season.