The Strawberry Statement

I guess I agree that this wasn't a "great movie," but it was better than other reviewers have claimed. Honestly, most movies from this period don't stand up all that well. It was an experimental time and experiments usually go bad. That's the nature of attempting to be creative. Most Hollywood crap barely tries for competent and rarely considers creative.

For no other reason, the context of Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air" (on of the all time greatest rock songs) is worth experiencing this movie. A pretty damn good version of "Give Peace a Chance" can be found here, too.

Bruce Davison, Kim Darby, Bob Balaban, Bud Cort, that guy who looks like Bud Cort. They're all here along with some great music from Neil Young and others. The finale is powerful but some of the earlier stuff tries too hard to be trippy. The script is pretentious as well.

When me and my friends saw this movie first in the seventies, it became one of our favorite movies. It seemed to me like a glorification of youth and freedom, which I had never encountered before. This and the great music (John Lennon, Neil Young and others) helped this movie to get cult status in former East Germany.

Simon (Bruce Davison) is an apolitical college rower in San Francisco. He is indifferent to the mounting protest on campus about stealing an African-American playground for the ROTC headquarter. He drops by to watch the protest and is taken with Linda (Kim Darby). He follows her into a student takeover of the administration building.

This is a counter-culture film or a counter-counter-culture film. It could be a simple straight stiff turns hippie radical. It does take some unexpected turns. He's not a simple nice guy. There are darker edges. The couple has a difficult encounter with the very black people that they're trying to help. It's not all flower power. I don't buy the shopkeeper. His actions don't feel right. It would be so much better for him to placate and cooperate with the couple before calling the cops. Instead, he's raising his hands which make it less shocking to have him call for the cops. Anyways, it all struck me wrong. There are a couple of notable actors but mostly it looks like an amateur cast. Kim Darby is cute coming a year after True Grit. It all adds up to a lesser, interesting counter-culture film.

This exuberant, irreverent, tender, glorious film is THE cinematic embodiment of the sixties. This is one of the greatest films ever made. The camera work sparkles. Plot becomes almost irrelevant. This movie invented music video. It is much more than a movie about this or that. It is a celebration of life, youth, craziness, dreams. It leaves you yearning for life, and makes everything look beautiful. Watch this film to see how limited and timid most films are. What a breath of fresh air!!!!!