Review of Medium Cool (1969) by Rodolfo R — 22 May 2005

I had no idea what I was getting into. All I knew is that it's on Paul's top ten list, it's about the 68 Democratic Convention in Chicago and that somebody, somewhere considers it [i]noir[/i].

I can be forgiven for that last one. It was, after all, shown in the middle of the Music Box's matinee series on [i]noir[/i] and [i]Medium Cool[/i] is a great post-[i]noir[/i] title. Turns out it was a special presentation shown to coincide with [i]Tell Them Who You Are[/i], a new doc about [i]Medium Cool[/i]'s director Haskell Wexler made by his son Mark. I had every intention of hitting both movies at once yesterday.

But that's because, as I wrote, I had no idea what I was getting into. There was no way for me to sit through a doc that is apparently as much about fathers and sons as it is about cinematography and considering the enormously complicated relationship I have with the Rev - and the subject of almost everything I write - I decided to take Paul's advice and "let it sink in.".

I'm not done letting it sink in. I really have no right to review it at this point. I haven't processed it. But critcism is all about the heart of your experience, at least according to the class I took at the Theatre School and this is my experience.

I spent probably the last third of the movie sitting forward in my seat, elbows on my knees, chin on the floor. I think I cried. The world could have neded at the moment and I wouldn't have known or cared. I was too busy watching it end on screen. I think it was all the more powerful because I've lived in Chicago since 1994. I know those streets. I've walked those streets with friends, with family, with the losers I've dated and (usually) by myself. Watching the violence of the '68 riots - to throw y'all a bone of context - on my own turf, as it were, was...I actually still don't have the words. And I [u]always[/u] have the words.

And finally, Robert Forster in the late 60s was fucking hot. He was hot in clothes, he was hot naked and he was hottest in boxing gear, pounding away at a body bag.

What?