Medium Cool [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Medium Cool [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Haskell Wexler Cast: Michael Bloomfield
Michael Bloomfield
, Robert Forster
Robert Forster
, Verna Bloom
Verna Bloom
, Peter Bonerz
Peter Bonerz
Haskell Wexler
Medium Cool [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Medium Cool [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Haskell Wexler Cast: Michael Bloomfield
Michael Bloomfield
, Robert Forster
Robert Forster
, Verna Bloom
Verna Bloom
, Peter Bonerz
Peter Bonerz
Haskell Wexler

Blu-ray (Color / Wide Screen)

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Overview

"I love to shoot film" is the sanguine motto of TV lensman John Cassellis (Robert Forster) in Haskell Wexler's 1969 Medium Cool, a semi-documentary investigation of image-making and politics. With his soundman, Gus (Peter Bonerz), John films such events as gruesome car wrecks with frosty detachment, considering himself a mere recorder of circumstances, his only responsibility to get his film in on time. Even his girlfriend, Ruth (Marianna Hill), cannot understand or penetrate John's complacency. Encounters with signs of the late '60s times, however, raise John's consciousness about the implications of his job, as he films a verbal attack by black militants on the media's racism, gets fired after he objects to having that footage turned over to the FBI, and meets Vietnam War widow Eileen (Verna Bloom). John witnesses the violence of the state firsthand as he and Eileen search for her son amidst the real-life demonstrations and riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. Even though he realizes the political power of pointing a camera at anything, John finally cannot extricate himself or his loved ones from a culture obsessed with recording any sensational, gory incident. Scripted (from a novel by Jack Couffer), directed, and shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer and political activist Wexler, Medium Cool systematically questions the ideological power of images by combining documentary techniques such as "talking heads" and cinéma vérité with staged scenes between the actors. By the time Wexler and his crew start filming Forster and Bloom among the actual events at the convention, all barriers between fiction and fact are broken down, as Wexler's assistant can be heard warning, "Watch out, Haskell, it's real," when tear gas is thrown. The footage of cops clubbing people in the crowd is real, but Wexler's presence also turns it into part of a fictional story, revealing filmed "reality" to be as artificially constructed as any other fiction, subject to the interpretation of whoever holds the camera and, perhaps, to larger institutions of power. Funding Medium Cool partly out of his own resources, Wexler had free reign during production, but when the execs at Paramount saw the result, they were not pleased. Despite the timely subject matter, Paramount delayed and then curtailed the film's release, tempering its impact on critics and audiences. Regardless of that record, Medium Cool stands as a vital late-'60s film for its incisive narrative and formal dissection of the visual politics of "truth," and its awareness of how coolly seductive televised violence might be as entertainment, especially in a historical moment marked by incendiary images of political assassinations, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and counterculture protests.

Product Details

Release Date: 05/28/2013
UPC: 0715515106313
Original Release: 1969
Rating: R
Source: Criterion Collection
Region Code: A
Presentation: [Wide Screen]
Language: English
Time: 1:50:00
Sales rank: 10,493

Special Features

New, restored 4K digital film transfer, approved by director Haskell Wexler, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; Two audio commentaries, one featuring Wexler, editorial consultant Paul Golding, and actor Marianna Hill, and the other featuring historian Paul Cronin; New interview with Wexler; Extended excerpts from "Look Out Haskell, It's Real!," a documentary by Cronin about the making of Medium Cool, featuring interviews with Wexler; Golding; actors Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz, and Robert Forster; Chicago historian Studs Terkel; and others; Excerpts from Sooner or Later, Cronin's documentary about Harold Blankenship, who plays Harold in the film; "Medium Cool" revisited, a new half-hour video by Wexler about the Occupy movement's protests against the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago; Trailer; ; Plus: ; A booklet featuring an essay by film critic and programmer Thomas Beard

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
Robert Forster John Cassellis
Verna Bloom Eileen
Peter Bonerz Gus
Mariana Hill Ruth
Harold Blankenship Harold Horton
Sid McCoy Frank Baker
Christine Bergstrom Dede
Robert McAndrew Pennybaker
William Sickinger News Director Karlin
Beverly Younger Rich Lady
Marrian Walters Social Worker
Edward Croke Plainclothesman
Sandra Ann Roberts Blonde in Car
Doug Kimball Newscaster
Georgia Tadda Secretary
Peter Boyle Gun Clinic Manager
Charles Geary Buddy, Harold's Father
Jeff Donaldson Black Militant
Richard Abrams Black Militant
Felton Perry Black Militant
Val Grey Black Militant
Bill Sharp Black Militant
Robert Paige Black Militant
Walter Bradford Black Militant
Russell Davis Black Militant
Livingston Lewis Black Militant
Barbara Jones Black Militant
John Jackson Black Militant,Kennedy Student
Simone Zorn Reporter and Photographer
Madeleine Maroou Reporter and Photographer
Mickey Pallas Reporter and Photographer
Lynn Erlich Reporter and Photographer
Lester Brownlee Reporter and Photographer
Morris Bleckman Reporter and Photographer
Wally Wright Reporter and Photographer
Sam Ventura Reporter and Photographer
George Boulet Reporter and Photographer
James Jacobs Kennedy Student,Kennedy student
Haskell Wexler Cameraman on Scaffold
Dorien Suhr Kennedy Student
Kenneth Whitener Kennedy Student
Connie Fleischauer Kennedy Student
George Bouillet Media person
Mary Smith Kennedy Student
Nancy Lee Noble Kennedy Student
Studs Terkel Our Man in Chicago
Linda Handelman Gun-Clinic Lady
Maria Friedman Gun-Clinic Lady
Kathryn Schubert Gun-Clinic Lady
Barbara Brydenthal Gun-Clinic Lady
Elizabeth Moisant Gun-Clinic Lady
Rose Bormacher Gun- Clinic Lady
Janet Langhart Maid
China Lee Roller Derby Patron
Sirri Murad Actor

Technical Credits
Tully Friedman Executive Producer,Producer
Haskell Wexler Director,Producer,Producer
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