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Visions of Change: Cinematic Utopias & Worst Case Scenarios (Part Two)

LOCAL HERO (1983)

Whither Bill Forsyth? Withering, apparently: after a charming run of movies in the 1980s (including Gregory’s Girl, Comfort and Joy and Housekeeping), the Scottish director flamed out with 1993’s Being Human (a terrible film which, unsurprisingly, stars Robin Williams), disappearing for good after 1999’s Gregory’s Two Girls (which may or may not be terrible, since I only just learned of its existence through the Internet Movie Database). But Forsyth can make sequels and terrible Robin Williams movies from now until doomsday and he’ll still be one of my favorite directors of all time, if only for bringing Local Hero into existence. A simple but compelling vision of utopia, the film takes place in a gorgeous Scottish fishing village where everyone is welcome and accepted at the local ceilidh, from punk rockers and homeless beachcombers to American businessmen, Russian sailors, African preachers and pretty big city scientists who just might turn out to be mermaids. Movies (especially the Hollywood variety) are usually too impatient, loud and cynical to capture the best parts of actually being human – the beauty of a fantastic night sky, the electric giddiness of a new flirtation, the relaxed camaraderie of smart, decent people – but Forsyth seduces us with the salty sweetness of his celluloid world the way the fictional village of Ferness eventually seduces the film’s shaggy dog protagonist, Mac (played with deadpan cable-knit sweater warmth by the ever-reliable Peter Riegert), an oil company executive tasked with paving paradise to put up a shiny new oil refinery...and, like most real-life utopias, the sense of bittersweet impermanence only heightens the appeal of the place.

Take Five: 1968

Brett Morgen's highly praised documentary Chicago 10, about the fallout of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago forty years ago opens in limited release this weekend. Morgen has claimed since it first debuted last year at Sundance that the film isn't really about 1968, but about 2008, and indeed, it seems to have fresh, albeit grim, resonance today, with the recent death of arch-conservative William F. Buckley, who had a memorable confrontation on the air while covering the convention. Steven Spielberg is himself crafting a fictionalized version of the same events for The Trial of the Chicago 7, and America gears up for one of the most electrifying presidential races in recent memory as an unpopular war rages overseas and tumult grips some of our closest allies. But as relevant as it might seem from a moviemaking perspective, in other ways, 1968 couldn't be further away; the revolutionary consciousness of that bloody year and the infinite possibilites that came with the Paris revolts seem like they happened on another planet. Still, in many ways, it was a magical year that casts a very long shadow over the lives of a number of people, many of whom are filmmakers. Here's a look at some of the better films about or influenced by that impossible year.

MEDIUM COOL (1969)

In many ways, the definitive film about the events of 1968, at least from an American perspective, will always be Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool. The first nondocumentary feature film directed by the legendary cinematographer was meant to be a highly fictionalized treatment of chaos and mayhem breaking out at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; but it quickly transmogrified into something altogether stranger, blurring the line between truth and fiction, as reality quickly began to outstrip Wexler's fictionalized vision. Eventually, while filming, he found himself caught up in the (unstaged) action of the riots and police brutality that wracked the city and altered the political landscape of America, and one of his crew uttered the immortal warning: "Look out, Haskell! It's real!" (This later became the title of a very worthwhile 2001 documentary about the movie.)