Films

The Fall

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Director: Peter Whitehead

Starring: Peter Whitehead, Allen Ginsberg, Ossie Davis, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Robert F. Kennedy, Arthur Miller, Robert Rauschenberg, Gloria Steinem, Paul Auster, Alberta Tiburzi

Year: 1969

Runtime: 116 mins.

Synopsis: The film starts with a ceremonial immersion into the feminine, a loosing of control, the cameraman engulfed in a kaleidoscope of image-moments as he arrives in NY to film its breathing. Here we are in the eye of the 60’s project, Godard and Mcluhan the presiding deities, their messages taken to liminal extremes. Perhaps it is true that this is the most edited film yet made. But The Fall not only shows the cut, the split. It is about rupture. It is a tracking-shot through fissures, a sonar raking tectonic grate. Lensing in on assassination, civil disturbance, police brutality and the director’s own subsequent breakdown, it documents division, absence, gulfs. (from official site)

DVD: None

Official Website: Peter Whitehead film page

Reviews: Village Voice (J. Hoberman)
BFI (Peter Cronin)

Video: None

Tags: 1969