Medium Cool (1969)

Once again, my timing was serendipitous: I didn't realize I'd be watching a political movie on Election Day. Better still, it takes place 50 years ago, when social tensions were even higher. (I suspect that the title, which paraphrases Marshall McLuhan, partly means to be ironic: Cool heads are in short supply.)

John, a Chicago news cameraman, has maintained an especially strong air of detachment from his subjects, no matter how intense the situation. This does not stop him from taking interest in the displaced widow of a West Virginia coal miner and her son. After he objects to his station's scandalous collaboration with the FBI and then loses his job, he finds himself a lot less detached.

There's an inherent obstacle in any story with a long-apathetic protagonist: The audience can get the impression that they shouldn't care much either. Some interesting things happen in the first half—not least an interview with a black man getting undue grief for turning a lost and found fortune over to the police—but I had trouble connecting them in a narrative fashion, because my mind had been trained to assume that events were unimportant to the plot until proven otherwise. That's one reason my summary above is so brief.

Actually, it's not just my personal perception. Fans admit that the story is hardly the best thing about the movie. Writer-director Haskell Wexler was more interested in capturing the feeling of the era. Indeed, much of the footage turns out to come from real events, including a riot that he predicted. To call it "ripped from the headlines" would not do it justice.

Wexler, better known for cinematography, has a tendency to make the fake parts resemble a documentary as well, in camerawork and actor delivery. It doesn't shy away from gratuitous nudity of both sexes, which initially garnered an X. The experimental, hippie-ish nature reminded me a little of the same year's Easy Rider. Thankfully, MC is more watchable to me, even if the music has aged worse.

At several points, the camera itself appears to be under attack, as when we get the POV of a literal punching bag. I guess this conveys how hard won John's detachment is. It's worth noting that the original script gave him the same full name as the intended director, John Cassavetes. My cinema prof who focused on films that explore the relationship of people and cameras would have had a field day with this.

Given the year and the general anger, I was not surprised at the abrupt unhappy ending. It is kind of poetic, but I thought you'd like a warning anyway.

I appreciate MC as a major period piece that can still evoke strong emotions. It's just not particularly pleasant. See it when you want a refresher course on one of the ugliest times in living American memory.