Medium Cool (1969)

TV news camera find himself becoming personally involved in the violence that erupts around the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Director:

Haskell Wexler

Writer:

Haskell Wexler

Stars:

Robert Forster, Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz

4 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert Forster	...	John Cassellis
Verna Bloom	...	Eileen
Peter Bonerz	...	Gus
Marianna Hill	...	Ruth
Harold Blankenship	...	Harold
Charles Geary	...	Harold's Father
Sid McCoy	...	Frank Baker
Christine Bergstrom	...	Dede
William Sickingen	...	News Director
Robert McAndrew	...	Pennybaker
Marrian Walters	...	Social Worker
Beverly Younger	...	Rich Lady
Edward Croke	...	Plain-clothesman
Doug Kimball	...	Newscaster
Peter Boyle	...	Gun Clinic Manager

Storyline

John Cassellis is the toughest TV-news reporter around. His area of interest is reporting about violence in the ghetto and racial tensions. But he discovers that his network helps the FBI by letting it look at his tapes to find suspects. When he protests, he is fired and goes to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

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Plot Keywords:

violence | tv news | protest | ghetto | revolution | 

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Taglines:

Beyond the age of innocence... into the age of awareness

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1970 (Japan)

Also Known As:

The Concrete Wilderness

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$800,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

H & J

Technical Specs

Runtime:

111 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Some of the background intercom chatter playing during the first scenes shown of the television station that John Cassellis works at is the same intercom chatter used in George Lucas' student film Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB. Paul Golding, who served as an editorial consultant for this film, had also been a collaborator on some of Lucas' other student films.

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Quotes

John Cassellis: Jesus I love to shoot film.

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Crazy Credits

Studs Terkel is credited as "Our Man in Chicago".

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Connections

Featured in Look Out, Haskell, It's Real: The Making of 'Medium Cool' (2001)

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Soundtracks

"Emotions"
(uncredited)
Written by Arthur Lee and Johnny Echols
Performed by Love
Published by Electra Records

User Reviews

a totally original pastiche

A rare directorial outing by all-time great cinematographer Wexler, this is generally acknowledged as the most politically radical film ever produced by a major studio. In freewheeling, semi-improvised, ideologically calculated scene after scene, it depicts an apolitical television cameraman's awakening of consciousness and abandonment of the role of passive observer. The class and race politics are four notches up on any comparable contemporary studio feature, that's for sure - with the surprisingly patient explanation of how 6-o-clock-news ideology oppresses minority communities, leading in to a love affair with a working-class single mother instead of some vanguard hippie, you could even argue that this Americanization of Godard has better ideological legs than the master himself. Sure it meanders a tad, and the stylistics can date, but there's nothing else in any movie ever that compares with the climax, as the actors make their way through actual documentary footage of the 1968 Democratic convention and attendant street battles. I mean, how did such a finely balanced mix of integrated narrative, Euro-tics, American underground film and straight-up documentary even occur to them? And how did they then manage to actually pull it off with honors? Pretty damned impressive.