10 Things I Learned: Medium Cool
By May 22, 2013
Film Info
- United States
- 1969
- 110 minutes
- Color
- 1.85:1
- English
- Spine #658
It’s 1968, and the whole world is watching. With the U.S. in social upheaval, famed cinematographer Haskell Wexler decided to make a film about what the hell was going on. Medium Cool, his debut feature, plunges us into the moment. With its mix of fictional storytelling and documentary technique, this depiction of the working world and romantic life of a television cameraman (Robert Forster) is a visceral cinematic snapshot of the era, climaxing with an extended sequence shot right in the middle of the riots surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. An inventive commentary on the pleasures and dangers of wielding a camera, Medium Cool is as prescient a political film as Hollywood has ever produced.
Cast
| John | Robert Forster |
| Eileen | Verna Bloom |
| Gus | Peter Bonerz |
| Ruth | Marianna Hill |
| Harold | Harold Blankenship |
| Harold’s father | Charles Geary |
| Harold’s friend | Robert Blankenship |
| Frank Baker | Sid McCoy |
| Dede | Christine Bergstrom |
| News director | William Sickinger |
| Pennybaker | Robert McAndrew |
| Social worker | Marrian Walters |
| Rich lady | Beverly Younger |
| Plainclothesman | Edward Croke |
| Newscaster | Doug Kimball |
| Gun clinic manager | Peter Boyle |
| Secretary | Georgia Todda |
| Maid | Janet Langhart |
| Black militants | Jeff Donaldson |
| Bill Sharp | |
| Robert Paige | |
| Richard Abrams | |
| Walter Bradford | |
| Russell Davis | |
| Felton Perry | |
| Val Grey | |
| Livingston Lewis | |
| Barbara Jones | |
| John Jackson | |
| Kennedy students | James Jacobs |
| Spence Jackson | |
| Dorien Suhr | |
| Kenneth Whitener | |
| Connie Fleischauer | |
| Mary Smith | |
| Nancy Noble | |
| Media people | Simone Zorn |
| Madeleine Marcou | |
| Mickey Pallas | |
| Morris Bleckman | |
| Lestre Brownlee | |
| Linn Ehrlich | |
| Wally Wright | |
| Sam Ventura | |
| George Bouillet |
Credits
| Director | Haskell Wexler |
| Written by | Haskell Wexler |
| Produced by | Tully Friedman and Haskell Wexler |
| Editorial consultant | Paul Golding |
| Assistant to the producer | Jonathan Haze |
| Director of photography | Haskell Wexler |
| Music scored by | Mike Bloomfield |
| Assistant editor | Marsha Griffin |
| Production assistant | William Schwartz |
| Camera operators | Haskell Wexler and Mike Margulies |
| Camera assistant | Ron Vargas |
| Our man in Chicago | Studs Terkel |
| Associate producers | Michael Philip Butler and Steven North |
| Art director | Leon Erickson |
| Editor | Verna Fields |
| Sound | Chris Newman |
| Sound editor | Kay Rose |
| Music performed by | Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Marcus Doubleday, Bob Jones, Noel Jukes, John Kahn, Ira Kamin, Fred Olson and Jerry Oshita |
| Incidental music by | The Mothers of Invention |
Disc Features
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:
- 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
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Medium Cool: Preserving Disorder
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It’s tough to tell where reality ends and fiction begins in Haskell Wexler’s deft chronicle of . . . Read more »
Video
Film Essays
Medium Cool: Preserving Disorder
By May 21, 2013
It’s tough to tell where reality ends and fiction begins in Haskell Wexler’s deft chronicle of . . . Read more »
Photo Galleries
Video
Film Essays
Medium Cool: Preserving Disorder
By May 21, 2013
It’s tough to tell where reality ends and fiction begins in Haskell Wexler’s deft chronicle of . . . Read more »
