Synopsis
In his one-of-a-kind fiction/documentary hybrid Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One, director William Greaves presides over a beleaguered film crew in New York’s Central Park, leaving them to try to figure out what kind of movie they’re making. A couple enacts a break-up scenario over and over, a documentary crew films a crew filming the crew, locals wander casually into the frame: the project defies easy description. Yet this wildly innovative sixties counterculture landmark remains one of the most tightly focused and insightful movies ever made about making movies. Criterion presents this long-unreleased gem in a special two-disc edition, along with its sequel, Take 2 1/2, made thirty-five years later with executive producers Steven Soderbergh and Steve Buscemi.
Cast
| Alice | Patricia Ree Gilbert |
| Freddie | Don Fellows |
| With | Jonathan Gordon |
| Bob Rosen | |
| William Greaves |
Credits
| Director | William Greaves |
| Produced, directed, and edited by | William Greaves |
| Co-producer | Manuel Melamed |
| Cinematography | Terry Filgate and Stevan Larner |
| Music | Miles Davis |
Disc Features
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:
DISC ONE: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One
- New high-definition digital transfer
- Discovering William Greaves, a new documentary on Greaves’s career, featuring Greaves, his wife and coproducer Louise Archambault, actor Ruby Dee, filmmaker St. Clair Bourne, and film scholar Scott MacDonald
- Theatrical trailer
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
DISC TWO: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take 2 1/2 - New digital transfer
- New video interview with actor Steve Buscemi
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Amy Taubin and production notes by Greaves for Take One
From the Current
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Still No Answers
by Dec 4, 2006The tumultuous New York film and theater world of the late 1960s oscillated between two opposing ideas: the auteur and the collective. The American version of Cahiers du cinéma’s auteur theory inflated the idea of the director as “auteur” into that of an individual artist whose stardom could...
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