Film Still

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm

William Greaves

United States

1968

75 minutes

Color

1.33:1

English

360

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

AlicePatricia Ree Gilbert
FreddieDon Fellows
WithJonathan Gordon
Bob Rosen
William Greaves

Credits

DirectorWilliam Greaves
Produced, directed, and edited byWilliam Greaves
Co-producerManuel Melamed
CinematographyTerry Filgate and Stevan Larner
MusicMiles 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 Amy Taubin Dec 4, 2006

The 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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Available Editions

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DVD

2 Discs

SRP: $39.95

Criterion Store price

$31.96