Medium Cool (1969)
The Princeton Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism and The Humanities Council's 1968/2018: Cities on the Edge series
May 8, 2018 · 7:30 pm—9:00 pm · Princeton Garden Theatre
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.
Discussant
Jeffrey Himpele (link is external), Director, VizE Lab for Ethnographic Data Visualization; Lecturer in Anthropology
