Psychedelia, p.75
Psychedelia, page 75
Less known than Chappaqua is the substantial amount of experimental psychedelic movies produced by film students and avant-garde artists. Michael Starks' standard work Cocaine Fiends & Reefer Madness (1982) offers an overview of this obscure field, making the current unavailability of numerous intriguing works rather frustrating. Experimental movie-maker and music composer Jordan Belson is credited with a movie titled 'LSD' which is given as early a production date as 1954 , but this appears dubious. Belson did however produce a number of experimental movies with psychedelic themes and his own electronic soundtrack, such as Allures (1961), Re-Entry (1964), Phenomena (1965), Samadhi (1967) and Momentum (1969). Starks describes these as 'among the most sophisticated visual expressions of the psychedelic age', highlighting Re-Entry as a possible masterpiece and pointing out the striking similarity between Belson's colorful shapes, grids and evolving patterns and Kubrick's stargate sequence in 2001.
In addition to the detailed treatment of Belson, Starks discusses dozens of experimental psychedelic shorts, many of which date from the early or mid-1960s. The Bardo Thödol and related themes figure repeatedly, suggesting that some of these openly stated LSD-inspired works came via a sidetrip to Timothy Leary's IF-IF and Millbrook scenes6. Peter Spoecker's ambitious abstract animations Potpourri (1968) and Pulse (1969) were both partly created on acid, and even notable names like musicologist Harry Smith and future Academy Award-winner and Rocky director John Avildsen created '60s avant films inspired by psychedelic drugs. Noted psychedelic artist Ira Cohen did Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda in 1968, and other relevant works include LSD Wall (1965) by John Hawkins, Tree by Michael Weise (c1968) made for psychedelicized viewers, Homer Groening's Psychedelic Wet (1967) and Theoria by Marc Adrian (1970) which along with Michael Zuckerman's Soul Trip number Nine (1968) was again explicitly inspired by acid trips. This is by no means the complete list presented by Starks, but should indicate how vast the '60s underground of experi - mental LSD films were. Noted San Francisco light show artist Ben Van Meter did several psychedelic art movies beginning in the mid-'60s, and collaborated with Gilbert Shelton on the 22-minute Set Your Chickens Free (1974). At the more famous end of the spectrum, several of Andy Warhol's '60s movies feature psychedelic drugs in an incidental manner. Kenneth Anger's visually stunning Magick movies like Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome and Lucifer Rising have been given occasional psychedelic connotations by Anger himself, although his main thematic concerns lie elsewhere.
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Cinema's infatuation with drugs goes back to the early silent era, yet it remains difficult to identify older movies that deal with hallucinogenic drugs rather than the highly popular opium and marijuana topics. Cartoons have always been a natural playground for psychedelic creativity, and it is no coincidence that an episode of Felix The Cat from 1928 is sometimes singled out as the earliest filmic reference to a psychotropic drug. In this cartoon, Felix drinks a bottle of an unspecified liquid and proceeds to have strange visions. The animated genre continued this tradition with some of Disney's early full-length features, where the case of Fantasia (1940) is well-known enough to have become a cliché, more so since its presumed drug references may be incidental (see note to Chapter VI). Whatever the background story and the significance of the dancing mushrooms, there is no doubt that Fantasia offers an experience that aligns very well with The Psychedelic Experience, and this quality has attached itself to the movie's standing. A more intriguing case of hallucinatory animation is offered by Disney's Dumbo (1941), where the young elephant's lengthy 'trip' through abstract colorful visuals is again triggered by the drinking of an unknown potion and which, perhaps most curiously, seems to fill no vital function for the storyline. Dumbo's hallucinatory journey lasts for a period of several minutes that seems dramatically uncalled for, somewhat like the strange excursions in Shakespeare's The Tempest discussed in Chapter IV. Through the 1940s and '50s Disney would continue to make movies that accidentally (Three Caballeros, 1944) or unavoidably (Alice In Wonderland, 1951) resounded exceptionally well with a later drug culture audience.
The Beatles' Yellow Submarine (1968) may have been the first animated movie obviously designed for psychedelicized viewing, yet the connection between cartoons and hallucinations is so fundamentally ingrained in pop culture that it seems almost archetypal. While the Beatles themselves were only marginally involved with the production of Yellow Submarine, it was a feature well adapted for an audience of stoned teenagers. Surreal head jokes and visual tricks lifted directly from the psychedelic repertoire maintained attention between terrific song animations, and much like Head the movie swiftly established an agreement with the viewer that the storyline wasn't of great concern. Dominated by bulbous forms, simple lines and large monochrome fields set off against each other, the visual style resembled the popular graphic artist Peter Max, and is still today instantly recognizable as late '60s-early '70s. Adding techniques of cut-out collage and stop-motion, Terry Gilliam's original animations for Monty Python's Flying Circus (1971-73) often reflected bizarre, lysergic ideation, and indeed Gilliam would go on to make live action movies with pronounced psychedelic elements. Later animated movies like Heavy Metal (1981) appear almost like one big stoned fantasy, while slightly subversive TV shows such as The Simpsons and Beavis & Butt-Head made sure to maintain the tradition of including psychedelic trip sequences on a regular basis, an aspect conspicuous when full-length movies were made of both shows.
In the case of live action movies, there wasn't much in the way of Psychedelia prior to the late '60s exploitation and arthouse movies already discussed.7 The Tingler (1959), featuring Vincent Price, is usually credited as the first feature film to include LSD references, but it's a rather silly gimmick movie likely to disappoint most viewers; even the usually reliable Price fails to live up to the occasion and performs his trip state scenes as though he was simply drunk. Some have found psychedelic aspects to the early Corman-Coppola cult classic Dementia 13 (1963), but this will be purely in the eye of the beholder. Most of the underground and 'mondo' movies of the '60s dealt with themes of either sex or violence, and the lack of a proper grassroots foundation may be another reason why Hollywood was so slow and clumsy in its response to the new psychedelic culture. While the major studios churned out routine WWII movies and mediocre Westerns, clearly oblivious to the explosive growth of psychedelic drug use, it was rock music that emerged as the primary culture- bearer, and thanks to a fortunate mid-'60s convergence of creativity and zeitgeist, it performed its role very well. Beyond the Beatles and the Grateful Dead and all the trippy groups inbetween, the young acidheads found their meaningful kicks in Marvel's new breed of super hero comics, and cult novels like Siddharta, Lord Of The Rings and Stranger In A Strange Land.
Prior to Easy Rider, the only significant movie that seemed to take the psychedelic message seriously was 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Contrary to the myth, 2001 was a quite successful launch from the start, and in view of its complex and at times challenging nature, its strong box office showing was remarkable. Of course, the 1968 reception was merely the beginning of a seemingly endless love affair between acidheads and Kubrick's mind-expanding creation, as shown by its frequent theatrical re-runs for 'stoner' crowds during the 1970s and beyond. The director himself denied having experimented with psychedelic drugs (Leary claims otherwise in Flashbacks)8 and associated the lysergic appeal of his movie with the inspiration he had drawn from psychedelicized friends describing their cosmic and metaphysical experiences. Kubrick never downplayed the mystical nature of 2001, but rather expressed a view of it as a transforming experience, much like what the LSD-fuelled fans found in it. Due to its nature Kubrick felt that 2001 could never be discussed or explicated in any meaningful way, as the purpose of the movie was the metaphysical response it evoked in the viewer. By extension, as some critics have noted, the movie itself became the final 'monolith', a tool for evolution of consciousness, now turned sideways and seen as a reverse negative.
In spite of Kubrick's admonitions, 2001 has generated a cottage industry of critical analysis and debate that surpasses almost anything in movie history. The extreme care the director took with every single detail of his craft opens the door for discussion of even the most miniscule aspect, which is precisely what scholarly critics appreciate. In the current context it is obviously necessary to concentrate on the most psychedelic aspects and refer to the vast secondary literature for overall analysis of meaning and technique. A fundamental reason why 2001 is so popular with users of psychedelic drugs is that comes across as a truly utopian vision, a rare thing in 20th century art. The Starchild, begotten with the aid from a more advanced civilization, approaches earth with the promise of a evolutionary jump into a benign future, just as the Dawn Of Man hominids were put on a fast track to survival via the monolith's revelation of tool usage.
This is the most common interpretation, not least so among its hippie stoner fan-base, yet it is vital to note that alternative and more pessimistic views of 2001 exist. A dystopian perspective might focus on recurring violence and intra-species warfare as the dominant aspect of mankind as Kubrick portrays it, be it the archaic hominids battling over the waterhole or the chilly diplomacy between the Russians and Americans onboard the space station. The bone club thrown victoriously in the air is transformed not into a generic space-craft, but a nuclear arms platform, a detail not obvious to the casual viewer. As the Starchild approaches the earth, his function may be to eradicate all weaponry and possibilities of warfare for a species that apparently 'never learns', and such a scenario is not likely to play out as benignly as an evolutionary jump in consciousness. Kubrick and script collaborator Arthur Clarke leave the movie open for such an interpretation, which has a rippling effect backwards across the entire saga, should one accept it.9 The celestial judgment of mankind that such a view entails points forwards to later, psychedelic-flavored movies such as Contact, Avatar and Prometheus, all of which display clear traces of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In addition to its exceptionally pretentious yet obviously successful treatment of some of man's greatest metaphysical questions, 2001 attracts viewers of a psychedelic disposition simply because it features a large number of attributes that acidheads favor. Themes of evolution are very common in the ideation of experienced psychedelicists, as evident in the examples of Tim Leary and Terence McKenna, both whom also took a great interest in space travel and space colonization. The inspired use of music to accompany the slow, graceful motions of space vessels works like an upgrade of Fantasia, and much like in Dumbo these unforgettable scenes are allowed to play out for minutes despite adding nothing to the narrative arc. Here, and in the hallucinatory flow of the Stargate sequence, the movie seems almost to cater to acidheads, even if such an approach would seem unlikely for a director like Kubrick. The Stargate is more than just a freaky display of colors, as its internal structure actually matches a hallucinatory CEV trip, beginning with abstract patterns and shapes, then developing into figurative representations such as landscapes and open sea, all distorted by psychedelic colors.
Regardless of Kubrick's and Clarke's intentions, segments like these, or the increasingly child-like HAL computer describing how his 'mind is going' as the astronaut shuts down his higher functions, clearly go a long way to explain why movie enthusiasts fuelled by 250 mcg blotter acid came to see 2001 as 'their' movie. The extraordinary degree of ambition on display raised the bar for cinema and ushered in a wave of philosophical and visually striking movies, though more so in Europe (where Tarkovsky's Solaris is possibly the best) than in the US, where other aesthetics were coming into play following Bonnie & Clyde and Easy Rider. In time however, the psychedelic boomerang launched by Kubrick would return to Hollywood and inspire a strongly varied string of philosophical films, as the new generation of young creative geniuses began to mature.
As mentioned, 2001 was remarkably successful already upon release, despite a confused promotion campaign that focused almost entirely on the technical aspects of space travel and how this was realized cinematically. One might assume that MGM was not loaded with acidheads at the time, and they chose to concentrate on what they understood. Had it been a less established director the movie might never have been made, or ruined in final cut tampering, but fortunately Kubrick's standing as a hip, contemporary auteur was quite high after Dr Strangelove. Beyond the brand name recognition that contributed to its successful completion, it is telling that this solitary film classic of the hallucinatory '60s belonged to a genre that again and again has proven a useful ally for psychedelic culture: science fiction.
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The psychedelic embracement of science fiction reaches back to works made years or even decades before 2001: A Space Odyssey. Much like the acidhead love for '50s Exotica music, it is a sincere appreciation more genuine than postmodern clichés of 'retro cool'. To some extent the attraction is due to a correspondence between the classic sci-fi scenario of humans dealing with metaphysical questions against an unearthly, surreal backdrop, and the analogue situation of a psychedelicist 3-4 hours into his journey, pondering cosmic issues while immersed in perceptual distortions. A 1950s movie like Forbidden Planet (see Chapter VI) features precisely this narrative set-up, and it frequently recurs in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek TV series (1966-69). While few Trekkies are acidheads, and vice versa, it is a not uncommon pastime among psychedelicists to watch the '60s TV series and the subsequent movies in an illuminated state. Explicitly influenced by Forbidden Planet, Star Trek was always intended as a lightly philosophical series rather than the space combat of Flash Gordon, and its effective approach to metaphysical and psychological topics favors a psychedelic viewing. Originally not a great success, the show found its audience via re-runs in the 1970s, proving that it, like Kubrick's movie, had been somewhat ahead of its time. The full-length Star Trek movies (1979-1991) retained the emphasis on metaphysics, including an actual encounter with God at the end of Part V. The Trek revival inspired a philosophical, cosmic Disney-produced flop titled The Black Hole (1979)10 which connects the genre and its psychedelic undertones all the way back to intelligent '50s sci-fi like Forbidden Planet and The Day The Earth Stood Still.
The increasing interest in science fiction themes during the '70s, partly due to the wide use of psychedelic drugs, was reflected in several major motion pictures. After the young mavericks of New Hollywood had brought mainstream cinema up to date via a number of masterful films with realistic, gritty themes (Mean Streets, The Last Picture Show, The Conversation, The Last Detail, etc), the aesthetics towards the end of the '70s embraced a wider range of topics. With Apocalypse Now (1979) and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977), the thematic acid gap that Hollywood had left open 10 years earlier was finally closed. Neither Coppola nor Spielberg would ever create anything as immersed in psychedelic themes and styles as these two movies. Their appearance at the end of the 1970s stood as extravagant finales to both the auteur-driven New Hollywood and the second phase of modern Psychedelia. Coppola moved on to what he called 'smaller movies', while Spielberg's next science fiction movie was E.T-The Extra Terrestrial, a 1980s-style family movie completely free from psychedelic elements, unless Peter Coyote's presence counts.
Despite its unconventional nature (there is neither a hero, bad guy or love story) Close Encounters was a massive box-office success, but it received serious competition from another space-themed film from one of Spielberg's generation colleagues. Star Wars (1977), however, was not psychedelic at all, and in retrospect it looks awkward among the highly personal and modern- minded films of New Hollywood. George Lucas' life-work fails the Acid Test not just as a harbinger of the overblown blockbuster 1980s, but also in being a fantasy genre work, more than science fiction. Indeed, science fiction fans are often eager to distance themselves from the closely-related style of fantasy. Generally speaking, fantasy is concerned with other worlds and cultures, often in the form of a traditional, archetypal saga. Fantasy literature has little or no link to contemporary human society, yet it will use familiar emotional and psychological motifs to involve the reader in its epic narrative. Science fiction is a more heterodox field, whose element of 'science' has informed a wide range of literature and movies to muse upon imagined events, ranging from time travel to alien visitations to alternate realities. In science fiction, mankind is always profoundly involved, and its themes tend to be more philosophical-sociological than emotional-psychological. Conversely, fantasy works are fairly conservative in their underlying themes, often settling for the recasting of familiar patterns of mythology and history. Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings are fantasy. Forbidden Planet and Blade Runner are science fiction.
It is not surprising that psychedelicists in general are more attracted to science fiction than fantasy. The aforementioned isomorphic parallel between a hallucinogen trip and a typical science fiction scenario of humans brooding in an alien world is more difficult to project on the typical fantasy map of myth and destiny. Furthermore, as observed in the discussion of Exotica culture in Chapter VI, the nature of The Psychedelic Experience is such that the subject ascends most smoothly to planes not too remote from the mental state currently inhabited. An LSD trip is not like falling down some Einstein-Rosen rabbit hole into a completely alien fable world, like E R Burroughs' John Carter (one of fantasy's earliest heroes). Rather, it is a gradual ascent of the Neoplatonic hierarchy by jumping from one escalator to the next, each plane a little trippier and more surreal than the last one. Psychedelia does not deal with the realism of a remote world as much as the surrealism inside our present world. It is for this reason that movies such as Blade Runner or The Matrix come across as psychedelic, with their intelligent questioning of reality and identity. Similarly, but in another thematic direction, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Contact (1997) and Mission To Mars (2000) examine psychedelic concepts of evolution, often combined with lengthy visual 'trip' sequences that have become classics among acidheads.
