The atmosphere of this film is wonderful. If you love the revolutionary spirit of the sixties you will love this film. What really grabbed me right away was the music (Hendrix "If 6 was 9", Doors "Spy in the House of Love", Joplin's acid blues). The new wave film clips from the obvious heros (Godard, Truffaut) were just so so. I love new wave cinema but found the new wave film clips that were chosen kind of passe(the best clip was the Garbo which is of course not new wave at all). The music on the other hand was really perfect--Bertolucci chose not the big hits but the harder stuff from the lesser known albums that never gets played on the radio and so still sounds fresh and new and full of the mood of experimentation that marks that moment when ones eyes are first opened wide to those boundless and lawless worlds of art and sex. For me the music was the perfect sonic compliment to that moment when ones youth is so ripe it is almost bursting. In such a state society seems utterly ridiculous and revolution seems absolutely necessary. That moment only lasts about one summer, if you're lucky maybe two. What makes things especially exciting for these three youths is that the whole world seems to be fed up with all things normal at the same time they are and so there is all kinds of revolutionary fun to be had. The film opens with images of the riots that ensued when the director of the Cinematheque Francaise (Henri Langlois) was dismissed by the minister of culture Andre Malraux. This dismissal outraged all the new wavers and their stars(Leaud, Belmondo) and everyone protested. The dismissal of Langlois would make an excellent topic for a film documentary as the event is given credit for starting the spring revolutions that sprouted for a variety of reasons in a variety of places throughout Europe in 1968. Bertolucci does not really explore the event but merely uses it as a backdrop -- its not the specifics but just the atmosphere of rebellion that interests him. The characters in Dreamers are all admittedly vague as well and their response to their environment is also vague but then such is youth -- youth lives its own dream of the world, the world itself is only seen through a haze of ones own very ripe desires. I think the film captures that moment of youth between say 17 and 18 perfectly. It is not so much a character study as a loosely organized series of vignettes that show just what kinds of things(art, music, pop and subversive culture, sex and other stimulants) 17 and 18 year olds bond around. If you want some great powerful scenes between three powerful actors this film is not for you. There are no future Brandos or Garbo's here. Bertolucci gets from these actors about what you would expect from three pretty pretty fashion layout leads -- well they are a little deeper than that, each of them have that searching sentient but sensual animal in the wild look. The nudity is there more for reality sake than for shock sake--the bodies are shown as beautiful and erotic but also as delicate and vulnerable things. These are eighteen year olds -- not fully formed adults -- and Bertolucci captures what it is that makes them 17 or 18. He captures what it feels like to be 17-18 so well it was like being that age again for the duration of the film. For that thrill of recognition of experiencing what it is to be 17 again for 90 minutes the film is worth your attention. A lot of youth is just dumb and forgettable but some of it is just plain majestic. Bertolucci recalls it all and makes you realize(some of it anyway) is well worth recalling. Few, very few, film artists can relay their characters experience in the intimate and natural way Bertolucci does. I would say the actors are adequate not outstanding but the atmospheres Bertolucci weaves around them are really something to behold. In these atmospheres we can feel the artist remembering.

This is a film about the end of an age -- the age of the aristocrat. It also happens to be a film made by a member of the aristocracy. Luchino Visconti, the director, comes from a long line of Italian aristocrats. Visconti's films are all in one way or another about men who are incompatible with the age in which they live. In The Leopard Lancaster plays a refined Prince who has outlived his time. In his prime the Prince was the very model of health and vitality and he was the uncontested authority to all who lived in his province but now he is starting to show his age and his own decline coincides with the decline of his class and an entire way of life. Being such a refined figure the Prince records his decline in minute detail -- he seems to age right before our very eyes. It is obvious to the filmgoer that Visconti has no real love for democracy nor the way of life that comes with it. Elections are seen as crass popularity contests and the parvenus who seek office are seen as dim and uncultivated and lacking in that fineness of spirit that was the defining trait of the aristocracy. It is the Princes misfortune to live to see all that he values vanishing minute by minute before his very eyes and that is what happens in the famous hour-long ballroom scene. The new class rising to power has no time to cultivate that fineness of spirit and range of interest required to understand men and their needs and so govern them well. Instead the class now rising to power is largely self-serving and small-minded. Though they call themselves democrats they are preoccupied with material gain and status and the kind of civilization they are making is no longer capable of producing a man like the Prince. However Visconti himself is proof that the aristocratic spirit lives on even though the aristocracy does not.

It is more than a bit likely that this portrait of an ideal aristocat is just that, an ideal. I've heard this film described as Proustian. That is true only in so much as the film is obsessed with the passage of time. Proust, unlike Visconti, is interested in a multi-faceted psychological expose of the leisurely class. Proust loves his aristocrats but he shows them for the vain creatures that they are. Proust may have had something of the romantic in him but that was balanced by a keen social awareness (ie Dreyfus affair) that is nowhere to be found in Visconti's single-minded meditation on one man's point of view. Proust can speak of highly subjective states of mind and points of view but each point of view is balanced by other points of view. This pluralism and balance is simply not to be found in the Leopard nor in any of Visconti's other works. The Leopard is Visconti's best film but it is a myopic world view we are getting - we feel trapped in the Princes(and by extension the aristocratic) point of view. This is at times a strength and at times a weakness of the film.

Raymond Williams discusses how the idea of "culture" and "society" evolved in England when two forces (democracy, industrialism) were undermining traditional notions of both. Williams is a Marxist and it is clear that his analysis of Burke, Coleridge, Mill, Carlyle, Newman, Arnold etc... is directed by Marx's theory of class relationships. The book, therefore, is both an analysis and an argument.

The analysis/argument is that democracy and industrialism broke down old relationships and initiated new ones. While this shift was occuring a new kind of writer was born: the cultural critic. The major theme of this book is the evolution of the word "culture" . Before the period in question (1780-1950) the word "culture" was used to describe art and literature but beginning with Burke and Coleridge the word begins to be used to refer to a "whole way of life". Coleridge makes the key distinction between "civilization" and "culture". Coleridge uses the word "civilization" to describe the "general progress of society" and he uses the word "culture" to express a standard of perfection independent of the progress of society that could be used "not merely to influence society but to judge it." Coleridge envisioned a class of men or "clerisy" whose sole task would be to tend to the cultivation of society. The great fear in the minds of nineteenth-century educated Englishman was that democracy would lead to a dumming down of public life and that what society really needed was some class of educated individuals(Coleridge) or some heroic individual (Carlyle) to insure the continued cultivation of society.
Raymond Williams is writing from a working-class perspective but he is a working-class kid who also happened to attend Cambridge. Writing from this unique perspective allows him to identify with both the great cultural thinkers of the past and with the "masses" that they feared. Coleridge and Carlyle felt that the masses were incapable of governing themselves and contributing to the continued cultivation of society(a notion that continues to inform much of modern conservastism). Williams suggests that it is a mistake to think of men as "masses" and that for society to grow it must remain open, and that society must encourage individual effort from all segments of society while continuing to value and cultivate a collective way of life. Exactly how society is to do this is explained only in vague platitudes.

The best and strongest part of the book is the early portion that examines the definition of "culture" as opposed to "society". The argument gets fuzzy around the time of Matthew Arnold who could not quite decide just what constitutes "culture". In the nineteenth-century "culture" is tied to religious tradition in the minds of Burke, Coleridge, Carlyle and Newman. Beginning with Arnold, however, cultural critics attempt to define "culture" without reference to religion. This proves to be difficult as "culture" describes not only all the best that has been thought but also refers to a body of values that have been passed down and religious institutions are just as powerful, if not moreso, than economic institutions. It is at this point when one begins to question the materialist approach to history.

In his conclusion Williams discusses democracy as if it were the natural substitute for religion or even a new kind of religion. He is not altogether successful and for me the concluding chapters were much less satisfying as cultural history than were the early chapters. This does not take away from the exceptional clarity of those early chapters.

The book is an excellent study of what it means to live in a world in transition and how difficult it is to properly define a "common culture" in a world that regularly undergoes cultural shifts. Society struggles on between two cultural ideologies; between the religious conservatives and the liberal-democrat reformers. In the best portion of Culture and Society Williams describes how J.S. Mill tried to find some way of melding the two ideologies into one.

Popper's favorite philosophers are the pre-Socratics. He celebrates them for their willingness to entertain/invite/encourage alternative points of view. The pre-Socratics sought to explain the universe ( a goal modern philososphy/science has lost sight of) but no one theory was viewed as absolute, rather each theory was viewed as a proposition that could then be honed/improved/altered by further argument/inquiry. This spirit of inquiry begins to vanish around the time of Plato and Aristotle for their teachings begin to be passed down not as theories that can be improved upon (modified or dismissed) but as knowledge. For Popper reverence for "great men" and "great ideas" only stands in the way of pluralism and progress.

Poppers method is to identify the mistakes made by the "great men" and therefore clear the way for further inquiry. Of all the western philosphers Plato receives the most attention. Popper finds much to admire in Plato but also much that needs amending. In an essay on "subjective" and "objective" knowledge Popper evolves his idea of a third "world" of knowledge. This autonomous third world of knowledge is reminiscent of Plato's theory of ideal forms with one essential difference. For Popper all knowledge is man made and so his third world of knowledge contains not ideals(in Popper's world ideals do not exist) but "problem situations" -- the state of a discussion or the state of a critical argument at the present time and these "states" make up the "objective contents of thought".

In the world according to Popper thought ( in the philosophic and scientific realms) evolves because a variety of thinkers make a variety of creative propositions that are then examined and found to be true or false. Popper calls this method "critical rationalism".

In each of these essays Popper addresses a key philosophic issue and discusses it with his signature grace, eloquence and humor. His contribution to social theory seems especially significant and on this topic he is especially eloquent. Being no great believer in the great man theory of history and knowing full well that all of mans ideas as well as social theories are riddled with mistakes Popper thinks the best way to advance socially is in a piecemeal fashion. This limits the harm any one man or theory or institution can do. For Popper society like philosophy and knowledge is the result of an ever renewed inquiry.

This is clearsighted and jargon free writing and these are model essays!

Peter Gay's choice of Arthur Schnitlzer is an interesting one. After all when we think of Victorian literary figures we usually think of the essayists Carlyle, Ruskin, Arnold; poets Tennyson and Browning; and novelist Dickens. "Schnitlzer" is not a name that readily comes to mind to most readers when speaking of the Victorians. He wrote plays and stories and novels which are rarely read today but Gay is not really interested in taking a measure of Schnitzlers literary achievements. What interests Gay about the Viennese author is not his official output but his private output as Schnitlzer kept extensive diaries. For Gay these diaires offer a glimpse into the private life of the Victorian. Gay quotes liberally from Schnitzlers diaries because after all its the unofficial history of the Victorians that Gay is really interested in. We are all familiar with the public record of the time and the cliches about the Victorian mind set but Gay wants to peel back those cliches and have a look at the Victorian with his gaurd down -- he wants to tell us what the middle-class Victorians really thought and how they really behaved. The diary gives Gay access to the private mind and conscience behind the Victorian facade. One of Gay's points is that there is no typical "Victorian" really and that the much disparaged middle-class is really a much more diversified and conflicted group than many historians would lead you to believe. Schnitzler is not exactly a representative Victorian. In many ways he is a figure (roughly contemporary with Freud) who tells us more about the century to come than the one he was born into. Like Freud he is concerned less with the general goings-on within society than he is with the goings-on within his own and his characters minds -- their hidden motivations etc.....
Schnitzler's mind appeals to Gay because Gay himself is a Freudian and his history is an attempt to reveal the hidden motivations(anxieties , fears, aggressions, desires) driving the age. Gay is a consummate historian however and he never lets his Freudian interests lead him into speculative corners -- he supports every point with lively data and convincingly shows us that the Victorians are a largely misunderstood people. We assume they were overly shy about sex but Gay gathers plenty of evidence to counter this assumption. Schnitlzer himself seems to have thought of little else as he moved from one conquest to another. Whether we are to assume that Schnitzler is a typical Victorian or not seems to be beside the point because what Gay wants us to see is that any generalization that we make about the Victorians will quickly be undone by evidence to the contrary. This is not a "biography" of Schnitzler and it is not a typical "history" of the Victorians or middle-class. Rather this is an interdisciplinary work which blends biography and history. Schnitzler's Century uses one discipline to challenge the other and in so doing offers fresh insight into both.

In addition to "sex" two other topics are given extensive consideration: the "gospel" of work, and religion.

A rewarding work.

M.H. Abrams takes his title from Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and though he shines his lamp on that work briefly, for the most part this is a critical study which focuses on the key German and English romantics (philosophers and poets)and certain formal attributes they all shared -- namely a penchant for circular structure (golden age of mans innocence/fall from innocence/redemptive return to the beginning). What is most surprising about this study is how pervasive this circular pattern was in the romantic period. Abrams finds it in virtually every major work of philosophy and poetry in the romantic period. In doing so Abrams does not want to suggest that the romantic movement was any less revolutionary than previously thought but that the movement was a complex one that issued forth great changes in philosophy and literature not so much by inventing new forms but by finding new validity in old forms and patterns.

Abrams argues that from the time of the reformation, literature and philosophy were becoming more and more secular and that the western conception of the universe was becoming more and more "mechanized". In his earlier book Mirror and the Lamp Abrams traced the origins of romantic aesthetic theory and in so doing explained how the romantics reinvigorated art and philosophy by offering an "organic" view of the universe to counter the mechanistic view which made man feel less and less at home and more and more alien in his world. In Natural Supenaturalism Abrams elaborates that argument and shows in more detail just how individual romantics sought to resituate man in his universe. The "revolution" initiated by the romantics was not a political one Abrams argues but a cognitive one. True freedom is attained not en masse according to Blake and Wordsworth but in solitude where one learns to see the world as it is. For Abrams Wordsworth is the penultimate romantic(other romantic scholars find Blake to be the more important figure) because his poems offer man a route to personal salvation through a private communion with nature via the imagination. Wordsworth intentionally weds his own story to the story of mans fall from and eventual recovery of grace-- what is revolutionary is that Wordsworth suggests that man must not wait for the apocaplypse to be redeemed but can find redemption in this world and all by way of the sympathetic imagination. In the Preludes Wordsworth offers his own life story (and his own aesthetic theory) which is the story of one mans attempt to wed himself to nature and thus recover the natural affinity he felt for nature as a child albeit in a higher way with greater awareness. For Abrams it is the central story of romanticism and one that has a continuing influence on literary output. Though each romantic made use of the circular pattern, each did so in his own unique way and for scholars the real interest of the book will be in tracing the genesis and studying the particularities of each cosmogony and there are many offered here(Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche......), (Blake, Coleridge, Shelley, Hazlitt....).

Wordsworth placed a great emphasis on "memory"--for this was the thing that connected him to that first grace he knew in childhood-- in recovering his own version of paradise and so Abrams finds Proust to be Wordsworth's most direct heir. More generally Abrams finds that the circular pattern first found in classic mythology and the bible as well as in that first western autobiography - -St. Augustine Confessions-- continues to be a powerful model for writers as diverse as TS Eliot(Four Quartets) and DH Lawrence to name just two. Abrams finds the romantic rediscovery and revitalization of this circular pattern to be a key aspect of romanticism and the romantic legacy.

This book could just as well be called The Modern Frame of Mind or more generally The Western Frame of Mind for the issues that perplexed and divided the Victorians have always perplexed and divided westerners and continue to do so. Religion and Science have never been compatible realms of thought and western civilization has always been marked by an unresolved tension between the two. The eighteenth-century is often refered to as the Age of Reason but reason alone does not fulfill all of mans needs and the Romantic period that followed marked a return to faith and feeling. The Victorian Age is marked by a restless search to find a balance between the reasoning head and the feeling heart and soul. Houghton sees the English as a very pragmatic people and though he is careful to show that on no issue did any two Victorians think alike, he does show that the English shared certain habits of mind. Houghton does not mention Nationalism by name but that word was constantly in my mind as I read this book for Houghton shows that the English were aware that they shared certain characteristics with each other which made them distinct from say the French. After 1789 the English saw the French as nation destroyers while they saw themselves as nation builders -- the fact that they defeated the French and presided over the building of the largest empire the world had ever known made them acutely aware that they were part of a special breed. The most famous men of the age did not merely speak to the English masses but preached to them -- and that tone and style of speaking is perhaps even more important and revealing than the actual substance of what they were saying for the English felt they were on a mission. Precislely what kind of mission they were on was impossible to say with any certainty but for a spell the Victorians felt they were a model nation and thus the nation in the best position to mold other nations. This confidence or arrogance peaked around mid-century and by centuries end Englands moment had passed as other nations(USA & Germany) began to dominate the world stage. Historians explain empires in a number of ways, Houghton however is not the kind of historian to make any sweeping generalizations. How such a small island nation could come to rule the globe is something he never tries to answer. He confines himself to analyzing the Victorians patterns of thought for it is the Victorian personality that captures his interest. This is the kind of thoroughly researched book(Houghton quotes from every major text of the era) that gives you a look into the workings of a half dozen exemplary personalities and how they worked through the issues of the day for themselves. Houghton gives extended consideration to the works of Carlyle, Ruskin,Arnold, Mill, Tennyson, Browning, Dickens, &Eliot but he quotes from other lesser lights as well. My personal favorite from this era is John Stuart Mill and the man who introduced the pragmatic Victorians to French Fiction, Walter Pater. Houghton's strength is when he concentrates on the men and women of letters but he is slightly less successful when he deals with what life was like for the average Victorian. Houghton portrays the English as a people in search of a creed and the writers of the age as men who tried to fashion a creed for them. For me the men of letters come across loud and clear but I wanted more concerning the life of the common man and woman ie how many Victorians actually read Carlyle, Arnold etc.....

Also recommended: Asa Brigg's Age of Improvement(this classic scholarly 500 page book is especially good at dealing with economics, social dynamics, and the goings-on within Parliament) & G.M. Young's Portrait of an Age(this 200 page book especially good at giving you an overview of the entire age-- Young's approach is less scholarly than modern students might be used to but he integrates a lot of information into a short and immensely readable book).

The Victorians have always seemed to me to be a dull overly worked people who feared the wrath of God, their neighbors, and their betters.
G.M. Young in his Portrait of an Age doesn't necessarily contradict that view but he does succeed at doing something I thought was impossible: he makes the Victorians seem interesting. Young calls his book an extended essay and it has the inspired feel and pace of an essay as opposed to the wooden tone of a scholarly tome. Young writes with a casual grace that comes only when one has lived with and ruminated over the facts for a long while and his essay is the apotheosis of a long rumination over an entire age. Every historian has a style and that style is indicative of a personality, unfortunately many historians seem to have very little in the way of either, Young fortunately has plenty of both as well that one quality that the Victorians seemed to have done without, a sense of humor. In just under 200 pages Young presents the Victorians in all their overzealous Evangelical/Utilitarian glory. The Victorians were never of one mind on anything and that is where Young really shines; he reveals the plurality that existed within an age that though peaceful and prosperous was that way not because the Victorians agreed on anything but despite their disagreements on nearly everything. What seems to have united all of England was not any consensus about the pressing issues of the day but a sense of the past and a reverence for tradition. Not all felt that way but the majority did and so the Victorian personality is always a split one. On the one hand the Victorians were great innovators whose technological prowess enabled them to preside over a massive expansion of industry which gave them the feeling that they were the first generation of men not to be mere victims of nature but the masters of it, and, on the other hand, it is as if the Victorians feared what they had done. So there is pride and there is uncertainty in the Victorian temperament. At a time when other countries in Europe were overthrowing their monarchs the Victorians seemed uninterested in radical reform -- reform, yes, but not radical reform that would upset the existing order which they perhaps sensed was a delicate one but one worth preserving. Though radicals certainly played a part in Victorian life it was simply not in the English character to embrace political revolution or at least not in this age which was graced by an ever increasing national prestige after the defeat of Napolean, and an ever increasing economic prestige as wealth poured into the nation from an ever expanding empire. For an Englishmen to become a revolutionary in such a time would have been foolish. England was not perfect but many believed, at least in the early part of the century, that England was perfectible. No one really wanted to overthrow the system which obviously was working; Victorians wanted changes but they wanted to work within the existing system to effect those changes. Age old reverence for traditions and your betters was a hard habit of mind to break for the Victorians. By the time the English did break from those old habits of mind, the age was no more.

First published in 1959 this remains an indispensible text to anyone with an interest in understanding the dynamic of one of the most misunderstood periods in English History. Most people think of prim moralists when they think of "Victorians" but after reading Asa Briggs 500 page sociological, economic, political and cultural survey the reader will be left with a far more complex and far richer impression of the Victorians and the complex issues that obsessed and defined them.

This book is primarily a socio-political history and in England power has traditionally rested in the hands of the landowners. At the time of the French Revolution very few members of Parliament believed in democracy. To both the conservative(Tory) and liberal(Whig) elements in the English Parliament the English Constitution was thought to be the best because it was government run not by the people but government run by those most qualified to run government . As the nineteenth-century progressed, however, it became impossible to deny a growing and increasingly wealthy middle class its say on election day. Change did happen but it happened very differently in England than in continental Europe. In a time when other European nations were experiencing violent revolutions England remained relatively stable and Briggs attributes this relative calm to a consistently strong English economy --for a time the worlds strongest. Many found the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 (which opened the way for free trade) to be the most significant legislature of the century. Reformist leaders and movements became popular during times of recession and the 19th century saw reforms in every area of life but reform in England was always a slow and deliberate process and reformist movements faded from the national consciousness during times of recovery. The 1830's saw the deepest recessions so it is not surprising that it was in that decade that the first major constitutional reform was passed extending the right to vote to the middle class. Many conservatives feared the move toward democracy would mean the end of England but in 1867 a second major consitutional reform extended the right to vote to the working classes. Political leaders were more often than not moderates whose main task was to maintain a balance between the various elements of Parliament which included Tories, Whigs, and Radicals. Throughout the period government like everything else was undergoing vast changes. Democracy presented a challenge to English political tradition and Darwin presented a challenge to English belief systems but the triumph of the age was perhaps its allegiance to balance and moderation in all things which was in part due to the Evangelical spirit of the time and in part due to the Utilitarian spirit popularized by legislative and law reformer Jeremy Bentham.

Briggs paints a portrait of an England that sees itself as the pinnacle of civilization. The age was defined differently by its optimists and its pessimists but Briggs sets down four main features that defined both the champions and the critics of the era: work, seriousness, respectabilty, self-help.

Briggs quotes extensively from the prominent men and women of the day(political and cultural figures) to give us an idea of how the Victorians viewed themselves and their era.

The Age of Improvement

Chapter 1 :Economy and Society in the 1780's
Chapter 2: Politics and Government on the Eve of the French Revolution
Chapter 3: The Impact of War
Chapter 4:The Politics of Transition
Chapter 5: Reform
Chapter 6: Social Cleavage
Chapter 7:Britain and the World Overseas
Chapter 8: The Balance of Interests
Chapter 9: Victorianism
Chapter 10: The Leap in the Dark

Opening scene: Vivian, a diplomats wife, is browsing through the artifacts offered for sale in a grass hut in New Guinea. Vivian is seeking some rare feathers that fetch huge sums at Parisian Boutiques. She is a socialite and yet she is also very comfortable in the very earthy surroundings she finds herself in while her husband is away on business. At first hers seems only a casual curiousity but then in walks a tall blonde hippie stranger who has just returned from the interior with a cache of rare feathers -- after that it is not only feathers she is interested in but the tall blonde stranger as well.

Vivian catches a ride with the stranger and accompanies him back to his camp site. As soon as the two enter the tent they see a couple laying naked together. Vivian is surprised and yet also turned on by these very relaxed living conditions. The hippies live very close to the earth and they want to get even closer. In this very sensually open atmosphere the blonde stranger shows Vivian where they intend to go -- it is a place which has no name because it has never been charted as it is invisible from the sky as it is perpetually obscured by clouds. To the hippies this last unmarked place represents a last promise of paradise. Vivian is skeptical of such notions but she cannot resist the heady atmosphere of dreaminess and sensual freedom that this group represents to her and so she decides to leave her socialite existence for awhile and accompany them to La Vallee.

The story is very simple and Barbet Schroeder's style is almost documentary simple -- Schroeder produced some of the early new wave films but his own films are nothing like those early 1960's films. More and La Vallee do not draw attention to the director as the new wave films did, Schroeders films concentrate on the vagaries of character and what different experiences feels like. The Pink Floyd soundtrack does more than the dialogue in giving us access to what these characters are going through. Though they are united in their search for paradise, each character is also on a very private journey and the music accents both the shared and private aspects of this cross country quest.

One of the most memorable sequences is when the group spends the day with several tribes of New Guinea bushmen who have gathered to recognize their ancestors. Two of the hippies dress in tribal attire and paint themselves and dance along with the tribesman but two do not. Vivian herself does not adorn herself but merely watches the goings-on from a comfortable distance like a journalist while the tall blonde stranger feels a deep depression that he unlike the tribesman will never feel at one with nature. At another point Vivian too will attempt to merge with nature with the help of a hallucinogen but it is only a momentary union. And so the film is dreamy and yet also it is a kind of lament that certain dreams will never be more than dreams.

Along with the subtle but perfect mood music by Pink Floyd the cinematography is absolutely exquisite -- New Guinea has never looked so good.

I like both More and La Vallee equally well. And yes Michelangelo Antonio's Zabriskie Point is also very good and also features Pink Floyd as well as the Grateful Dead. I think Barbet Schroeder's films are much more organic though and so more pleasing to the instincts than Antonioni's film. Antonioni is very intellectual and even when he gets organic he arrives there by intellectual routes. Herzogs Aguirre is excellent and it is similar in that it is also a search for a mythic paradise but its vision of nature and man is much harsher. Theres a lyric magic in Barbet Schroeders films that simply does not exist anywhere else.