Thursday | November 7, 2024 7:00 pm

Head

Introduction by Steven Biel
Screening on Film
Free Admission

Directed by Bob Rafelson.
With Peter Tork, Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz.
US, 1968, 35mm, color, 86 min.
Print source: Rhino Entertainment

Head takes its central cue not from A Hard Day’s Night—which came out four years earlier to great acclaim and probably a central inspiration for the Monkees’ TV show—but from the psychedelic films that were now embedded in the cultural landscape. Like the Beatles’ own psychedelic entry Magical Mystery Tour, Head received a poor popular and critical reception upon release. However, co-creator of the TV show (and thus, the band itself), Bob Rafelson equipped his Monkees’ vehicle with its own defense system designed to neutralize this very critique: one of the central themes of the recursive, surreal series of scenes within scenes is the Monkees’ unreality as a band and their inability to break through to the real world. “Well, if it isn’t God’s gift to eight-year-olds,” a character greets the band, encapsulating the film’s self-deprecating hostility to its own fanbase and success. As “a manufactured image with no philosophies,” the film mocks the very stardom and show business creating it, intercut with news footage of the Vietnam War—ultimately recognizing the unimportance of the band, the film and its audience in the face of death. – Sidney Dritz

This event is part of ArtsThursdays, a university-wide initiative supported by Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA).

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PRECEDED BY

Lapis

Directed by James Whitney.
US, 1966, 16mm, color, 10 min.
Print source: Canyon Cinema

James Whitney’s fascination with Eastern mysticism, Jungian psychology and modern science gave birth to Lapis, an intricate mandala metamorphosizing in sync to a raga by Ravi Shankar. To create this kaleidoscopic nirvana, James Whitney’s brother and fellow filmmaker John retrofitted a mechanical analog computer used by the military as an anti-aircraft gun controller—the same type used for John’s animation of the swirling title sequence in Vertigo. The complex machine allowed James to meticulously move, rotate and overlap his paintings on glass plates while filming them—using the tools of war to depict a unified and harmonious inner vision: a meditative, entrancing circle of seemingly infinite undulating patterns. Forsaking the reigning rectangle of the silver screen, Lapis seems not only an ecstatic cinematic experience but a cosmic retreat. – Brittany Gravely