Audio transcription

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

Haden Guest  0:00  

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Here to introduce two rarely screened films by David Neuman and Ed Pincus are the directors themselves.

[APPLAUSE]

Ed Pincus  0:15  

So Haden had asked about the reception of Black Natchez. Now that this film is coming up, I remember a lot of TV people were totally wowed by it, and they thought it's exactly what documentary should be doing. So, we got several offers to do stuff. And basically, we were told we could do any film we wanted. And we had two films. One was documenting somebody moving from Appalachia to Gary, Indiana, where there was manufacturing work, and the other was doing a film about the Summer of Love and Haight Ashbury. They started pressing for us to do the worker moving film. And, because we were at a rebellious age, we sort of wanted to do the other one. So, I had been in Haight Ashbury in 1966, and quite truly, I had no idea what was going on. It was a total mystery to me. And I thought, “Well, let's do a film there and see what happens.” You want to say anything?

David Neuman  1:37  

No, I just want– You remember the word agape? Remember, we had some very theoretical ideas about what the whole hippie thing in the Haight Ashbury was, and wasn't just us, too. I mean, when we went off to do that film that the press was just full of stuff about Haight Ashbury. It was like the au courant activity of the time. And parenthetically, I'll just say that we got our cameras stolen like the first day we were out there, [LAUGHTER] because there were these people who stole professional cameras, because there was so many crews in the Haight Ashbury that they had all gathered there to steal cameras, and sure enough, ours got stolen the first day. It was a big event, but we didn't think that the press was covering it right. We were going to show the inside truth of it. I guess we'll leave it up to you guys to figure out whether we did or not.

[APPLAUSE]

-------

Ed Pincus  2:59  

I don't know what to say about the last piece.

David Neuman

I don't either.

Haden Guest  3:06  

Well, you were talking in our last session with Black Natchez about how you had certain ideas about direct cinema that were challenged as he went down there. And this idea of—you were speaking about David—about imposing or defining a narrative and it seems to me that this film really does make quite openly, you know, there is this sort of narrative imposed, shall we say, upon it. You’ve used the titles,  the selection of characters. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit then about your working method with this, how your approach to this subject was different from the experience you've had making Black Natchez?

Ed Pincus  3:51  

Well, there were two things. One, we thought before we started that hippies were more interesting than they were.

[LAUGHTER]

Haden Guest

Harry wasn’t interesting?

Ed Pincus

So we said, “Instead of being a revolt against bourgeois life, it was a grotesque version of bourgeois life,” and there were the same sort of sexist relationships and you sort of see the nascent capitalism, the drug dealing and stuff like that. So we basically weren't sure we had a film. We also decided that if there was a film, we had to do it in an anecdotal way. And this fit in with our feeling funny about the invisible editing in Black Natchez with the supposed continuity but the grammar of one camera doesn't allow for that kind of continuity. So we felt fine about making our editing choices obvious and ending sequences on a punch line, using titles and giving a general episodic tone to the narrative we had or didn't have. That sound fair enough?

David Neuman  5:28  

No, I agree. I agree. I mean, this is what we were talking about earlier about, when we had a little bit of disagreement about what happens if you don't get what's-his-name shot or I mean, blown up in the car. There is a certain narrative that shows up when her father shows up. There's a story there, and we played that, I thought, pretty well. And I think in a certain way, this is more of what we went out to do originally, in the sense that you have these long sequences that don't have much plot to them, or , I mean, it's a little bit over... I think! But it's more pure in a way than Black Natchez, in terms of the film, of what we ended up with. And that's why we made these very abrupt– We used titles, there are cuts in there, like the one where you cut away from Josh going around Harry, and then you cut back to it. I mean, those are real, sort of, provinces that…

Ed Pincus

And music too.

David Neuman

And music…

Haden Guest

Cutting to music.

David Neuman

And to me, the one that Ed said, “You're going to cringe now,” because I always did—the acid scene where we use sort of double imagery, you know, superimposed one image over the other, which is really artifice, but, it was our idea of an acid trip. Or I don't know. So, I mean, that really, I think, stands out as– And at the time we did it, we knew it. There was a lot of discussion about it.

Ed Pincus  7:19  

I mean, I don't think we're trying to simulate an acid trip as much as to suggest that there was a kind of interiority that film wasn't going to attach in an observational–

David Neuman  7:34  

Right, we just wanted the audience to know that these people were having an acid trip, and we thought this is the way to communicate that fact. But, when the Manson thing happened, which was a number of years after this, I had a lot of thoughts in my head about, you know, had Charlie—I'm sorry—had Harry not been so laid back and benign, just how far could he have gotten? You know, if he was a Charles Manson type, how far could he have gotten those people? You wonder. You know the remorse they had when their leader is going to New York and you sort of say, “My god,” but it does, I suppose, present certain questions like that. Thank god they didn't ever get that far out. But it was the same structure.

Ed Pincus

I don't agree with that at all.

David Neuman

Okay, go ahead.

Ed Pincus

No, I mean, I, you know… Harry didn’t purport to be a religious leader.

David Neuman

No, no, I'm saying… Well, yes, he did in a way, but I mean, he wasn't going to send Ricky out to murder a bunch of people. That’s the basic difference.

[LAUGHTER]

But had he– I mean, that's a big difference. But had he decided to do that, would they have gone? That's the question. And would those other people have gone if Charlie Manson told him to do it? You can't believe they would, but they did. So I don't know. But in that sense, I think it has some relevance to the psychology of those kind of groups or something.

I showed this film once in LA, and people just got up and walked out at the end. Nobody wanted to say anything to me. I mean, they were all people that loved hippies, and they all sort of considered themselves hippies. This was much earlier or much closer to the hippie thing. And they took it as just a total slap in the face of hippiedom, which I guess it was.

Haden Guest  9:55  

I mean, you start out in the woods and we think that this is where the film is gonna take place. So I wonder if you could describe just how the film then went back to… I mean was that because the group left the–

Ed Pincus  10:11  

Well, we thought and they thought they were living in the country. But actually the country was the weekend retreat, and they were really living in San Francisco. So that's why most of the film takes place–

Haden Guest

Just that little moment in the beginning…

Ed Pincus

And you know, Lessing called. I thought this was heaven if you call heaven, infinite boredom. So the idol was boredom here. And the other thing, it was very difficult to film there because it was a redwood forest. Oh, I should say, when we did this film, as far as I know, nobody had done a film like this in color and weren't sure that color stocks could do this. And so this was a real leap, the color. And anyway, in the redwood forest, there was like a twelve-stop difference, which no film could deal with between shadow and sunlight. So it's very difficult filming in the woods. So if you were standing in the sun, and he was standing in the shade, either he would disappear, or you would be like just an aura.

Haden Guest

So it limited what you could do in the woods.

David Neuman  11:31  

Also, again, we had a lot of footage that was shot in Gualala. But you know, it wasn't going anywhere in it. There was nothing– I don't know, didn't we? I remember we shot a lot. We were up there a lot. And it was just a comedy of errors. I remember—this isn't in the film—but the land on which they did this was owned by a retired postal worker, who had been a manager in a post office. His son had taken a bunch of acid trips all at once. He was this literal zombie that just wandered around like this. And so this guy had let them come on his land to do this. It's some kind of, I don't know–

Ed Pincus

He thought it would help his son come back to.

David Neuman

Or something like that. But the guy was coming down, he was always telling them, like, I remember he came down and said, “Well, this is fine, where you've got your camp, but in a month, it's going to be four feet underwater, because when the rains come, it floods this whole area.” And I mean, they were just incompetent, as most of us would be at trying to live like a bunch of Indians or something.

Haden Guest  12:45  

And so you were living with them in the woods.

Ed Pincus  12:48  

Yes, we actually had gotten a ten- or twelve-man Army tent. And everybody slept outside because they were sure it wasn't going to rain. And I didn't believe there was the possibility of being in a place where you could be sure it wasn't going to rain. And so I was the only one the first night who slept in the tent, and I remember waking up and was totally black, I couldn't find my way out. I had to dig a hole under the tent and just stick my head out and look at the stars. But the shooting in the woods was very tough. And we were not prepared for it. And it wasn't that interesting.

David Neuman 13:25  

And it wasn't that interesting. And like you said to start with, those people were spending most of their time—because of situations that came up—they were seeming to always have reasons to go down to the Haight. So they did and we followed them.

Haden Guest  13:41  

The two fathers are really fascinating. They offer us entry into this world. I love the question, “What does ‘psychedelic’ mean?” And it's a wonderful device. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about how that emerged in the shooting, and also just how these different stories and characters emerge. Like how you fostered these relationships.

Ed Pincus  14:02  

In all these films, it's serendipity. If you wait around long enough, serendipity always happens.

David Neuman  14:10  

And certainly when– Nevada City is where they got arrested, right? And when the father showed up from New York, that was some really intense shooting. I mean, we shot a lot of footage of that guy because it was good stuff. And then Harry– Harry was named after Harry Briggs because Harry's father, as you saw in there, was an old wobbly, right? Or I don't know if he's a wobbly, but I do know that Harry was named after Harry Briggs.

Ed Pincus

Bridges.

David Neuman

Bridges, I mean, yeah. And he was kind of an interesting character–

Ed Pincus

I'd forgotten that.

David Neuman

That film just stands on its own in a way that—and I'm not so sure how well it stands, but I mean–

Haden Guest

You’re talking about One Step Away?

David Neuman

Yeah, One Step Away. I don't think we were ever satisfied with One Step Away in terms of what we ended up with.

Haden Guest  15:16  

I mean, because it was so critical, or…?

David Neuman  15:18  

Well, I may be putting words in your mouth, but like, I never thought that the titles that we use– We had to do it. I mean, we couldn't come up with any other way, but I was never too thrilled by those titles. Or using titles period.

Ed Pincus

I liked it.

[LAUGHTER]

David Neuman

You did?

[LAUGHTER]

Haden Guest  15:43  

I really do think it works very well. I would like to talk just a moment about Harry's Trip. So was this just a one-take deal?

Ed Pincus  15:54  

Yeah. Harry was taking an acid trip. So we got the idea of putting him alone in the room with the camera, and—a mag is eleven minutes long—and just letting one mag run out. And it really was an experiment. And I said to David, “Whoever cringes most, the other one has to talk about it.”

[HADEN LAUGHS]

David Neuman  16:25  

He's talking about it. But well, it was a little different because we started out in the room with Harry. And then Harry was the one who said “I can't do this with…” and then we left.

Ed Pincus

Oh, I didn't remember that.

David Neuman

Yeah, and you know where the leader comes up? I think we loaded another mag, gave him a full mag and left the room. But we started out just filming him on this acid trip. You know, serendipity. He could have been profound and brilliant. It’s verité! Don't blame it on us.

[LAUGHTER]

Ed Pincus  17:02  

I was thinking if he was really interesting, in some ways, it would have been less interesting.

David Neuman  17:06  

Perhaps. After about the first ten minutes, it couldn't be much less interesting.

[LAUGHTER]

I don't know.

Ed Pincus  17:19  

But like if he’s intensely interesting, in some sense, you're responsible for what he's saying. And here...

Haden Guest  17:26  

You can let it all go. I mean, I was fascinated to see you just after we saw the two other films and how this is a similar sort of coda. And you know, the idea of performance, the first-person look, and the way you’re sort of extracting this character who‘s suddenly–

David Neuman

Panola was better at it.

Haden Guest

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But nevertheless, it's like the– So how was this film...? Did you show them together as companion pieces like this?

David Neuman 17:55  

I've never seen it– Well, I saw it as rushes, you know, because it's totally uncut.

Ed Pincus

I don't know.

David Neuman 

I never saw it with titles.

Haden Guest 18:03  

Because the history of this, this film was not shown.

Ed Pincus

It was not shown. As far as I know, it's never been shown.

David Neuman 18:06  

It was Ed's idea.

[LAUGHTER]

Haden Guest

I should have announced this as a premiere then! [LAUGHS]

Ed Pincus

It might be. It might well be. I can't remember it ever having been shown. I didn't even know it existed, actually.

Haden Guest

And Harry knew it existed?

Ed Pincus

No, well...

David Neuman

Whose fault was it?

Ed Pincus

There was a can that said Harry's Trip. And I knew we edited it, but I never knew– This is a single-system print, right?

Haden Guest

Yeah.

David Neuman

It's a terrible print.

Haden Guest  18:36  

Well, this is the only print. But you have that title in the film itself though, Harry’s Trip.

Ed Pincus

Right. And we just stole the title.

David Neuman

Oh, I forgot that.

Ed Pincus 18:44  

Yeah, they both say “film from life.” And it's the same title. I should say that the original material for One Step Away got lost, and it was a very painful process of reclaiming it. And Kodak stocks at that time all faded to a magenta pink. And it was only through digitizing that we could get the color back. And if it was left to film, they would have been basically totally unwatchable.

Haden Guest

You did a wonderful job at this.

Ed Pincus

So this is the first time I've actually seen it since it was digitized. I did notice some mistakes they made in remastering but that's okay.

David Neuman  19:42  

Talking about One Step Away?

Ed Pincus

Well, both Black Natches and One Step Away.

David Neuman

Yeah. I thought that some of the scenes in One Step Away were a little grainier than I had remembered. I don't know if that was a process in the digitizing.

Ed Pincus  19:57  

There were some things that were exacerbated by digitizing, but I thought in general, it looked better than some prints, especially the pink prints.

Haden Guest  20:12  

Let's open the floor to questions if there are any. Oh, Ruth has a question and the gentleman in the back. Steven, could you pass the mic here? So everybody can hear.

Audience 1

I'm sure you get asked this every time: what happened to Josh?

Ed Pincus  20:32  

I saw Josh—and I can't remember why—in his thirties. And he seemed like a normal person. And he loved the film. And I can't tell you anything more, because I just don't remember anything more.

Haden Guest  20:59  

There’s a question in the back. If you could speak into the microphone, which is right next to you? Thank you.

Audience 2

You guys had no way of knowing, you didn't know what a bunch of losers these people were?

David Neuman  21:21  

I didn't hear ...

Ed Pincus

The question was, because we didn't know hippies, we didn't realize what a bunch of losers these people were.

[INAUDIBLE COMMENT]

Right. I understood the subtext. There were more interesting hippies in the city, but the ideal that they all had was to move to the country, and that seemed to be the sort of logical conclusion of what Charlie calls the “hippie philosophy.” So the proper place to live was the country. And this was taken to be one of the better communes so that was underlying our choice. We were thinking of doing stuff about a rock group. But Penny had done Monterey Pop and music seemed like an easy way of dealing with—he hadn’t released it yet—but it seemed like an easy way of dealing with direct cinema and counterculture. And we were interested in this sort of everydayness.

So let me just tell you one anecdote. David was very interested in filming Woodstock.

David Neuman

This was later.

Ed Pincus

And I said it would never make money. And so the rights were still available for Woodstock, you know, like, even three months before the event. And David raised half the money, but I was totally against it. Then when it did make a lot of money, David said, “Uh huh.” He was right. And I said, “No, we would have filmed the pig farmer having an argument in the foreground, and you would have seen Jimi Hendrix in the background as this little figure.”

David Neuman

I think you're right.

Ed Pincus

So, that's meant to be an answer to your….

Haden Guest  23:59  

Any other comments or questions? This gentleman again. Well, if you could wait for the microphone; otherwise, we can’t hear you.

Audience 2  24:09  

I was not speaking about the elite. I was just speaking about the rank and file. They weren't all like that. All the people in Haight were not like people in the movie. But I don't think you guys are to blame because you did a film about these people. You didn't set this up as the story. You get that impression, and that can be a problem as the gentleman back there said. That's not your fault. I don't think that's what you set out to do.

Ed Pincus  24:41  

George Stoney, who's a documentary filmmaker, when he saw Black Natchez said, “Wouldn't it be interesting to have seen a film like this about the French Revolution, some small town in France?” What we did in both the hippie film and Black Natchez was to sort of take a very small segment of a very large movement, and there's no doubt that there are distortions involved in that. Hopefully, there are also insights involved in that. The film doesn't deal with the incredible music that came out of that movie, and how it really did change culture. There’s lots of things it didn't deal with, because it looked at a very small group of people in a very short period of time. So, if it doesn't capture the whole movement, it never was meant to. If it's distortion, you know, I'm sure it is, and it's probably a mistake to call it “the hippy film” as opposed to One Step Away.

Haden Guest

Which is the original title.

Ed Pincus

The working title was “The Hippie Film.”

Haden Guest  26:13  

Any other comments or questions? Otherwise... Do you have your hand up? Alright. Actually, if you could speak to the microphone?

Audience 3

Were you already a father when you made this film?

Ed Pincus  26:33  

You mean me? Well, yeah, I had a one-and-a-half-year-old.

By the way, I should say that I thought it was going to be much more interesting. I thought it was an experiment in seeing whether you could bring about cultural changes to change an economic system, as opposed to the usual way of looking at it with, you know, the usual left wing way of thinking about it is you have to change the economics before you change the culture. And so, to me, this was an interesting social experiment, and I was disappointed.

Audience 4  27:21  

The “film from life'' title card, was there a specific thought behind that?

Ed Pincus

Yes. We were being more modest.

Haden Guest

Sorry, I didn't get the question.

Ed Pincus

The question is the title card that says “a film from life.”

So, you know, it expressed our disappointments in how far you could go with observational or direct cinema.

Audience 4  27:51  

I've heard you say before, I think I've heard you say, “Getting it right, is purely an aesthetic thing.” Is that sort of what that means, “a film from life,” or…?

Ed Pincus  28:09  

That's such an easy question, I'll let David answer it.

[LAUGHTER]

David Neuman

He addressed that to you, I'm sure, because he heard you say it before. I've never said it.

Ed Pincus

I mean, this is a good question. I can’t answer it at this time of night.

Haden Guest  28:30  

Ernst? And I think this will probably be the last question.

Audience 5

I'm sorry, this is a kind of a boring question, but I'm curious: What happened to Harry? Do you know what happened to him?

Ed Pincus  28:40  

He did move to New York, and he did artwork, and that's how he supported himself. Then we lost touch with him, and then I made an attempt to get in touch with him about five years ago. Jane, do you remember anything about that? 

[INAUDIBLE JANE COMMENT]

Yeah, you know, I'm sort of an old guy now and my memory’s not so good.

Haden Guest  29:11  

Please join me in thanking David Neuman and Ed Pincus, and we’ll be back tomorrow night for Diaries!

©Harvard Film Archive

It was the Summer of Love, 1967. The Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco was to be the center of a vast cultural experiment. Ideologically it was an attempt at a post-industrial society, where people no longer needed to work and communities of choice allowed people to "do their own thing.” David Neuman and I set off to film what happened that summer. We decided to do what we thought would be a film about a rural commune, because that seemed to be the apotheosis of hippie ideals. What we found was a bizarre replication of bourgeois society — the sun rose on the nothing new. We decided to use an anecdotal editing style with an attempt to enforce a narrative line. – EP

Harry, the leader of a commune, was in the middle of an acid trip when we put him in a room all by himself in front of the camera. – EP