**********Punishment Park************

[seemslikeadream]

In honor of last nights vote


http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=1864766531291948410&q=Punishment+Park&total=210&start=0&num=100&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

http://www.mnsi.net/~pwatkins/punsihment.htm

Background: 1970. The war in Vietnam is escalating. President Nixon has decided on a secret bombing campaign of Cambodia. There is massive public protest in the United States and elsewhere. Nixon declares a state of national emergency, and - we presuppose in the film - activates the 1950 Internal Security Act (the McCarran Act), which authorizes Federal authorities, without reference to Congress, to detain persons judged to be “a risk to internal security”.

In a desert zone in southwestern California, not far from the tents where a civilian tribunal are passing sentence on Group 638, Group 637 (mostly university students) find themselves in the Bear Mountain National Punishment Park, and discover the rules of the ‘game’ they are forced to undergo as part of the alternative they have chosen in lieu of confinement in a penitentiary. Group 637 have been promised liberty if they evade pursuing law enforcement officers and reach the American flag posted 53 miles away across the mountains, within three days. Meanwhile, in the tribunal tent, Group 638 - assumed guilty before tried - endeavour in vain to argue their case for resisting the war in Vietnam. While they argue, amidst harassment by the members of the tribunal, the exhausted Group 637 - dehydrated by exposure to temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit - have voted to split into three subgroups: those for a forced escape out of the Park, those who have given up, and those who are determined to reach the flag ...

Filming: ‘Punishment Park’ was filmed in August 1970, in the San Bernadino desert, about 100 kms from Los Angeles. The cast, as usual, was a mix of mainly non-professional and young professional actors, mostly from Los Angeles and environs. The members of the tribunal were all portrayed by citizens of Los Angeles - a trade union officer, a dentist, a housewife ... Producer - Susan Martin; principal camera operator - Joan Churchill; sound recordist - Mike Moore; set director - David Hancock; editors - Peter Watkins and Terry Hodel; percussion music by Paul Motian.

Reaction: After a screening at the Cannes Film Festival, May 1971, from a review by a French critic for the American journal The Village Voice : ‘The rigorous way in which Watkins has worked this out is extraordinarily believable, and it is impossible to emerge from his 90 minutes of psychodrama unbruised. The considerable gut reactions Watkins’ films provoke may partially explain the extent to which they are despised and ignored ... But if the hopelessness of Watkins’ vision increases with each film, his technical brilliance has been sharpening to contain this rage, and the distance he has traveled since ‘Privilege’ is a phenomenon that American audiences deserve to see.’

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

1. Bookmarked for later. Thank you and recommended! eom

[DeSwiss]

2. K&R!!! n/t

[porphyrian]

3. That's an excellent fucking movie! - n/t

[G_j]

4. I've seen it

wow!

[followthemoney]

5. I have screened the movie for my group, The Open University of the Left.

http://www.openuniversityoftheleft.org/

[seemslikeadream]

6. And these two, too?

:hi:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1503803&mesg_id=1503803

[followthemoney]

8. Not yet. Thanks for the links.

[mogster]

7. It's chilling to see

This film, so 70's, in the light of the world of today. It's now much more credible and some of the characters in the tribunal fits right into todays McCarthyist right. The empty nationalist arguments, the everyday feel of it, the way they close their eyes to the systems own faults - it's all there.
Recommended!