USA,
2002, 119 min
Shown in 2003
CREDITS
- dir
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David C. Thomas
- prod
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Laurel Legler
- scr
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Laurel Legler, David C. Thomas
- cam
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Anthony Allen
- editor
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David C. Thomas
- source
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Future/Now Films, Inc, 2500 N Kedzie Blvd., Chicago, IL 60647. FAX: 773-862-3203. EMAIL: fnfilms@eternact.com.
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COMMENTS
David C. Thomas, Laurel Legler in person.
OTHER
In 1967 the United States was at war with Vietnam, protesters swarmed the nation’s streets and college campuses, and an entire generation began challenging the cultural values of their parents. Amidst this turmoil, five burnout friends from the working class suburbs of Detroit created a rock ’n’ roll juggernaut at the leading edge of social upheaval. They wanted to change the world with their music. They were MC5. Director David C. Thomas traces the band’s evolution and decay through a miasma of social unrest, Vietnam, communes, spiritual gurus, FBI surveillance, firebombing and rock ’n’ roll excess. Cutting between archival footage and frank, sometimes contradictory interviews with the three surviving members, their families and business associates—including John Sinclair, a commune leader, the founder of the White Panther Party and the band’s manager—Thomas pays tribute to MC5’s enduring legacy. Yet it’s more than just a portrait of the meteoric rise and bitter fall of an influential rock band. Thomas frames the hedonism and rough-edged idealism of the counterculture through the lens of MC5, and its message of freedom, equality and revolution. The religion was liberation; sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll were the gospel, and no one preached it like MC5, with their rallying cry, “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!”
—Chris Slater
FACTOID #319
The Library of Congress supplied the Festival with the only existing print of Double Indemnity for the Fred MacMurray tribute in 1987. The problem was, the reels were not marked for the projectionist. But the show must go on! The projectionist ordered the reels using his intuition and the gamble paid off—the film was screened in perfect sequence.
