The Strawberry Statement

source: The Strawberry Statement

I saw this film when it first came out. I was all raw nerve endings and felt totally disenfranchised at the time. The gym scene will remain with me until I die. The movie said exactly what I felt back then. After the movie I got into my 1965 Mustang and drove around for hours trying to understand how this type of activity could go on in a 'free' nation (keep in mind I was young and impressionable). I wonder if I would find it somewhat laughable now or would seeing it again rekindle that flickering flame of unrest? I have found a place to order it on DVD and will do so as soon as possible. Note: Unbelievably, I started a 20 year career in Law Enforcement within 7 years of seeing this movie. Life is odd.

Naive university student becomes involved with anti-establishment counter-culture in the late 1960's. Episodic, uneven film barely holds together but provides honest performances and impressively detailed look at its subject matter. Similar to "Medium Cool" (1969). Viewers may also enjoy "The Revolutionary" (1970). (Rating: A-minus)

The film is a bit underrated with good young cast and wonderful soundtrack. Kim Darby (what ever happened to her?), Bruce Davison (after Last Summer), Bud Cort (right after M.A.S.H. and before Brewster McCloud; just before), and Bob Balaban (between Midnight Cowbody and Catch-22) are all perfectly cast, but I'm surprised the script by Israel Horovitz seemed shallow at times. This came out the same year as Getting Straight with Elliott Gould, but didn't seem to do any business. The ending is quite powerfully effective, but too many dead spots to get there. Certainly worth checking out for student protest films at the time.

A somewhat naive university student becomes involved with anti-establishment counter-culture in the late 1960's. Episodic, uneven film barely holds together but provides honest performances and impressively detailed look at its subject matter. (Rating: A-minus)

When me and my friends saw this movie first in the seventies, it became one of our favorite movies. It seemed to me like a glorification of youth and freedom, which I had never encountered before. This and the great music (John Lennon, Neil Young and others) helped this movie to get cult status in former East Germany.

You had to be there or at least you have to be intrigued by the on-going concept of polarization (which is what "The Strawberry Statement", both the James Kunen source book and the movie, is really about). Others may want to give the film a wide berth which should be easy enough to do as ownership complications with the music rights continue to keep this interesting counter-culture film from a DVD release. The title comes from a statement made by a Columbia University administrator in response to student demands for more say in the decisions being made by the school's administration. He said something to the effect that the opinions of the students on these issues meant no more to him than whether they liked the taste of strawberries. Needless to say this simply played into the hands of the most radical of the students and became a rallying cry for the protests that would rock the university. The film transports the events from NYC to a fictional university in San Francisco, at least in part because "The City By the Bay" was quick to offer its location to film makers; even though the area was busy with its own considerable student protest events (The Free Speech Movement, The Oakland 7, and People's' Park come to mind). Taking its character motivational elements and cinematography style from Haskell Wexler's "Medium Cool" (1969); it is all about a "Man With A Movie Camera" (1929) observer gradually being pulled through his lens into the action itself. A little broken camera symbolism. In both there is a surprisingly authentic feeling romance, which serves as both a tension release and as a source of character motivation. The action he has been observing is essentially a "Hellbound Train Effect" as the young students aggressively test the system and the authorities stubbornly refuse to defuse the situation. The film includes a great period soundtrack which I owned before I had even seen the movie. The songs nicely complement what you are seeing on the screen. Neil Young's "The Loner" gets an especially good montage effect. Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game" (sung by Buffy Sainte-Marie) bookends the film and the morphing of the hero (played by Bruce Davison) from distanced jock (crew team) to involved student. There is a curious foreshadowing of Davison's signature role in "Willard", a film he made just a year after "The Strawberry Statement". Instead of conversations with a house of rats he talks to the cockroaches in his kitchen. There is probably a profound symbolic commentary there but just exactly what it is escapes me. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

I guess I agree that this wasn't a "great movie," but it was better than other reviewers have claimed. Honestly, most movies from this period don't stand up all that well. It was an experimental time and experiments usually go bad. That's the nature of attempting to be creative. Most Hollywood crap barely tries for competent and rarely considers creative. For no other reason, the context of Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air" (on of the all time greatest rock songs) is worth experiencing this movie. A pretty damn good version of "Give Peace a Chance" can be found here, too.

I caught this film about 1am in the morning whilst sitting up just surfing the channels...I was bored. I came into it about ten minutes in and thought straight from the off that the picture and sound quality was atrocious...so I thought I'd watch it or a laugh. I was actually very surprised how good it was. Once you look past the low level of production, the story is gripping and the scene at the end was one of best scenes I have ever watched in a film. If you ever get a chance to watch this, give it a chance..you wont be disappinted

The money men at MGM let the kids act out in this shrill protest film against the establishment (themselves)in this sloppy and incoherent tract made fresh on the heels of the Kent State Massacre. It is one bad temper tantrum. It is the dawning of the Age of Aquarious (Tune in, turn on, drop out.) and the kids have had it with the hypocrisy of their square and out of touch elders who lack their social conscious and righteous dude ethos. Simon (Bruce Davison) a jock on a crew team is at first bemused by the social action of a student group that takes over the dean's office but soon sees the light and is radicalized and ready to stand against the big bad oppressive monolith known as the system. Along the way he hooks up with an innocent and out of touch co-ed (Kim Darby's fashion statement says it all) who soon finds herself dragged into the maelstrom. Things ratchet up and we soon have the fascist pigs gassing and pummeling the beautiful people while an indifferent public at large looks on and in one case wonders if her laundry is done. Made during a period (Easy Rider) when moguls thought youth was on to something and bank rolled their ideas The Strawberry Statement's let it all hang out style of patchy editing and bad acid camera-work is one visual downer as it clumsily jostles you along with leap cuts from one tantrum to the next. Prolific scribbler Israel Horovitz's scenario is filled with all the requisite cliché blather that puts the students into realpolitik mode but he seems at a loss to flesh out his characters beyond their smug sarcasm and hip attitude. There's an excellent soundtrack of Neil Young tunes along with CS&N and a warbly rendition of Circle Game by Buffy Saint Marie that supplies some energy to this torpid and hackneyed lecture that the US has lost its moral compass but unfortunately the overheated passions get lost in the fog of tear gas and self righteous tedium all haphazardly put together by a director (Stuart Haggman) and cinematographer (John Woolsey) who look like they cut one too many film studies classes.