with Abbie Hoffman
Allen Ginsberg
Jerry Rubin
Timothy Leary
William Kunstler
Black Panthers:
Don Cox
Fred Hampton
Deborah Johnson and
Fred Hampton Jr.
White Panther:
John Sinclair
PRIZES
Special Prize of the Lord Mayor, City of Mannheim, Best Documentary Feature
MANNHEIM FILM FESTIVAL
Silver Hugo
CHICAGO FILM FESTIVAL
Critics' Choice Award: Best Documentary,
INDIANA FILM SOCIETY FESTIVAL OF NEW CANADIAN CINEMA
REVIEWS & COMMENTS
"delightfully irreverent"
GEORGIA STRAIGHT
"compelling, unsettling, thought- provoking"
SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN
''Growing up in America is a valuable footnote to history. It can be faulted only for not being longer...”
VINCENT CANBY, NEW YORK TIMES
"intriguing and entertaining"
NEW YORK POST
"remarkable"
VANCOUVER SUN
"evocative, penetrating and entertaining - an invaluable document"
METROPOLIS
"celebration of their idealism - the epoch's wildly invigorating energy"
GLOBE & MAIL
“....an honest movie....” “....Morley Markson was so quiet, why didn't he tell me he was making such a big movie?" ABBIE HOFFMAN SPEAKING AT THE WORLD PREMIERE, TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL
Nominated for Best Documentary Feature
GEMINI AWARDS
THEN: "Now, we think if you ask us how the Government is going to be brought down, or lost in the shuffle, as we tend to put it, our mottos is "Ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for you!"
NOW: "I've been doing this for 27 years. I could do another 27 years. I don't have to change. I got away with it before and I can just keep doing it, so .... I mean I don't have to change!"
ABBIE HOFFMAN
ALLEN GINSBERG
FRED HAMPTON
NOW: "I must apologize for being mistaken in those days. I had the wrong mantra all along. I wish I had trusted my instincts more freely, as I do now, which are instincts of generosity rather than paranoia."
FRED HAMPTON THEN: "...We need some guns. Black People need some peace. White people need some peace. We're going to have to fight, we're going to have to struggle, we're going to have to bring about peace because the people that we're asking for peace, they're a bunch of megalomaniac warmongers."
DEBORAH JOHNSON NOW: "He was killed so young!" (recalling Fred Hampton's killing when she was pregnant with his son, Fred Hampton Jr.) "...1 heard somebody call from the area in front of the kitchen: 'He's barely alive, he'll barely make it'... The shooting started again and I heard a male voice again saying, 'He's good and dead now!'"
JERRY RUBIN
THEN: (quoting his White Panther Party Ten Point Program) "Total assault on the culture by any means necessary including rock and roll, dope, and fu--ing in the streets. We believe that the general social structure of the Western World is crumbling, and that now is the time to increase the assault on this culture."
NOW: "When you see this guy all you want to do is arrest him, you know what I mean? If somebody walked up to me today and started talking like this I'd probably be frightened, you know: 'Get this guy outta here!'"
THEN: "Growing up in America means you gotta support the war in VietNam and you have to be a responsible citizen. We don't want to be responsible citizens, we're irrational, we're irrational and crazy. And that's what this whole trial is about. America destroys our dreams. And we're fighting to recover our dreams!"
NOW: "Actually in a way I believe the opposite now. I think it's a fantastic opportunity to Grow up in America because this is a country that does allow you to dream, you know, in a way, because of the 60's!"
THEN: "The conflict now is not between left and right, or the rich and the poor, or even the blacks and the whites, it's the conflict between the up-tight and the turned-on."
NOW: "In the 20th Century if you can't change what's on the screen, your mind and your life is being controlled by the people who do control the screen. That's ABC, KGB, NBC, CIA."
JOHN SINCLAIR
TIMOTHY LEARY
Produced & Directed by
Morley Markson
Executive Producer: Don Haig
Co-Producer: Joan Schafer
Based on a theme suggested by:
Don Haig and George Miller
Consulting Assoc. Producer: John Board
Cinematography: Andreas Poulsson, Leonidas Zourdomis, David O’Keefe, Yves Billon, Joseph Freedman, Morley Markson (from Breathing Together)
Assistant Camera: Leonard Farlinger
Location Equipment: P.S. Production Services, Doug Dales
Sound: Aerlyn Weissman, Reynald Trudel, Mike Lecroix, John McCormick, Agnes Guerin.
Production Manager: Joan Schafer
Location Manager: Leonard Farlinger
Production Assistant: Joanna Markson
Original Musical Score: Marty Simon
Picture Editor, Director, Morley Markson
Assistant Editor: Louise Lebeau
Consulting Editors: Tom Berner, Don Haig
Sound Editor: Karl H. Konnry
Assistant Sound Editor: Louise Lebeau
Foley: Reid James Atherton
Re-recording Sound Editors: Mike Hoogenboom, Tony Van Den Akker
Still Photographer: Leonard Farlinger
Includes sections of the film: Breathing Together, Revolution of the Electric Family, a film by Morley Markson.
A Cinephile Release: Andre Bennett
Post Production:
Film House Group, Film Arts
Title Design: Eli Barr Associates
Titles by Metamedia
Research: Claire Weissman, Zoe Thurling, Shari Segal, Paula Draper, Cyril Levitt
Theme Consultants: Ron Levaco,
Joan Schafer.
N.Y. Laison: Alan Meislin
California Liasons: Ken Beckmann
Transportation New York:
The Vanmen.
Northampton Massachusetts Video: Don Abrams
Insurance Services: Arthur Winkler
Production Accountant: Rowie Walker.
Travel Arrangements: Perly Travel,
Tic-Toc Tours
Neg Cutter: May Bischof
Neg Timer: Ricardo Olivero
Gratefully acknowledging the assistance of City TV,
Michael Macina,
Ellen O’Leary,
Houghton-Mifflin Publishing Company,
The Palladium, N.Y.
Produced with the participation of: Telefilm Canada,
Ontario Film Development Corporation,
Don Haig, Film Arts,
Doug Dales P.S. Production Services.
Counter-culture heroes of the Sixties were originally filmed in the documentary classic of those times, “Breathing Together: Revolution of the Electric Family.”
18 years later our heroes were filmed in their new haunts and their present lives. The new film was married with old, creating a cultural time-sandwich.
The Mannheim Film Festival Jury, in awarding it the Lord Mayor’s Prize for best Documentary Feature, described it as: “...a convincing document of the beginnings of the wide International Liberation Movement of the Sixties. In the lively montage of this very personally filmed material, coupled with statements from the present, it shows that the power and the hope of this awakening continues to this day.”
© Morley Markson
Al Photos above