MovieChat Forums > Taking Off (1971) Discussion > taking off and hair

taking off and hair

posted 16 years ago by bumbyjr
2 replies | jump to latest

Forman wanted his first american film to be "Hair" He loved the show and loved the music. If you are familiar with the stage version of "Hair" you know that the plot (what there is of one) is very "free"

So Forman was going to add the "Hair" songs to the story of Taking Off. oops "can't do that" he was told. so he filmed the script without the songs and made a wonderful film that MUST be released. I bet the hold up lies in the audition segments-problems with song rights etc.

[–] lubin-freddy 16 years ago

It would have been interesting, Forman doing "Hair" as his first film. The problem with the film version that he did later was the timing. It should have been made ten years earlier or ten years later. It had neither the immediacy of the 1960's, not the healthy perspective that would have come from more distance.

[–] Veronica65 12 years ago

Wow, he had to wait eight years to do it...you're right, 1979 was a time when the ideas and culture of the sixties were at their lowest ebb of popularity, partly because of the punk/new wave ethos and partly because, as I recall, some people still felt somewhat singed from the era (aging parents, ex-hippies hitting 30 or 35, Vietnam vets, parents of deceased Vietnam vets). I was 14 in 1979, and when I saw Forman's 'Hair' it changed my life. I was an instant convert to the era's music, ideas, and outlook that still lasts to this day. I cried my eyes out when Berger died in Vietnam and if I hear 'The Flesh Failures/Let The Sun Shine In' at the wrong moment I still start weeping (I'm a girl, so sue me! ;-D ). Looking back, I see how the film is silly and artificial in some ways and poorly timed indeed. but I'm glad it was there when it was. My eyes were opened to a lot of things and I feel we need those ideas now more than ever, before the right wing/evangelical squadrons turn this country into a theocratic police state.