Virtually Unwatchable

This film is nearly unwatchable due to excessive rapid jump cuts from shot to shot which can and will easily induce a migraine. The director also chose to run the film at a much quicker speed than usual so it's similar to watching a movie on fast forward. This goes on for much of the entire picture so to avoid a full blown head injury, I had to watch in hour long increments. I went to considerable trouble to even find all six reels of this movie so turning it off without seeing it through wasn't an option. In addition, this film is #924 of the 2000 greatest pictures of all time as selected by an amalgamation of directors and actors from around the world so I really wanted to give it a shot. Really it wouldn't be so bad if it were run at normal speed and I even tried to slow it down on my computer but it messed up the sound. There is very little spoken dialogue but there are many title cards explaining the action. It's not silent in that there is music and sounds of the city (trains, etc). What is pretty cool about the picture is it offers a snapshot of 1960s America (anti war protest, hippies chanting and dancing, Alan Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, and even John Lennon and Yoko Ono). There's lots of little cameos of Andy Warhol and his Factory starlets so that was totally cool. But there's very little coherence to it because it's basically 4 years in the directors life told in a diary type format. It runs so fast because it's him looking back in his mind as you would any other memory. Things tend to move quickly when you are thinking back I guess. Unfortunately it makes for a very uncomfortable viewing experience.