Fiction and reality intertwined
In Medium Cool, director Haskell Wexler has his actors move through real demonstrations and police violence during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. As a result, cinema and history lie dangerously close together. The result is a film that is difficult to pigeonhole: neither pure fiction nor a pure documentary, but something that feels like both at the same time.
Camera as witness and accomplice
Journalist John Cassellis captures protest, violence, and public anger through his lens. But at some point, he discovers that the television station he works for is sharing his footage with the FBI to track down suspects. The film thus poses a sharp question: what is the responsibility of someone who films? As a cameraman, are you a neutral observer, or do you automatically become part of the story?
A classic about media and power
Medium Cool is a historical document about political unrest in America in the late 1960s, but it also touches upon themes that are still relevant today: the role of media, the ethics of image formation, and the question of who determines what happens to images. On view at Lab111 in Amsterdam.
