Hair
Directed by Milos Forman
Written by Michael Weller based on the book for the Broadway musical by Gerome Ragni and James Rado
1979/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
Chorus: [singing] Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair, shining gleaming steaming flaxen waxen. Give me it down to there, hair, shoulder length or longer, here, baby, there, mamma, everywhere, daddy daddy hair! Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it, my hair!
I am perhaps too well acquainted with Hair the “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” having seen it in the theater several times. One of my big thrills was getting to watch from backstage when my friend appeared in the play on Broadway. I know the songs by heart. So when the movie came out 10 years later, I didn’t like it much. A big part of this is that the story is changed. But now 25 years later I think that this film is excellent for what it is.
Berger (Treat Williams) is the leader of a group of free-loving free-thinking hippies in New York City. One day, the tribe meets Claude Hooper Bukowski (John Savage) in the park. Claude is a draftee who has arrived to see the sights in New York for a couple of days before leaving for Viet Nam. This sparks a superb rendition of “Aquarius”.
Claude falls for woman he sees horseback riding in the park with her ritzy friends. Berger decides to crash her family’s formal dinner party and sing “Ain’t Got No” while sliding down the table.
Berger’s second mission is to prevent Claude from going to Viet Nam. He does this is a very unexpected way.
I can’t deny that Forman staged this beautifully and the songs are timeless. One that particularly moved me was “Easy to Be Hard” as sung by Cheryl Barnes.
