Bloody strawberries

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Movie
German title Bloody strawberries
Original title The Strawberry Statement
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1970
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Stuart Hagmann
script James S. Kunen (novel)
Israel Horovitz
production Robert Chartoff
Irwin Winkler
music Ian Freebairn-Smith
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Neil Young
camera Ralph Woolsey
cut Marjorie Fowler , Roger J. Roth , Fredric Steinkamp
occupation

Bloody Strawberries is a 1970 feature film based on James S. Kunen's 1968 book The Strawberry Statement (German: Erdbeer-Manifest: Notizen zur Columbia-Revolte ; without ISBN). He traces the 1968 student revolt at Columbia University in New York . However, the location of the events was moved to San Francisco in the film , as Columbia University did not get a film permit.

The title alludes to a statement by Prof. Herbert Deane , then deputy dean (Associate Dean of Graduate Faculties) at Columbia University . Deane was quoted as saying by the student newspaper Columbia Daily Spectator about a year before the riots described :

"A university is definitely not a democratic institution. When decisions begin to be made democratically around here, I will not be here any longer. [...] whether students vote 'yes' or 'no' on an issue is like telling me they like strawberries. "
(A university is definitely not a democratic institution. If people start making decisions democratically here, I won't stay any longer. […] Whether students vote for or against a decree, it's like telling me they like strawberries. )

action

San Francisco, late 1960s: student Simon James is an outsider and eccentric. The blond young man from Kansas wears glasses and takes part in rowing training, where he is often in the mood for bigger jokes. He listens with amusement to the political protests of the Students for a Democratic Society on campus, at which his fellow students link the university with the CIA and fascism . The rector, on the other hand, is not interested in the political opinions of the students, which leave him as cold as the fact that they all like to eat strawberries .

Simon's attitude changes when he meets the beautiful Linda at one of these events. The student, a supporter of Marcuse and Che , has dedicated herself entirely to the duties of the university guerrillas and vehemently rejects dancing as a bourgeois pastime. Simon then, out of love, actively joins the student protests and accompanies them with his Super 8 film camera. He becomes a hero of the campus through a little fight with right-wing George in his rowing club, in which he sustains an injury to his lip. Simon wipes the blood all over his face and blames the police for his mistreatment. He is then sexually rewarded by a student.

Towards the end of the film, Simon and Linda form tender bonds. He goes from being a follower to being convinced and stands side by side with Linda in the event of an occupation of a university building that was violently ended by the police and the National Guard against the eviction.

Soundtrack

reception

Film critic Vincent Canby ( The New York Times ) called the film an expressionless, boring product and criticized the artistic approach that Hagmann had pursued, among other things, with the camera work and music selection of Bloody Strawberries , which had previously only been used in the action series Mannix (1968–1969) and Cobra, take over, directed. The main characters Simon and Linda are the direct, albeit radicalized, descendants from the US comedy Girl Crazy , in which Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland had taken over the leading roles.

The deutsche film-dienst complained that from James Simon Kunen, who speaks in the "first person" and often with harsh self-criticism, who professes to be a Jew, an "Aryan" Simon James [...], a blond and blue-eyed Kansas boy " that Bruce Davison played down in the tradition of Mickey Rooney, while Kim Darby imitated Judy Garland. The director knows how to grab the audience and the film offers more a basis for discussion than Zabriskie Point , but the truths of Bloody Strawberries are "a little too much made up with Hollywood make-up" and there is no "social commitment" .

Awards

The film received an invitation to compete at the Cannes Film Festival in 1970 , where Hagmann's feature film debut competed for the Palme d'Or and received the Jury Prize. A year later, lead actor Bruce Davison took seventh place at the Laurel Awards in the Star of Tomorrow, Male category .

literature

  • Kunen, James Simon: Strawberry Manifesto. Notes on the Columbia Revolt. March Verlag, Darmstadt 1969 ( The Strawberry Statement German, translated from the American by David Wittenberg)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ COLUMBIA '68 on the Barnard College site at Columbia University ( Memento from June 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Morningside Heights: The Causes and the Protest of 1968 ( Memento of September 11, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ cf. Film review by Vincent Canby in the New York Times, June 16, 1970
  4. ↑ cf. Film review of Bloody Strawberries in film-dienst 41/1970