Calling yourself a film aficionado often means more than reciting lines from the classics and being a bona fide De Niro or Scorsese fan.
Having a penchant for the way films look in order to establish authenticity of era, specific camera intimacy and hence, true film “cred” may require choosing a certain film stock and genre to help create your vision.
Whether it be a character yelling “Attica!” in an actual New York city street or mere plastic bag stealing a scene on a windy day, both convey meaning through the director finding real life truths within the context of a rehearsed situation.
Which is why it is particularly frustrating to sit through The Manson Movie, heralded as genuine footage without actors or recreations, and wonder why this interminable, incoherent 85-minute “documentary” deserved to see the light of day.
Hoping to find a salacious, spooky, first-time look and perhaps garner new insight into the life of the infamous cult family at their ranch, instead the audience is subjected to a grainy, badly-synced, poor quality home movie from director Robert Hendrickson. With portions of it used to make the equally dull and pointless Oscar-nominated 1973 film of the same name, this release is an eternal loop of the same Manson family members in various states of undress, eating garbage, swimming (again) and making the expected mumblings of late 60’s & 70’s anarchists, without the saving grace of it all being possibly humorous to the viewer.
Combined with a confusing stream of Vietnam War footage, various 1970’s US anti-war demonstrations, almost no coverage of Manson himself and a bizarre narration by Hendrickson as if talking to preschoolers, Tobann Pictures International present the movie as a walk through the” Gates of Hell” into a world that no one knew existed… and now it is clear exactly why we need not ever know.
