Hair (film)
Hair is a 1979 American musical anti-war comedy-drama film based on the 1968 Broadway musical "Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical". Set against the backdrop of the hippie counterculture of the Vietnam era, the film focuses on a Vietnam War draftee who meets and befriends a "tribe" of hippies while en route to the army induction center. The hippies and their leader introduce him to marijuana, LSD and their environment of unorthodox relationships and draft evasion. The film was directed by Miloš Forman (who was nominated for a César Award for his work on the  film) and adapted for the screen by Michael Weller (who would collaborate with Forman on a second picture, "Ragtime", two years later). Cast members include John Savage, Treat Williams, Beverly D'Angelo, Annie Golden, Dorsey Wright, Don Dacus, Cheryl Barnes and Ronnie Dyson. Dance scenes were choreographed by Twyla Tharp, and were performed by the Tharp's dancers. The film was nominated for two Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture (for Williams). Plot. Naive Oklahoman Claude Hooper Bukowski is sent off to New York City after being drafted into  the Army ("Age Of Aquarius"). Before his draft board-appointment, Claude begins exploring New York, where he encounters a close-knit "tribe" of hippies led by George Berger. He observes the hippies panhandle from a trio of horseback riders including Short Hills, New Jersey debutante Sheila Franklin ("Sodomy") and later catches and mounts a runaway horse, which the hippies have rented, exhibiting his riding skills to Sheila ("Donna") before then returning the horse to Berger, who offers to show him around. That evening, Claude gets stoned on marijuana with Berger and the tribe. He is then introduced to various race  and class issues of the 1960s ("Hashish", "Colored Spade", "Manchester", "I'm Black/Ain't Got No"). The next morning, Berger finds a newspaper clipping which gives Sheila's address in Short Hills, New Jersey. The tribe members—LaFayette "Hud" Johnson, Jeannie Ryan (who is pregnant), and "Woof Dacshund"—crash a private dinner party to introduce Claude to Sheila, who secretly enjoys her rigid environment being disrupted ("I Got Life"). After Berger and company are arrested, Claude uses his last $50 to bail him out of jail—where Woof resists having his hair cut ("Hair"). When Sheila is unable to borrow  any money from her father, Berger returns to his parents' home. His mother gives him enough cash to bail out his friends. They subsequently attend a peace rally in Central Park, where Claude drops acid for the first time ("Initials", "Electric Blues/Old Fashioned Melody", "Be In"). Just as Jeannie proposes marriage to Claude, in order to keep him out of the Army, Sheila shows up to apologize. Claude's "trip" reflects his inner conflict over which of three worlds he fits in with: his own native Oklahoman farm culture, Sheila's upper-class society, or the hippies' free-wheeling  environment. After his acid trip, Claude falls out with Berger and the tribe members, ostensibly due to a practical joke they pull on Sheila (taking her clothes while she's skinny-dipping, which forces her to hail a taxi in just her panties), but also due to their philosophical differences over the war in Vietnam—and over personal versus communal responsibility. After wandering the city ("Where Do I Go?"), Claude finally reports to the draft board (“Black Boys/White Boys”), completes his enlistment, and is shipped off to Nevada for basic training. It's now Winter in New York when  Claude writes to Sheila from Nevada ("Walking In Space"), who subsequently shares the news with the others. Berger devises a scheme to visit Claude in Nevada. Meanwhile, Hud's fiancée—with whom he has a son, LaFayette Jr.—wants to marry as they had apparently planned to earlier ("Easy To Be Hard"). The tribe members trick Sheila's brother Steve out of his car, then head west to visit Claude. Arriving at the Army training center where Claude is stationed ("Three-Five-Zero-Zero", "Good Morning Starshine"), the hippies are turned away, ostensibly because the base is on alert, but also  because the MP on duty loathes their appearance, proceeding to condescendingly caricaturize Berger's perceived vernacular. Sometime later, Sheila chats up army sergeant Fenton at a local bar, using sex to lure him to an isolated desert road and acquire his uniform. The hippies steal his car, and Berger cuts his hair and dons the uniform (symbolically becoming a responsible adult), then drives it onto the Army base. He finds Claude and offers to replace him for the next headcount so that Claude can meet Sheila and the others for a going-away picnic in the desert. Unfortunately, just after  a disguised Claude slips away to the picnic, the base becomes fully activated with immediate ship-outs for Vietnam. Berger's ruse is never discovered; clearly horrified of potentially joining the war, he is herded onto the plane to be shipped out. Claude returns to the empty barracks and frantically pursues Berger's plane but is unable to reach it before it takes off for Southeast Asia ("The Flesh Failures"). Months later, Claude, Sheila, and the tribe gather around Berger's grave in Arlington National Cemetery, whose grave marker shows that he was killed in Vietnam ("Let the Sunshine In ). The movie ends with what appears to be a full-scale peace-protest in Washington, D.C. Production. The film was shot in October 1977. Filming locations included a number of well-known spots in New York City, including Central Park's Bethesda Fountain, Sheep Meadow, and the Central Park bandshell; and Washington Square Park. Scenes were also shot at the Fort Irwin National Training Center, in the Mojave Desert in northern San Bernardino County, California, and in Barstow, California; as well as in Washington, D.C., at the Lincoln Memorial, in the National Mall. Soundtrack. Ronny Dyson and Melba Moore, who 	Hair (film)
9091277	were in the Broadway version of Hair", both sing on the song "Three Five Zero Zero." Reception. "Hair" grossed $15.3 million in the United States and Canada. By the end of 1979 it had grossed $38,290,492 worldwide. The film received generally favorable reviews from film critics at the time of its release; it currently holds an 82% "fresh" rating on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes from 60 reviews. The critical consensus reads, "Spiritedly performed by a groovy cast and imaginatively directed by Milos Forman, "Hair" transports audiences straight to the Age of Aquarius." Writing in "The New York  Times", Vincent Canby called it "a rollicking musical memoir... [Michael] Weller's inventions make this "Hair" seem much funnier than I remember the show's having been. They also provide time and space for the development of characters who, on the stage, had to express themselves almost entirely in song... The entire cast is superb... Mostly... the film is a delight." Frank Rich said: "If ever a project looked doomed, it was this one" (referring to the "largely plotless" and dated musical upon which it was based, Forman's and Tharp's lack of movie musical experience, the "largely unproven  cast" and the film's "grand budget"); but that in spite of these obstacles, ""Hair" succeeds at all levels—as lowdown fun, as affecting drama, as exhilarating spectacle and as provocative social observation. It achieves its goals by rigorously obeying the rules of classic American musical comedy: dialogue, plot, song and dance blend seamlessly to create a juggernaut of excitement. Though every cut and camera angle in "Hair" appears to have been carefully conceived, the total effect is spontaneous. Like the best movie musicals of the '50s ("Singin' in the Rain") and the '60s ("A Hard Day's Night"), "Hair  leaps from one number to the next. Soon the audience is leaping too. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both placed Hair on their list of Top Films of 1979. Siskel named it as the best film of the year, #1 on his list. Awards and honors. The film was shown out of competition at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. At the 37th Golden Globe Awards, the film was nominated for a Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Williams was nominated for New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture – Male. The film was also nominated for Best Foreign  Film at the 1980 César Awards, losing to Woody Allen's "Manhattan" (which was also released by United Artists). Years later, Forman cited his loss of his moral rights to the film to the studio as eventually leading to his 1997 John Huston Award for Artists Rights from the Film Foundation: "The New York Times" placed the film on its "Best 1000 Movies Ever" list. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: Home media. "Hair" was released on VHS by 20th Century Fox Video in 1982 with later VHS releases from MGM/UA Home Video. The  film was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment on April 27, 1999, as a Region 1 widescreen DVD, and on Blu-Ray on June 7, 2011. Theatrical differences. Although the film's plot and soundtrack both differed greatly from those of the original musical stage play, Gerome Ragni and James Rado, who wrote the original musical along with composer Galt MacDermot, were unhappy with the film adaptation, saying it failed to capture the essence of "Hair" in that hippies were portrayed as "oddballs" and "some sort of aberration" without any connection to the peace movement. They stated: "Any resemblance  between the 1979 film and the original Biltmore version, other than some of the songs, the names of the characters, and a common title, eludes us." In their view, the screen version of "Hair" had not yet been produced.