Trevor Tremaine: Mythology and Allegory in Psychedelic Cinema

Trevor Tremaine
ENG 281: Intro to Film
Michael Benton
4 December 2006

Careful—I Tell the Truth: Mythology and Allegory in Psychedelic Cinema

The 1960s in America have become apocryphal. One simply can no longer discuss the decade without lapsing into cliché and hyperbole. Often reduced to popular sloganeering such as “flower power,” “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll,” “tune in, turn on, drop out,” and the like, it is nonetheless impossible to undermine the true significance of the era—war, political and social upheaval, a country at odds with itself, in the throes of a veritable revolution… the American Dream exposed… the cyclical birth and death of ideals… etc., etc., etc.—irregardless of the pop culture catechism it may have spawned. The long-term achievements of the radical generation that catalyzed this tumult range from vital (The Civil Rights movement winning the fight for integration and racial equality; and the Anti-War Movement working to end Vietnam and promote pacifism) to ambiguous (The Free Love movement, which did a lot of positive work for marginalized sexual communities, but also promoted a sexual environment that ostensibly paved the way for the AIDS epidemic). Perhaps the chaos was kismet. But I’m gonna guess drugs had something to do with it. And before Manson deglamourized the Hippie lifestyle, or the sunny optimism of the initial Acid Tests faded, or the eventual acceleration into the abuse of destructive, habit-forming substances like cocaine and heroine… before shit got weird, PSYCHEDELIA was a powerful, meaningful cultural force.

For all the honest-to-God historical impact of the 1960s, then, it’s disappointing that the only touchstones of psychedelic culture that most people are familiar with are superficial… cinema notwithstanding. Always at the helm of the mainstreaming of psychedelia, The Beatles’ produced the promotional films Yellow Submarine (1968) and Magical Mystery Tour (1969), which indulge in colorful, playful, Utopian antics. And although fun and pretty to look at (particularly the former), these movies fail to deliver the goods emotionally or politically. This is made all the more ironic by two facts: first, Richard Lester, the director of A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965) from the Fab Four’s humbler skiffle days, went on to direct his own post-Apocalyptic, distinctively druggy satire The Bed-Sitting Room in 1969; and second, the Monkees’ Head was a nobler, if lesser regarded, attempt at the genre,and they didn’t even play their own instruments! The acid trip sequence of Peter Fonda’s Easy Rider (1969), shot uncharacteristically on 8mm with a handheld camera, was allegedly what convinced the Columbia Pictures to finance the film; incredible, considering that the freaky, symbolic visuals and feverish soundtrack make for a downright nightmarish experience. The sequence is unfortunately at odds with the rest of the film, which, while certainly watchable, is a fairly straightforward examination of hippie culture.

Preceding all those, however, was the first (and possibly only?) genuine American psychedelic classic, ironically from a director who would likely reject such a mark. Billed by box offices as “The Ultimate Trip,” Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was one of the most radically divergent mainstream movies ever made (and still today has yet to find an equal). Undeniably, drug culture was the catalyst for its success… conservative, establishment types would have been bored by the first three acts (a slow-moving and thoroughly dry critique of technological obsession, implementing special effects and set-pieces that even now are so believable as to be unremarkable), and confounded by the denouement (an horrific, Stan Brakhage-influenced light show culminating in a time-defying, hallucinatory death/rebirth sequence), but it certainly found the audience the studio had hoped for. It also set a template for what I believe could be termed the “acid allegory” genre. The criterion: a mythology, real or imagined (in this case, tracing the history of man’s quest for domination back to our genetic forbearers); sensational visuals; an episodic narrative; and an overall dreamlike quality.

But as I previously stated, although the US had ignited the psychedelic movement, and helped to define its terms, it failed to produce another great acid film, psychedelia itself becoming commoditized and exploited in (admittedly fun) silliness like Casino Royale and Barbarella. Luckily, the rest of the world had reached the same conclusion. and 1969 offered an international batch of mind-bending classics.
The most widely known of these efforts came from an established director who already had a reputation for unusual films (to the point where he gave his name to a term for cinematic surrealism): Federico Fellini’s suitably lurid, profane adaptation of Petronius’ Satyricon (1969). The opening scenes involve an actor dressed like a pig farting musically, a man having his hand severed, and a giant stone head being rolled down a street. Ancient Rome is depicted as a place so perfectly dark and deviant (reportedly inspired by the decadence of modern-day Europe) that one is physically repulsed watching as the protagonist, Encolpio, and Gitone, his young lover, descend into the bowels of the degenerate city, although nothing specifically repugnant happens; Satyricon is more focused on sustaining a disgusting tone, deranging the senses with saturated colors (the sky is rendered a different sickening shade every time you see it!), overlapping, colliding dialogue, and a hypnotic, percussive score. Fellini skewers corrupt authority in a scene at Caesar’s banquet hall, as the tyrant orders the bizarre execution of a poet who dares to criticize him (in an oven, no less), prior to the culmination of a Bacchanalian orgy.

Encolpio’s journey is first and foremost a sexual one, accompanied by friend and erstwhile lover Ascilto. The two discover a lovely slave girl hiding in an abandoned house and proceed to a threesome as she chirps away in a language they don’t understand. Her character is symbolic of the natural, unfettered female, and Escolpio characterizes the indulgence by soliloquizing, “What did the poet say? Each moment could be your last, live it up until you vomit, or something such…” Later, the duo encounters a nomadic family who pay Ascilto to service their nymphomaniac matron (trussed up in a wagon). They learn of the diseased demigod Hermaphrodite, and seek out the suffering deity to help it. Instead, Encolpio is sidetracked and forced to battle for his life in a hilltop labyrinth against a cult of sun worshippers (a scene accompanied rather effectively by the Ramayana Monkey Chant). For his troubles, he is forced to sexually satisfy their priestess, and falls impotent. A nobleman from Encolpio’s past promises to cure him, via a bizarre fertility rite that comprises a scene most exemplary of sensory overload in a film already rich with then (involving a host of veiled women whipping our hero’s naked buttocks with switches, a bellydancer, and Ascilto riding a giant swing teeming with giggling lasses). Finally, they hear the tale of a woman whose spurned lover, a sorcerer, sought revenge by casting a spell on her that causes flames to ceaselessly emit from her vagina. Seeking her out proves the demise of Ascilto, whose funeral is carried out in the final scene.

Satyricon is certainly as absurd and overwhelming as my abridged synopsis implies. These attributes are essential to the acid allegory. But Fellini’s reimagining of Petronius’ tale is close to the truth: that life can be ugly and chaotic, the civilization is rife with hedonism and diseased by destructive tendencies. In the end, there has been no real character arc (which does not provide for a valid criticism of the narrative). The crux of the film is the pure sensation.

Culled from slightly less ancient source material, but visually akin to Satyricon, Sergei Paradjanov ‘s The Color of Pomegranates (1969) is one of the most willfully esoteric films ever made. Although the introductory disclaimer informs us that it is not intended as a biopic on its subject, martyred 5th century Armenian poet Sayat Nova, but rather a visual exploration of the themes prevalent in his work, it is still structured as such, divided into chapters such as “The Poet’s Youth” and “The Poet Becomes a Monk.” Rather than provide a history lesson here, however, Paradjanov assumes the viewer is already familiar with the subject’s life and works (not crucial to enjoying the picture), and presents us with a poet’s-eye-view of the world; in Sayat’s own words: “I am a bird in an alien land, and you are my gilded cage.” The film’s psychedelia lies in the symbolism with which it indiscriminately charges both the sacred and the mundane. The composition of each frame is like a medieval painting, rich with the titular crimson and reverent neutrals. Background objects are charged with uncommon motion (spinning angel sculptures, swinging carpets) while people in the foreground carry out instinctive, repetitive actions of often-indeterminate purpose. In its visual style, we see a direct influence on filmmakers as diverse as Tarsem Singh and Matthew Barney. The Color of Pomegranates is also remarkable for its eschewing of a formal narrative, despite it’s intention to describe a man’s life. Furthermore, the story of Sayat Nova’s spiritual awakening and subsequent struggle for self-expression against an unsympathetic regime is analogous of the political climate in the Soviet Union and its effect on the artist (not surprisingly, the film was recognized for its dissension and was banned until 1977).

Elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc, something was stirring. While the Czech New Wave produced a wealth of prodigious talents, none were quite as ambitious or unassailable as Véra Chytilová. Her Daisies (1967) was phenomenal, a tale of two nihilistic, fun-loving girls wreaking havoc far and wide which is filled with avant-garde slapstick and fierce experimentation with media. Her bona-fide epic, however, is The Fruit of Paradise (1969), a radical interpretation of The Garden of Eden myth. The first ten minutes of the film are a reasonably linear retelling of the parable; what is remarkable about this sequence is the telling. Chytilová’s methods of achieving the visual effects are a mystery, but it appears that you are viewing a number of overlaid films at once, close-ups of plant-life, and somewhere in the midst are actors playing the seminal couple, upon whose naked bodies are projected further opposing images of nature, for quite a disorienting effect. These early scenes are augmented by an almost Wagnerian chorus narrating the Biblical tale, although the accompanying music is an abstract percussion piece, drenched in echo. The overall effect is beautifully expressionistic and moving, seething with life as early Earth would have been, demonstrating that the director intends a more analytical interpretation of the myth.

Too right she does: at the climax of the setup, she cuts to Josef and Eva, the modern-day counterparts to the original sinners, seated in the Garden of a bourgeois Sanitarium (think 8 ½ here). An apple falls into Eva’s hand. She takes a bite and sweetly offers it to Josef, who lazily declines. With them in the Garden is Robert, the Serpent, an apparently disturbed man in a red suit whose intentions with Eva are unclear. Through a number of encounters, Eva becomes suspicious, and happens upon some information indicating Robert is an at-large serial killer. Eventually, Josef is unwittingly coerced into the attempted murder of his wife by Robert, indicating that Man may have had a similar alignment with Satan to that which Woman is commonly charged (a safe assumption, as Chytilová was often considered a “feminist” filmmaker, although she rejected the title). In light of their failure, the two men vie for her affections. Robert’s morbid hobby piques Eva’s interest, and she soon submits to becoming his next victim, although in the end it will be Eva who takes Robert’s life.

It sounds like a straightforward narrative, but understanding it involves decoding Chytilová’s symbolism. Often, occurrences that seem absurd or inconsequential later prove pivotal. For example, the attainment of “knowledge” (or “the truth” as it is discussed in the film) is represented by Robert draping white-frocked Eva in red cloth that she will wear while committing his murder. Chytilová proves that the advantage of surrealism is that the director is allowed to manufacture a world in which her plot devices (and often, anything at all) are plausible.

Although from a different era, E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten (1990) deserves an honorable mention both as a psychedelic film and as a sort of response to The Fruit of Paradise, via a neo-Aktionist exercise in avant-garde. Similarly concerned with unorthodox filmmaking (the film’s look is the result of a very specific optical printing technique devised by the director), the narrative merges the Creation myth with the Messiah myth: God commits suicide begetting Mother Earth, who is subjected to numerous atrocities at the hands of various savage tribes, and eventually murdered and buried, the film concluding with time-lapse footage of plants growing and budding. Begotten’s visuals, teeming with the debris of quivering primordial life, are intentionally grainy and ambiguous, contributing to its horror. When Mother Earth is raped, for example, one fears that one is perceiving the violence via a Rorschach inkblot come to life. The incessant, throbbing soundtrack doesn’t bother to differentiate between diegetic and non-diegetic sound, as heartbeats, insects, crude synthesizers, and muddy, incongruous field recordings linger in and out of the mix. The psychedelia of Begotten is ugly and brutal, although it is ultimately life affirming: Mother Earth’s sacrifice brings a beauty and harmony to a harsh and oppressive world.

Attraction to what might be, in this context, termed “the bad trip,” also dominated the films of acid cinema’s granddaddy, Alejandro Jodorowsky. His first film, Fando & Lis (1967), an adaptation of a play by his friend Federico Arrabel, featured a boy pulling his legless lover around a desolate landscape in search of a mythical city. Like a pessimistic Wizard of Oz (1939), it was a film high in free-associative improvisation (it reportedly didn’t have a script) and surreal imagery, but only hinted at the director’s capabilities (and still it managed to provoke riots at its initial screenings!). His sophomore effort, El Topo (1972), bears the distinction of being the first “midnight movie” (not to mention the first to star the director). It is essentially a very violent revisionist western steeped in the bizarre (a fallen gunslinger given a burial under a pile of rabbit pelts which inexplicably burst into flame, for instance). El Topo caught the attention of the American counterculture, and garnered a following for Jodorowsky, who was just gearing up for his masterpiece.

The Holy Mountain (1973) is the quintessential acid allegory film, a veritable summation of all the films discussed thus far. Every single frame explodes with provocative, inexplicable visuals. The metaphors range from the obvious (tourists filming death squads at work; a sequence in which the protagonist’s body is used as the mold for a giant crucifix, by a business advertising “Christs for Sale!”) to the arcane (toads and frogs reenacting the Conquest of Mexico, crucified dog carcasses, and countless other instances) in just the first fifteen minutes. The satire is so ambitious and far-ranging that it is impossible to analyze it all in detail without carrying on for a hundred pages.

The narrative is formally episodic. Our hero, the Thief, is introduced as a vagrant in Mexico City, passed out in the middle of the road and having pissed himself. He befriends a quadruple amputee, consorts with the various lunatic elements of the streets, is exploited in a variety of ways, then happens upon the temple of a sorcerer. The proceeding phase of the story involves the Thief’s enlightenment at the behest of the sorcerer (involving a feat of fecal alchemy), who eventually charges his pupil with a pilgrimage to the titular sacred site. The thief will be accompanied on this trip by the “most powerful people in the world,” who the sorcerer explains, “are thieves, like you, but on a different level.” The following sequence renews the film’s momentum thorough introductions of each of the six demiurges, each represented by a planet and each the chief of a corrupt organization. Jodorowsky again indulges in some cheeky satire (a weapons manufacturer designs a handgun shaped like a Menorah for the holidays, another innovation involves the animation of corpses for a memorable funeral). The sorcerer gathers his flock to prepare them for their quest, preaching that the Holy Mountain, “holds the secret of the conquest of death.” In a distinctly more reverent tone, the company embarks on their apparently selfish pursuit, diverted at first by the “Pantheon Bar,” where they are offered a multitude of pleasures if they choose to forfeit their expedition. They drink of a mind-altering elixir and proceed to freak out. A member of the party dies, another is excused by the sorcerer to pursue true love instead. At last, they reach summit, occupied by a number of hooded figures seated at a round table. Our heroes descend on the figures only to discover they are cloaked dummies, save for one, which is actually the sorcerer. There is boisterous laughter at this prank, then the sorcerer encourages everyone to have a seat, promising to fulfill his promise to reveal the secret of immortality. Instead, he instructs the camera to zoom out, revealing the film crew and equipment, soliloquizing, “Goodbye to the Holy Mountain. Real life awaits us.”
The ending, which negates the whole of the film, is the broadest satire of them all, skewering religion, mysticism, and any and all hopes for a “greater meaning.” This then, is a critique of psychedelia itself. I would hesitate to call this a pessimistic statement: Jodorowsky is hoping to shock the viewer out of complacency, exhorting us to appreciate all that life has to offer, rather than concerning ourselves with, as the film implies, “becoming gods.”

Although The Holy Mountain served as a powerful finale to the era of psychedelic film, the influences of the movement can still be seen today. I had the chance to attend a screening of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle (completed in 2002) a few years ago, which is an excellent example of contemporary psychedelia. Although its thirteen-hour duration was a bit of an endurance test (particularly for non-narrative film), I can attest to having never seen anything like it. It was a solid reminder of what I find so admirable about these films: their incomprehensibility, their unfettered ambition, their pure creative freedom… sure, attributes that will attract only a small crowd, but a dedicated one…and it may surprise you to know, not generally under the influence. Because these films seek to do the impossible: expose the truth…which, as all our protagonists discovered, turns out to be a wonderful, dreadful, confounding thing.


Works Cited
Barney, Matthew, dir. Cremaster Cycle. 1994-2002.
Chytilová, Véra, dir. Daisies. 1967.
The Fruit of Paradise. 1969.
Fellini, Federico. 8 ½. 1963.
Fellini Satyricon. 1969.
Fleming, Victor dir. The Wizard of Oz. 1939.
Fonda, Peter, dir. Easy Rider. 1969.
Dunning, George dir. Emery, Dick dir. Yellow Submarine. 1968.
Guest, Val, dir. Casino Royale. 1967.
Harrison, George, dir. Magical Mystery Tour. 1967.
Jodorowsky, Alejandro, dir. El Topo. 1972.
Fando and Lis. 1967.
The Holy Mountain. 1969.
Kubrick, Stanley, dir. 2001: A Space Odyssey. 1968.
Lester, Richard, dir. The Bed Sitting Room. 1969.
A Hard Day’s Night. 1964.
Help! 1963.
Merhige, E. Elias, dir. Begotten. 1990.
Paradjanov, Sergei, dir. The Color of Pomegranates. 1969.
Vadim, Roger, dir. Barbarella. 1968.