Chappaqua

Chappaqua is about a man who goes to France to get off drugs and during which he flips out and has flashbacks. Essential beatnick viewing. Im surprised not many people have seen this. Burroughs and Ginsberg have small parts. The soundtrack and visuals are very good. One of my favorite scenes is when the man flips out and the doctor comes to give him a shot and as the camera pulls away, it is on an ice rink and people on skates swerve by. Check it out. ****

In this underground classic of the 60's, Conrad Rooks's semi-autobiographical account of a man who travels to France to undergo a drug-withdrawal cure and captures his journey from sickness to health, anguish to well-being. He aligns with the counterculture figures such as Allen Ginsberg (playing Messiah), William Burroughs (as "Opium Jones"), Jean-Louis Barrault (as "Dr. Benoit"), Moondog (as "The Prophet"), and Ornette Coleman (as a Peyote eater).

It's a Paradoxical audio-visual film with intoxicating dance scenes (which involves a druid-like character grooving at the Stonehenge) and ethereal visions of transcendental beauty (gorgeous non-professional actress Paula Pritchett, credited as Water Woman), all to the hypnotic score by the Fug and the Hindustani virtuoso Ravi Shankar (in the role of the Sun God). The movie is conventionally constructed with a beginning, middle, and end.

Unlike most movies which try to illustrate drug and hallucinogenic experiences by using a bunch of jarringly bizarre and heavily symbolic images randomly strung together, Chappaqua struck me as having a strange emotional continuity throughout -- that is, every odd new scene and image that appears somehow feels perfectly appropriate when it occurs. It's as if Rooks not only put together visions and sounds that evoked his actual emotions and experiences, but also managed to assemble them in the order they happened, one flowing seamlessly into the next even though there is no obvious connection between them. In fact, the film strikes me as being not so much hallucinogenic as dreamlike, another state rarely captured well on film. So this is definitely not a film for those who insist that movies should explain, clearly and completely, exactly what they're all about. But if you want a chance to ride on the meandering currents of another person's mind, then you might give this film a try.

Conrad Rooks was a visionary; this film loosely recounts his journey to rehab, with Ravi Shankar and others providing the ethereal soundtrack. Images fly across the screen in wild abandon...not a "real" storyline, but mesmerizing. Available on DVD, seek it out and let your mind go free. Enough of the '60s blather, it's a cool movie that should be seen. Paula Pritchett isn't hard on the eyes, either. Ginsberg, Burroughs and others from the era are included. Phantasmagoria reigns supreme as Rooks plays out his drug-fueled life on celluloid. It's well worth seeing, a curiosity from the '60s, but more than that, it's a project of love from Rooks, who has disappeared from the scene, whatever that is or was. I enjoyed it in the theater, bought the DVD recently and revisited the feelings we felt back then. Beats many current offerings hands down.

Written, Directed, Produced, and Acted in by Conrad Rooks. A true Beatnik cult classic. Swami Satchidananda was the first Swami to ever be brought to America, by Conrad Rooks himself. The United States was in turn introduced to Yoga and to the Eastern philosophies of Spiritual Healing. Conrad knew Andy Warhol before Andy knew Andy. And Conrad was integral part of the beat movement. He could be found in the coffee shops of Greenwich village long before it was hip or "Far Out". He grew up in New York city, but lived in India for years,traveled the Globe and met some very unusual characters. One must applaud this Filmmaker for having the perseverance and foresight to recognize that America was heading in to a very twisted and "trippy" period, one of the most unusual times in American History for sure. He invested all of his own money, yes it's true, NO other investors, unheard of today, for So many obvious reasons, did all of his own stunts, and somehow cast the icons of the beat generation to "act" in this movie. Ravi Shankar, Allen Ginsberg, And William S. Burroughs to name a few, what a cast indeed. He then proceeded to lead the viewers into this strange and hallucinogenic world where everything was psychedelic. Strange, interesting, and definitely warped, see it for yourself, you will be sure to be left "speechless".