Head (1968)

Head (USA, 1968) DIR: Bob Rafelson. 86 min color PROD-SCR: Bob Rafelson, Jack Nicholson. DOP: Michel Hugo. CAST: The Monkees (Peter Tork, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, Mickey Dolenz), Annette Funicello, Timothy Carey, Logan Ramsey, Abraham Sofaer, Vito Scotti, Charles Macaulay, Percy Helton, Sonny Liston, Frank Zappa, Teri Garr, Victor Mature, Toni Basil, Tor Johnson, Helena Kallianiotes. (Columbia Pictures)

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In a recent direct-to-cable schmaltzy biopic of The Monkees (what else? made in Canada), you can see TV-land’s version of The Fab Four mulling over ideas for a motion picture with screenwriter Jack Nicholson in a haze of marijuana smoke, coupled with the obligatory sitar music. This scene may be complimenting how scattershot the resultant movie Head eventually was, but also makes it seem that the movie was done off the cuff. In truth, the film is far too clever for that. Man, even in some cheesy TV biopic, The Monkees are still misunderstood…

Everybody knows that The Monkees were a fictitious group that played on a sitcom, and had some hit records. The teenaged viewing audience loved this cuddly quartet (which of course riffed The Beatles). However, the fact that the critics despised them, that they didn’t play their own instruments on their first few albums, and that they fought the studio ranks for credibility (and the right to play their own instruments), the two years of spectacular fame gave way to a sharp decline in their popularity.

With their TV show cancelled, and their record sales on the wane, the foursome decided to go for broke and make an attempt at some big-screen fare, even with their Monkees brainchildren, Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider at the helm. History does record that the film ended up being a box office disaster, and the few Monkees fans who did see it were appalled at the film’s negativity. Instead of a Davy-Peter-Micky-Michael version of A Hard Day’s Night, they got an apocalyptic nightmare along the lines of the Marx Brothers on shrooms doing a remake of Godard’s Weekend. Today, this film is a cult favourite because the acid heads turned on to this merry nihilism at midnight screenings, and also due to the renewed interest in the band after the boys finally called it quits in 1970.

While Head is not a complete success, it is an astonishing motion picture. For its uncompromising self-portrait on stardom, and its audacity to reduce such topics as Vietnam and corporate mindlessness to such parody, it is a very brave movie indeed. No other personality before or since has created such an intentional spectacle of onscreen career suicide. 

Although history would have them lumped with other “fake” bubblegum bands like The Archies, but before and after they were allowed to play their own instruments, The Monkees really were a talented bunch. Their TV show was a brilliant mélange of fourth-wall devices and disarming anarchy. They were a lot of fun to watch goofing around, and their songs were cleverly crafted little ditties. However, two decades before the Milli Vanilli scandal, they were sabotaged in their attempt at being “real” musicians… or at least until it was far too late. So imagine what their mood was like when they decided to make this picture– while it is also a very funny piece of surrealism, it is also a subtle “up yours” to the studios that attempted to make them into a faceless commodity instead of serious artists.

Although the film really has no “plot” to speak of, Head is clever for the ways in which one bizarre vignette blends into another, often in quite fantastic ways. The trippy opening features Micky jumping from a bridge, then solarized images feature the Monkee underwater, being visited by a mermaid. (I should add, the accompanying music is “The Porpoise Song”… The Monkees do a spot-on Pink Floyd!) 

Although the Monkees make themselves -thus, commodity- the foremost target (check out their snarky re-writing of “The Monkees Theme Song”), no institution is really spared. The horrors of war are reduced to buffoonery, and in one memorable sequence, the quartet even bombs a Coke machine- surely one of the everlasting commercial emblems.

Most tellingly, in the first third of the picture, a concert sequence (in which the band sings self-deprecating lyrics) features them being mobbed by fans who literally pulling the four guys apart… very visibly, the victims are mannequins dressed up in Monkee clothing. Given their uncomfortable relation with their own image at the time, one cannot make a sequence more sarcastic then that. While we are still digesting this, suddenly these images become part of a decoupage as seen through a TV screen, were this casual dismemberment gets sandwiched between inane commercials and grisly Vietnam news footage. Seldom in film history does the message of desensitization ring so clear… and in so little running time. Violence and horror are packaged together like Bits N’ Bites for the benign delight of the consumer. (Even today, this message is still true: think of how 24/7 news coverage has desensitized us to horrific events.)

After a breathless piece like that, Head understandably cannot keep that momentum forever. Vignettes continue to be strung together, but they lack a consistent thread of logic. Even so, the film is peppered with ingenious bits like the quartet escaping somebody by crashing through a fake scenery backdrop (numerous references of the artifice of cinema abound; the filmmakers make a clever appearance in one movie-within-a-movie bit). In another self-deprecating move, and an interesting precursor to rock videos, they even become dandruff in Victor Mature’s hair!

Throughout Head, the viewer constantly questions what is real. The answer of course is: not much. This phantasmagorical movie further blurs “reel life” and “real life” with numerous celebrity cameos in throwaway bits: boxer Sonny Liston (in one of the earlier clever transitory scenes), Frank Zappa, Annette Funicello, and Timothy Carey!

Before Easy Rider turned Jack Nicholson into the signature actor of his generation, his career in biker epics and Roger Corman horror flicks gave little evidence of his future superstardom. However, during this period, he wrote some very unusual screenplays that showed much promise behind the camera if he so pursued it. The Trip was a mainstream attempt at underground cinema, and his Ride in the Whirlwind became one of Monte Hellman’s back-to-back existential westerns. Head appears to have influences of Cocteau and The French New Wave. It is a pity that after 1971, he neglected further writing.

However admitting that the middle third of this picture sags, Head is otherwise quite breathtaking in its transitions from one time and space to another. Whether brilliant or lethargic, it is a curious blend of Orpheus and 1940s Trance Cinema (with the clever way the film ends as it begins), melted down for the teenage turtleneck crowd. No wonder it didn’t make any money.

The Monkees successfully popped the bubble of artifice that surrounded their career with a movie that shows the facade of life, the universe and everything. After the failure of this film, and a couple more albums, the boys called it a day. Still, Head emerges as a time capsule of the era– all pop culture and horror circa 1968 are distilled into a challenging, often arresting movie. (If you think about it, this would make a good double bill with Pink Floyd: The Wall.) Unlike a lot of (forgive me) “head” pictures such as 200 Motels or El Topo, which attempt to be profound and only emerge as shallow, Head today is still a daring picture. Although it stars that fun-loving group of kids from the TV screen, don’t be fooled by its seeming playfulness. Warts and all, Head remains one of the most subversive films ever to come out of a studio.

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Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #6, “The Second Annual Summer Drive-In Issue”.