The Monkees - Head

This criminally underrated film, released in 1968 as the last "hurrah" for the Monkees, was intended to be end of the idea of the Monkees. Their career was on a rapid, stupefying decline. What they created was an epic acid trip, a bitter criticism of mass media and pop culture, and a surreal deconstruction of the IDEA of The Monkees--thus alienating the fans of the original show, and with the baggage inherent in BEING the Monkees, the young adult philosopher & artist crowd were unlikely to take interest. With a shoestring budget and poor marketing, it failed utterly in the box office. I was first turned on to this film by a friend of mine almost 10 years ago and it has yet to stop fascinating me.

This film is many things, and the story surrounding it is as important as its content. As you peel away its layers, it reveals more and more to you. Some of the puzzle pieces actually require some research, and I have no doubt that there is more to be understood about this film than what I currently know of.

On the most superficial surface layer, it appears to just be The Monkees being silly with significant format changes from the show. Presented are a series of disconnected sketches that could plausibly have been part of the serial, although edgier. It is technically an extended Monkees episode--gag driven sketch comedy, absurd, and inflatable.

However, when you deflate the film you are surprised to find that, unlike the TV show, it actually is not empty, and you get to the essence of what this film actually is. The Monkees were, in the film's own words, "a manufactured image with no philosophies," its artistic choices were dictated by corporate committee, and, legions of misguided Monkey-haters to the contrary, they had incredible talent. For some reason, perhaps lack of education, people projected this frustration on to the four guys themselves and mocked them mercilessly, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of media culture. Yes, the Monkees project is manufactured. The four individuals themselves, however, were innocent pawns.

I have a difficult time understanding why people never got that; continue to not get it.

Knowing this was their last hurrah, they recklessly deconstructed their own image. So here we have this motif of a self-aware fictional band put through manufactured situations attempting to become real. The underlying desire to be legitimate colors everything in this film. It is absolutely futile. Even if corporate media would allow it, the public wouldn't. Soon they are trying to break out, tearing up costumes, breaking the fourth wall, walking off set, waking up dead extras, any rule of cinema you can think of was broken. They individually tried, in futility, to break from character. Davie tries in vein to become a boxer, but it's just a publicity stunt. Mickey Dolenz tears off the fake arrows and kicks over the fake set to no avail. Peter's the dummy. He's always the dummy. Look through the metaphor. As human beings, artists, they were trying to break free from the image that they themselves were fictitious. They set out to accomplish this with the mentality that it was hopeless, I suspect. They get so desperate they actually start committing acts of war (blowing up the Coke machine, a simple but effective statement about corporate sponsorship), murder, and finally they commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. Even then it is not enough for them to break free of the image that's been created for them. Their deaths were just another scene for the film, and they are simply put in a tank and hauled off to storage for the next production.

Another layer to this film concerns some of its symbolism. The all-encompassing box represented their confinement both by pop culture and by their hateful director who forced them to break/lunch in a tiny room not unlike the Head box. They feel like marionettes being made to dance for their puppeteer's pleasure, forced to carry on this charade. This is why the only place in the film free will is discussed or even considered is in the box.

The final example I'll bring up--the list goes on but possibly the most telling, is the appearance of industry people in the film. If the party is watched frame by frame, you can see the director showing himself holding the camera in the mirror. And Victor Mature appears as a Godlike figure towering over the four, kicking them around. The sequences that include Head's staff in these contexts remove any doubt as to what this film is really all about.

They knew there was no chance whatsoever of this film ever receiving the recognition it deserved, and 40 years later that appears to still be true. But this mentality was huge to the underlying meaning behind this film, and what they actually were able to do with it. The Monkees at some point ceased to feel like people and started to feel like products. This film is an expression of the bitterness and resent created by the situation they were forced into and the people that forced them into it, and in a sense a triumph that their true selves finally came through and real art was created--against the most impossible of odds. In the end, real expression was accomplished and the Monkees project matured.

What the whole Monkees project, capped off with this film, accomplished, belongs with Andy Warhol and his multicolored photocopied Marilyn Monroes, and any number of likeminded self-indulgent postmodern/pop culture deconstructionist artists forced down the throat of every art student since 1970.

There is no other pop group before or since that could have created such a scathing, incisive criticism of media and popular culture. The factors that came together to create this situation, and subsequently, "Head," are completely unique and I highly doubt they would ever happen again.

Hey hey, they're The Monkees.

Bought for my husband for Xmas he has always wanted it for his collection of off beat movies

I've just watched this film again for the first time since owning a widescreen TV. I believe, from Andrew Sandoval's comments quoted in an earlier review that not only was this film shot 1:33:1 but it was also shot with "open matte" in mind.

"I sat for a week while they did the transfer and color correction and was told that was all that was on the neg (as far as info). Nothing was cropped in any direction. In one of the early scenes you can see the black mat slide up when Micky is falling (they were going to blow this up to take away the mat, but I told them to leave it as proof this was the full screen)."

The fact that there is the black mat showing tells me that it was definitely shot with cropping the top and bottom in mind. Putting this theory to the test by watching the full screen film blown up on my widescreen TV (not stretched, but enlarged) I found that the film was framed perfectly, without cutting off anyone's head.

OK, you lose a little bit of information, BIG DEAL; the filmmakers didn't intend you to see that little part of the screen anyway. The big tell tale sign is during the "Ditty Diego - wall-of-screenshots scene". Ever notice the space difference between the top/bottom to the side of the screens? Well in cropped mode it all fits in evenly! The same goes for the brief windowboxed, b&w, silent movie scene.

Why did they shoot open matte? I don't know, maybe to cut costs or to reuse the film as a telemovie if all else failed (I'm not a Monkees expert). But with this in mind, it would be good to see an animorphic DVD with a 16:9 version and a 4:3 version for those diehards who want to see Davy Jones' belt buckle. As for not being able to do a 5.1 remix - I'm sure with all the studio outtakes that Rhino keep pumping out, the multitracks of these songs still exists: at least have the songs in 5.1.

The discussion about framing ratio confuses me. I saw this film in a theater, and it wasn't wide-screen. I have a copy of the VHS release, and it reproduced what I saw in the theater, in 1.33:1 ratio.

RE: J. Rosenberg "Pop Culturalist"

Guess what? It's on TCM right now (Oct. 20th, 2007 @2:00am) and it's properly framed in it's soft matted 1.85:1 ratio, AS IT WAS INTENDED! The compositions make more sense now and everything looks better.

I've spoken at length with Andrew Sandoval (back in 1998) and, although he may know everything there is to know about the Monkees, he knows little to nothing about film and proper aspect ratios. I even told him before the release that I had in my possession a rare US TV trailer for HEAD that I never saw before. He raised his nose and sniffed, "Everything that's out there will be on the DVD". Of course, the little snot was wrong. He also said that a Stereo remix wasn't possible. I say it is. Comme si, comme sa.