It was the Summer of Love, 1967. The Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco was to be the center of a vast cultural experiment. Ideologically it was an attempt at a post-industrial society, where people no longer needed to work and communities of choice allowed people to “do their own thing.” David Neuman and I set off to film what happened that summer. We decided to do what we thought would be a film about a rural commune, because that seemed to be the apotheosis of hippie ideals. What we found was a bizarre replication of bourgeois society—the sun rose on the nothing new. We decided to use an anecdotal editing style with an attempt to enforce a narrative line.

Screening with:
Harry's Trip
Ed Pincus & David Neuman | 1969 | USA | 16m

Harry, the leader of a commune, was in the middle of an acid trip when we put him in a room all by himself in front of the camera.

Portrait of a McCarthy Supporter
Ed Pincus & David Neuman | 1969 | USA | HDCAM | 16m

Portrait of a McCarthy Supporter was a commission from Public Television. Each of five filmmakers were asked to make a 20-minute film about the state of the country. The Vietnam War was on everyone's agenda. We felt that Eugene McCarthy, an anti-war Democratic candidate for President, was co-opting the left's opposition to the war. We decided to make a film about my father-in-law to represent how far Eugene McCarthy's ideology was from progressive politics. The title’s ambiguity between Joe McCarthy and Eugene McCarthy faded as Eugene became a minor footnote in history.