“The success of Haskell Wexler's first feature, Medium Cool, happily indicates that the era of the cameraman-director has arrived, and with this film, an entirely new approach to fictional documentary. Critics and audiences have been astonished by the use of an infamous American incident—the riots in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention—as a background for film drama. Here, it is often difficult to separate fact from staged events, because Wexler did everything on location, carrying his camera (he is a veritable disciple of Dziga Vertov), aware of the dizzyingly hazardous confrontations between demonstrators and police. (As a cinematographer, Wexler) is internationally famous as a master of light and shadow. . . . (As a director, he) has added a dimension of truth to motion pictures that has not existed before in quite this extraordinary way.”

—Albert Johnson, SFIFF 1969

• Written, Photographed by Wexler. With Robert Forster, Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz, Marianna Hill. (106 mins, Color, 35mm, From Paramount)