Medium Cool (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray)

It's 1968, and the whole world is watching. With the U.S. in social upheaval, famed cinematographer Haskell Wexler (DAYS OF HEAVEN) decided to make a film about what the hell was going on. His debut feature, MEDIUM COOL, plunges us into that moment. With its mix of scripted fiction and seat-of-the-pants documentary technique, this story of the working world and romantic life of a television cameraman (JACKIE BROWN'S Robert Forster) is a visceral, lasting cinematic snapshot of the era, climaxing with an extended sequence shot right in the middle of the riots surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. An inventive commentary on the pleasures and dangers of wielding a camera, MEDIUM COOL is as prescient a political film as Hollywood has ever produced.

Starring: Robert Forster, Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz, Marianna Hill, Paul Butterfield, Harold Blankenship, Leon Ericksen, Verna Fields, Paul Golding, Jonathan Haze, William Sickingen, John Jackson, Bob Jones, Michael D. Margulies, George Bouillet, Haskell Wexler, James H. Jacobs, Studs Terkel, William Sickinger, Sid McCoy, Christine Bergstrom, Robert McAndrew, Beverly Younger, Marrian Walters, Edward Croke, Sandra Ann Roberts, Doug Kimball, Janet Langhart, Christopher Newman, Peter Boyle, Georgia Tadda, Steven North, Charles Geary, Jeff Donaldson, Kay Rose, Richard Abrams, Thom Ryan, Felton Perry, Val Grey, Bill Sharp, Robert Paige, Ron Vargas, Walter Bradford, Russell Davis, Livingston Lewis, Barbara Jones, John S. Jackson, Simone Zorn, Madeleine Marcou, Mickey Pallas, Lynn Erlich, Lester Brownlee, Morris Bleckman, Wally Wright, Sam Ventura, George Boulet, James Jacobs, Spence Jackson, Dorien Suhr, Kenneth Whitener, Connie Fleischauer, Mary Smith, Nancy Lee Noble, Linda Handelman, Moira Friedman, Kathryn Schubert, Barbara Brydenthal, Elizabeth Moisant, Rose Bormacher, Roger Phillips, Robert Blankenship, China Lee, Sirri Murad

Director: Haskell Wexler, Tully Friedman