Watch Hair For Free

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

With an almost non-existent plot, I watched this film to see/hear the music. After seeing it on stage and buying the album, I know just about every word to every song. There is an energy to this movie and I enjoyed that very much. The title tune sets it off. Then, we have "Easy to Be Hard" and on and on. Each is placed in a kind of contrived setting to make it work. If there is a weakness, the movie is somewhat disjointed and lacking a kind of flow. Still, there is that whole tribal thing going on. The kids of the counterculture strut their stuff. See it as a sort of latter day period piece. Sometimes song and dance give us the jot sensual connection to a bygone era.

I just watched the movie Hair in TCM, for the first time since I saw after its original release. The musical was already past its prime when it was released in 1979 and Treat Williams was already a little old for the title role. What strikes me now is how well, sexist it is; the female characters are just appendages to the men. They're passive and soft-spoken and just go along with whatever the guys want. "Women's lib" was not on the agenda here. The draft and the war in Vietnam were the impetus for this film and that's what contemporary audiences reacted to.The movie, about a lovable group of ragtag hippies in Central Park has a frenetic quality to it; Milos Forman was the middle-aged director. This film isn't about the young as they were, it reflects Forman's middle-aged male longing for the energy and sexuality of youth. Living on the West Side at the time, I was struck that they cleaned up Central Park for the film. The park was in awful shape. You can see it in the film where the dust rises from the bare dirt in the Great Meadow during the "be-in." The eventual value of this film may lie in its documentary value because it was shot on location in late 1970s Manhattan,

Hair is a musical about the hippie counterculture. Hippies generally are pacifists; they're against established institutions, parental values, war, pollution, and they live for drugs, free love (as much sex as possible) and peace on earth. For the most part they were just a lot of kids who wanted to try new things and make a difference. Well, they didn't succeed in creating world peace or ending war forever, but they did have quite an impact on society. Because they were against racism, sexism and homophobia, people learned a lot around that time about how people are all the same regardless of their race, gender or orientation. Hippies brought in new clothing styles and hair styles that on occasion are still worn today. They influenced music and books, movies and television. Not like the lazy, texting zombies of 2015 at all. They were the revolutionary generation, whereas today's generation is the couch potato generation.One of the many reasons people, mainly guys, became hippies was to avoid being drafted into the war. That's what happened to Claude, the main character of Hair. He soon makes friends with a hippie group in New York City (for the most part they look like hobos in flamboyant clothes). The leader of the group, George Burger, becomes his best friend and the hippie group crashes a party, sings about getting their hair cut and Claude gets stoned. After a falling out between Claude and the hippies, Claude joins the army after all, but when the hippies visit him and he goes AWOL, George gets on the plane going to Vietnam to take his place instead... getting killed overseas.Hair isn't just about hippies, it's a timeless message about how the world needs to learn to get along. We don't need to stop pollution or take drugs or have casual sex, we just need to learn to live together, everyone on the planet. Hopefully someday a generation like this one will come around again, hopefully kids will turn off their cellphones and glowing screens and wake up, try to make a difference in the world. Hair is one of the most interesting movies I've ever seen, it's been performed live as a play recently as well, and if you ever get the chance to see either version, don't pass it up.I also recommend Running With Scissors (2006), Pay It Forward (2000) and Harold & Maude (1971).

Hair isn't for me one of the my favourite film musicals(excluding animated films for now, West Side Story, Singin' in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Meet Me in St Louis) nor do I think is one of Milos Forman's best films(Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). It is much better than it's given credit for though, true it is inferior to the stage show and has its problems, but there are far worse film musicals out there(Xanadu, Can't Stop the Music, Mame, Grease 2, Across the Universe The Wiz, A Chorus Line) and for me it ties with Annie(1982, I know lots of people hate it but I love it and have done since childhood) as one of the most underrated.The story(the stage show does have a stronger one but not with its disjointed moments) does get weaker towards the end with an ending that is rather over-the-top, and the sequence with Claude's hallucination bogged things down a bit.It does however do a more than commendable job turning the stage show into something coherent and something that is still of relevant value now. Most of the story is good though even if re-written, with some well-explored, relevant themes of poverty, homosexuality and racism, even if these themes are closer to the 70s period rather than late 60s but I don't think it mattered too much. It is also successful in being not just tragic and poignant but also thoughtful and funny. The film looks wonderful, with the era detail, cinematography and colour a colourful and beautiful feast for the eye. The music is also fantastic, there are catchy numbers like Aquarious, Sodomy and Flesh Failures but also some really powerful ones like Walking in Space and Easy to Be Hard.The choreography looks dazzling and is danced and paced with sheer infectious energy, while the stage show has even more energy the film comes very close to matching it. Who can forget Treat Williams' table top dance? I can't. Forman I have always considered one of the most intelligent and underrated directors, while Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus are very well regarded and deservedly, few of his others have matched that, and it is a shame but movies like Fireman's Ball are also very good. And he doesn't undermine the energy, music, choreography or performances in any way, if anything he accommodates them while phoning it in. And of course the performances are just great. I don't think Treat Williams has been better, and he certainly hasn't been in a better film since Hair, while John Savage and Don Dacus are equally terrific and Beverly D'Angelo is smoking hot. Cheryl Barnes deserves a mention as well, as her Easy to be Hard rendition is one of the most powerful and heart-wrenching scenes of any film musical to me and what an entrance.All in all, not without flaws but much better than it's gotten credit for and deserving of being judged on its own terms. 8/10 Bethany Cox