Claude's Trip

When I began discussing the overarching concept for the film of Hair, there was one point that I didn't want to touch until I had a definitive idea of how to achieve the proper effect on film: Claude's revelatory hallucination. The rest of the film is built on Claude viewing things through his camera, but when Claude gets high, it's going on in his head. It's not occurring in real time in a realistic space ("fluid-abstract world," ahoy!). Therefore, that makes it harder to show on film under the constraints of that concept. So, how do we deal with it?

This is 1967, not 1968

The title of the blog, for anyone who follows Hair well, is based on a line in Berger's exchange with his school principal from the "Pocket Books edition." In case you haven't guessed, today's blog deals with the timeline of the film, an issue that stems back to the stage show, which has always been fluid with regards to time period.

The Ending (SPOILER ALERT)

SPOILER ALERT


If you haven't seen the play or are only a casual enthusiast (you know the songs, some of the story, seen the movie, etc.) and you don't want the play's ending to be spoiled, read no further please!

END SPOILER ALERT

Second-Guessing the Creative Mind

Over the years, as many fans of Hair can attest, James Rado, the surviving co-author, and Galt MacDermot, the composer, have made many changes to the show. So many changes have been made in fact that the script released by Tams-Witmark Music Library for amateur licensing, with a copyright date of 1995, has been excoriated by Mr. Rado for its "confusing textual material." He considers it a "big mistake" that the "superior revised version" is not being licensed. The question is, how much revision is too much?

Early Brainstorming: An Overarching Concept

The first step to writing a screenplay of Hair is making an essentially plotless show slightly more linear for the screen.