Medium Cool

Medium Cool (1969)

  • 94% of critics liked it
    (18 reviews)

  • 73% of users liked it
    (1,660 ratings)

"I love to shoot film" is the sanguine motto of TV lensman John Cassellis (Robert Forster) in Haskell Wexler's 1969 Medium Cool, a semi-documentary investigation of image-making and politics. With his soundman, Gus (Peter Bonerz), John films such events as gruesome car wrecks with… More

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R,
Directed By
Written By
Haskell Wexler
Genres
Drama, Romance, Classics, Special Interest
In Theaters
Jan 1, 1969 Wide
Paramount Home Video

Critic Reviews

  • Vincent Canby, New York Times

    Medium Cool is an awkward and even pretentious movie, but, like the report of the President's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, it has an importance that has nothing to do with literature.

  • Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

    Moviemakers have at last figured out how bright the average moviegoer is. By that I don't mean they're making more 'intelligent' pictures. I mean they understand how quickly we can catch onto things.

  • Jay Antani, Cinema Writer

    a quintessential late-60s time capsule piece

  • Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

    Wexler may have been going after something "cool," but what he came up with is smoking hot cinema that puts Jean-Luc Goddard to shame.

  • Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

    An interesting time capsule essay film that takes us back to the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and its police riot.

Read all 8 critic reviews

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Cast

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Trailers & Clips