Alice's Restaurant

Those who write complaining that the movie isn't like the song are missing the point. The movie isn't about the song, nor is the movie supposed to be based around the song. The movie merely includes the song - and some events in Arlo Guthrie's life in the 1960s. Get over the fixation about the song and you might begin to see what the movie is about.

Alice's Restaurant is about life and loss, and the traps we allow ourselves to get caught up in. It's about addiction, youth, anarchy, death, and aimlessness. It's a celebration and a lament for all those things.

This movie is generally not highly regarded. Criticisms refer to the lack of plot or "aimlessness" and draw unfavourable comparisons with the song.

It is hardly ever appropriate to criticise a film by comparing it with the source from which it is derived. The film is a work in its own right, and it is no criticism to say that it is not like something else. There is no reason why a comic song should not be used as the basis for a tragic movie. The only such comparison that has any validity is one which uses the source work as a basis for demonstrating how a weakness in the derived work could have been avoided; or conversely, one which contrasts a virtue in the derived work with a corresponding deficiency in the source work.

On its own terms, "Alice's Restaurant" succeeds very well as a movie. The song on which it is based does no more than provide a sequence of events around which the movie is constructed. It is not a narrative; it is a portrait of a particular time and a particular section of American society. It meanders, but it is never tedious; there is always something interesting to see on the screen. It demonstrates how that section of society, or the representatives of it with whom the film is concerned, although rejecting many of the rules by which American society has historically been governed, nevertheless accepts that society's basic values and cannot avoid the consequences of the rejection of some of the rules. It is not a great movie, but it is a very good one.

I rate it as about 7.5 out of 10. The film that I find most similar to it is the French film "Round Midnight"; not because of its subject-matter, but because of its dreamy, unhurried mood.

I remember back in the 80s my Mom rented this movie and from the cover and title I didn't think I'd like it. Not only did I like it, but I now watch it every Thanksgiving season. I've always liked Arlo Guthrie's music and the soundtrack is excellent, featuring the title track which tells this true story. It's quite a fun movie, laced with moments of very serious elements like Woody, Arlo's dad, in the hospital. The scene in the hospital with Arlo and Pete Seeger singing the Car Car song to Woody in the hospital was very heartwarming. The characters are all colorful and enjoyable to watch and very typical of the folk scene in the late 60s, just before I was born.

***1/2 (Out of 4)

I bought this film on dvd, not really knowing why, as I didn't much care for it when I was younger. I saw it in the movies and it failed to capture the fun and humour of the song. Looking at it now, especially towards the end, I see it much differently. Maybe Arthur Penn was trying to capture the end of the Hippie era. Alice looks devastated as she watches her world and perhaps her dreams fall apart. Was all the innocence and freedom false? I think this film was before it's time. Regardless, it is probably the best depiction of a hippie "slice-of-life" ever made.

As most students of 1960s filmmaking are aware, "Alice's Restaurant" was director Arthur Penn's unsuccessful follow-up to "Bonnie and Clyde." It was based on -- or rather inspired by -- a good idea: Arlo Guthrie's famous autobiographical song, which told the humorous and ironic tale of two run-ins with the "establishment," as we used to say, during a Thanksgiving in Stockbridge, Mass., and a subsequent draft board examination in New York City.

Thirty-three long years later, seeing this cultural artifact from the late '60s is less like watching a story unfold than stepping into a time machine. The good, bad and tragic aspects of that turbulent era are all represented here, and the past -- as observed from our tainted and narcissistic age of SUVs, AIDS and the Internet -- seems positively innocent. And -- with a few obvious exceptions -- idyllic.

The 1960s may have been a tumultuous era, but those years embodied one crucial concept sorely missing from today's society: youthful idealism. Way back when -- before a six-figure salary became the college student's holy grail, when saving the world was more important than earning a law degree -- young people were actually passionate -- about freedom, about peace, about the long- term prospects for humanity. If that passion has not completely vanished, it has certainly been redirected -- and not, in my view, toward a positive or productive end.

Whether Penn's film works or not as a cinematic adaptation of Guthrie's song, whether it successfully mixes deadpan humor (hippies vs. bureaucratic clods) with tragedy (the dark side of drug use) seems almost irrelevant now. The movie succeeds in capturing a remarkable moment in time, a short period when the future may have been uncertain, but there was still a brilliant ray of sunshine at the end of the tunnel -- and a youthful force propelling us toward it.

The hippie movement may have been naive, but it was a movement nonetheless, and a positive form of rebellion. As seen in the film, young people often used the word "peace" instead of "goodbye" -- not just as a pleasant sentiment at the end of a conversation, but as a serious reminder of what was important -- that nothing was more vital than global, harmonious accord, to "live as one." That spirit may have died with John Lennon; it may have left this Earth with Jerry Garcia. In any case, it's pretty much gone now, and already -- except, perhaps, within a few small, nostalgic circles -- nearly forgotten.

Today, the concepts of "peace" and "love" seem hopelessly quaint. The era of Flower Power has long since passed, and most young people would readily agree that All You Need is Cash -- the majority of them knowing infinitely more about money markets than peaceful coexistence. Teenagers who once joined together to enjoy music, freedom and a sense of community (Woodstock) have been replaced by a disenfranchised generation who angrily rape, steal and burn (Woodstock '99). Somewhere along the line, the hopeful enthusiasm of folk music and rock'n'roll gave way to the fury of punk, rap and hip-hop. Freeform artistic expression (Prog-Rock, Pop Art, tie-died clothes, experimental filmmaking) was discarded in favor of nihilism and self-mutilation (Industrial/ Goth-Rock, Heavy Metal, piercings and tattoos). The ray of hope faded. "Make Love, Not War" degenerated into "Show Us Your Tits." The "us" decade ('60s) became the "me" decade ('70s). And now -- God help us -- we are firmly entrenched in what surely would've made the founding fathers wish they'd never been born: the"whatever" century.

This apathetic new millenium has ushered in not a glorious Odyssey of space exploration or a Brave New World of modern medicine -- but terrorism, fear, ignorance and intolerance. Politically, Ashcroft's medical marijuana raids and "President" Bush's environmental atrocities likely cause even die-hard liberals to fondly recall the days of Tricky Dick! Who could have ever imagined?!

And so "Alice's Restaurant" is another tragic arrow through our empty, modern- day heart -- a damning reminder of just how low this country has sunk, how far a nation of bloodless, soulless opportunists has strayed from the garden. Think of it! Once, this country poured its life blood into electing leaders who would end war and famine; now, we waste millions trying to impeach them for receiving blow jobs.

Jim Morrison was 35 years ahead of his time. The '60s -- in retrospect -- was the beginning. And this, now, is the end.

Peace.