Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (William Greaves, 1968)

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (directed by William Greaves, 1968)

This film really blew my mind, being a sort of meta-behind the scenes documentary (or whatever). There are three separate film crews: the first one is shooting a screen test for a sordid psychodrama-cum-soap opera type of film, called "Over the Cliff". They, in their turn, are filmed by the second crew, supposedly for a behind-the-scenes documentary. Then there's the third crew, shooting both the crews 1 & 2 and everything else that is happening on location.

Perhaps it's a human experiment made up by William Greaves (1926 - 2014), playing the role of an incompetent director and bad screenwriter to get reactions from his actors and crew and thus setting in motion the whole creative impetus for this reality-TV before reality-TV work (or cinéma vérité as they used to call it). As an amateur/student filmmaker I could really relate to the situations and the interpersonal friction here. Some comparisons to the people like Godard, Cassavetes and Warhol have been drawn.