The director, Ralph Nelson, used to be the property master on the Twilight Zone, if I remember correctly, and to be honest he doesn't bring much to the party here. Split screens -- ugh.
But this is more than made up for by almost everything else about the film -- the location shooting, the photography, the score, and the performances.
People have won Oscars for playing mutes, ADDs, and height-challenged people, as a kind of sign, I suppose, that the voters are on the side of the angels. Cliff Robertson deserved his Oscar, though. He's entirely good in the role. His full-scale IQ is supposed to be around 70 but he brings to his performance the expressions and body language of someone who is profoundly retarded, if the residents of Mussbrugger Hall at the New Jersey Neuropsychiatric Institute are any example. He overacts, that is to say. But it fits the role perfectly.
I'll give just one example. Early in the movie, just after the opening, he wanders around a college campus, uncomprehending, as he watches and listens to the students discuss Jung. One of the students flings a jacket over a shoulder. Robertson, in imitation, takes off his own unfashionable leather jacket and flings it over his own shoulder. Not once, but twice -- the first time evidently not having satisfied him. What a neat touch. And it belongs to Robertson.
The score is by Pandit Ravi Shankar, of whom we hear little today. But Ravi Shankar belongs up there in the ranks of instrumental virtuosos with Heifitz and Rubenstein. "Sitar" is an from an old Indo-European word, which has also given us "guitar" and "zither".
The movie has a tolerant attitude towards such things as smoking pot. "Danger: Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health." We've come a long way towards self righteousness since then. Now you can't make a joke out of it, let alone actually DO it. This is a complicated subject that I will restrain myself from going on about. My position, in French, could be rendered as "A chaque a son gout." In the end, Charlie loses his boosted IQ and returns to his previous state. I am happy for him that he managed to smoke some dope and get laid in the brief interval of his lucidity.
But this is more than made up for by almost everything else about the film -- the location shooting, the photography, the score, and the performances.
People have won Oscars for playing mutes, ADDs, and height-challenged people, as a kind of sign, I suppose, that the voters are on the side of the angels. Cliff Robertson deserved his Oscar, though. He's entirely good in the role. His full-scale IQ is supposed to be around 70 but he brings to his performance the expressions and body language of someone who is profoundly retarded, if the residents of Mussbrugger Hall at the New Jersey Neuropsychiatric Institute are any example. He overacts, that is to say. But it fits the role perfectly.
I'll give just one example. Early in the movie, just after the opening, he wanders around a college campus, uncomprehending, as he watches and listens to the students discuss Jung. One of the students flings a jacket over a shoulder. Robertson, in imitation, takes off his own unfashionable leather jacket and flings it over his own shoulder. Not once, but twice -- the first time evidently not having satisfied him. What a neat touch. And it belongs to Robertson.
The score is by Pandit Ravi Shankar, of whom we hear little today. But Ravi Shankar belongs up there in the ranks of instrumental virtuosos with Heifitz and Rubenstein. "Sitar" is an from an old Indo-European word, which has also given us "guitar" and "zither".
The movie has a tolerant attitude towards such things as smoking pot. "Danger: Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health." We've come a long way towards self righteousness since then. Now you can't make a joke out of it, let alone actually DO it. This is a complicated subject that I will restrain myself from going on about. My position, in French, could be rendered as "A chaque a son gout." In the end, Charlie loses his boosted IQ and returns to his previous state. I am happy for him that he managed to smoke some dope and get laid in the brief interval of his lucidity.