When the actor Treat Williams died a few weeks ago, I immediately saw a scene in my mind: Williams as a young man with long hair, dancing on a finely set table, belting out “I Got Life.” In 1979 he played the hippie George Berger in Miloš Forman’s film adaptation of the musical “Hair”, and even though he has had many very good roles since then, he remains – probably not just for me – that Berger: a fun-loving, wild guy, who grins away at all conventions.
The objections to Forman’s film are well known and partly correct: a bit too cliched and striking, and he also changed the ending to make it more dramatic. And yet “Hair” remains a unique document of an era that was long over in 1979. There are a lot of great hippie documentaries (“Woodstock,” “The Last Waltz,” and so on). But feature films? “Easy Rider” – and what else? (Okay, “Alice’s Restaurant” and “Zabriskie Point.”)
A quick reminder: “Hair” takes place in the mid-1960s, the music was written by Galt MacDermot and the lyrics are by Gerome Ragni and James Rado. Musical plots are rarely complex, so the story is told quickly: Country bumpkin Claude Hooper Bukowski meets a group of hippies in New York City before he joins the army and ends up going to Vietnam. At the end everyone meets again in a military cemetery – and when “Let The Sunshine In” sounds, the lump in your throat gets very big.
Antiquated clichés, but a living message
In between, they experience all sorts of adventures. Some of the male/female black/white stereotypes seem a bit antiquated today, even if they’re often making fun of themselves, but “Hair” – much like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” – isn’t stuffy, and that’s what sets it apart ever by Andrew Lloyd Webber. And of course the music! Even those who despise pompous musicals and have little use for group choreographies will not be able to compete with “Hair”. The melodies are simply too powerful, the lyrics are full of exuberance while at the same time acknowledging the horror that capitalist society creates – violence, racism, general stuffiness, and drugs don’t help with that, sometimes even the opposite.
What helps is a certain humility – which can be felt in “I Got Life”: “I got life, mother/ I got laughs, sister/ I got freedom, brother/ I got good times, man!” Listing all the body parts and organs for which one is far too rarely grateful, stands in crucial contrast to Nina Simone’s “Ain’t Got No”, which mentions all the social needs that many lack (home, money, work, culture). Way to go!
More from Birgit Fuss
When you see and hear “Hair” today, however, you ask yourself: Why have we actually made so little progress since the hippie era? Where is the “Age Of Aquarius”, with “Harmony and understanding/Sympathy and trust abounding”? All the problems that were discussed decades ago are still there – some even worse. And what happened to the liberation? “Hair” was about joy in life and living out our dreams, but it wasn’t just about individual desires, but about values like peace, justice, tolerance, solidarity, empathy for everyone – old-fashioned stuff, without which there is no real life gives freedom.