Alices’ Restaurant - Arthur Penn (1969)

Alices’ Restaurant -  Arthur Penn (1969)

Entrenched into hippy culture and sitting outside of society norms around this time

Kind of a choppy narrative, not really sure whether its a flash back or present. Confusing to know where you are in the movie 

Key Characters

• Arlo Guthrie - also co-screenplay writer
• Alice
• Ray

True Events

• Based on Arlo’s own attempts to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam war
• He visits his friend Alice - having been asked to leave college
• Thanksgiving
• He and a friend dump rubbish and are arrested
• He comes before the law for this

Themes and Penn’s ‘authorship’

• ‘quintessentially’ counter - cultural - rebellion
• Youth - new generation ‘hippy’ culture
• Anti-Vietnam
• Old vs Young

Arthur Penn - Auteur 

• Arthur Penn tends to use the younger generation as actors
• Uses true stories to tell a message
• Linear narrative style

Movie Summary

Arlo goes to Alices restaurant to avoid being drafted in the war after being kicked out of college. He dumps trash illegally and gets taken in by the police and gets examined to see if he’s fit enough to be drafted, but he purposely fails so he goes back to the restaurant to be with his new girlfriend. His dad and friend die, and Alice and Ray decide to get re-married.

Timeline Points

1. Arlo goes to school in hopes of getting out of being drafted in the war
2. Goes to Alice after dropping out of school for getting in trouble with the police for smoking weed
3. Alice and Ray buy a church and convert it into a restaurant and a place for the youth (hippies) to hang out
4. Alice opens the ‘Back room’ restaurant and Shelly and Alice hook up
5. Arlo visits his dying dad and Shelly gets out of hospital
6. Alice runs away to Arlo’s house in New York after having a bit of a fight with Ray
7. Arlo and Roger illegal dispose of the rubbish after the thanks giving party and get put into jail, in which Alice bails them
8. Arlo purposely fails his army physical to get out of going to Vietnam and goes back to Alices church with his new girlfriend 
9. Shelly over doses on heroin and dies, and Arlo’s dad also dies and they have a funeral for shelly but not for Arlo’s dad
10. Alice and Ray get remarried and Arlo takes off with his new girlfriend

Alices restaurant and the 1960s

• Counter-culture symbolised in youth vs older generation - conflict of ideals, values and politics as much as age gap (Ray is older than Arlo and Roger for example)
• Creating alternate society with different priorities: hippies, communes, sharing and reaction to power and greed
• “Keep America beautiful, cut your hair” almost as if growing out your hair was rebellious and criminal and almost dirty

Hippie Lifestyle - Erratic, Itinerant

• Broken America - For example: Drafting - war shouldn’t be happening
• Imagery - Converting the church into a restaurant - religious people offered - youth culture (rebellious)
• Marijuana - rebellious youth activity 

The motorcycles motif - new energy, drive, youth, rebellion

During the motorcycle race, all the shakes hand held camera movements, fast panning and POV shots represent the instability of their lifestyle. But it’s wanted, they chose this lifestyle.

Spaces - The old church, a place of traditional worship, old values (except that Ray, Alice and their friends celebrate thanks giving) - so maybe occupying the church and opening up the ‘Back Room’ are about investing these places with new ideals.

Themes and Ideas

The insanity of war - underlines film - two sentences where Arlo is examined and questioned with a view to being drafter - uses comedy and satire to convey heavy criticism against government and authorities - anti-war/Vietnam

Possibilities of building new society and investing it with new values - alternative life of hippie commune

Penn, the 1960s and counter-culture

Focusing on the ‘drafting sequence’ as a starting point, write about the importance of 1960s counter-culture in Penn’s Alices restaurant. Consider:

• Key elements of film form
• Contextual and representational issues
• Penn’s auteurship 

Own Notes

• Penn’s auteurship is expressed through presenting major society issues in his films, yet adding in comical scenes in order to get people to listen. In both movies, Alices restaurant and Bonnie and Clyde, Penn tackles and challenges society norms regardless of what time they were set. For example, Bonnie and Clyde was set in the 1930s, the social norms in the 1930s were very different to those in the 1960s (when it was made), but he uses the societal behaviours of the 1960s with Bonnie. However in Alice restaurant, the movie was only set 2 years prior the year it was made, but it tackled the controversial side of America (Hippie movement). 

First Sequence (handing in drafting papers)

• Goes against films conventions - hear but not see the opening sequence - counter culture theme
• Harsh, white lighting - mis en scene - sat in a row - funeral like and morbid
• Man knitting - juxtaposing themes of funeral like images with joyful and peaceful young men who are not serious about war

Second Sequence (In drafting building)

• During the second drafting sequence of Alices Restaurant, the use of mine en scene is effective in allowing us to really understand the feeling of Arlo and the rest of the men in the drafting building. The building is very brightly lit which combined with how all the men were forced to undress to their underwear, can make you sympathise with them as, whilst their being stripped of their clothes, they’re also being stripped of their individuality and dignity in a place where everyone can see.
• All men are wearing the same clothes / underwear - seems as the all the same and individually worthless - foreshadows dying at war
• Walking through corridor - Arlo tells the story of his crimes - tracking shot, whole figure in frame; further and further from being drafted - movement. Officers shock contributes to failure of the exam
• When Arlo visits the psychiatrist, he’s taking the mick and making jokes out of it, but the authorities/soldiers ‘respected’ this which is kind of ironic as they see the joke as serious 
• War is cruel and inhumane
• Its funny how the soldiers were exited about an enthusiastic young man able to come to war, but then he can be drafted simply because he littered then can a criminal record
• Warm lighting when Arlo is around is seen as infectious and how his way of life brings about light which signifies happiness

San Fransisco was a place where you could live out freely regardless of sexuality and gender orientation (Song)

Other linked themes

• Tradition
• Generational conflict
• Old and new
• Negative use of drugs
• Shelley represents what could happen - War/PTSD
• Weed - ‘gate way’ drug