"New Left Note" by Saul Levine

The film Chicago 10, which chronicles the trial of the Chicago Seven, was on PBS last night. As I watched part of it, I was reminded of my old college professor Saul Levine and his stories of the New Left and his anti-war protests of the late 1960s. He made an epic avant-garde film that recorded many of these moments, titled New Left Note. It is a project that took him something like 12 years to complete. 

I've always had a deep respect for NLN and thought that it truly captured an emotion and genuine energy that modern Hollywood films set in the time period never seem to achieve. Levine's rapid-fire edits of his super 8 footage create an immediacy to the subject matter and manipulate the audience into an almost frightened frenzy as images splash over their eyes. Of course, this frenzy is also seen on the faces of the young people in each image, so the manipulation certainly does the trick.

But, it isn't a film for everyone, I'll give it that. When it comes down to brass tacks, we are still talking about a 9+ minute, silent, super 8 film. That being said, I don't know of another film I've seen that has given me a sense of the time quite like New Left Note.

Saul has recently posted NLN and some of his other films on his own YouTube channel. If you're interested in watching New Left Note, I have embedded it below.