In his one-of-a-kind fiction/documentary hybrid Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One, the pioneering William Greaves presides over a beleaguered film crew in New York’s Central Park, leaving them to try to figure out what kind of movie they’re making. A couple enacts a breakup scenario over and over, a documentary crew films a crew filming the crew, locals wander casually into the frame: the project defies easy description. Yet this wildly innovative sixties counterculture landmark remains one of the most tightly focused and insightful movies ever made about making movies, expanded thirty-five years later by its unconventional follow-up, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take 2½. The “sequel” sees Take One actors Audrey Henningham and Shannon Baker reunited in a more personal, metatheatrical exploration of the effects of the passage of time on technology, the artistic process, and relationships—real and fabricated.
Details by Film
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One
Streaming Options
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2
Streaming Options
Release Information:
Technical Specifications
Supplements
- Discovering William Greaves, a 2006 documentary on Greaves’s career, featuring William Greaves, his wife and coproducer Louise Archambault, actor Ruby Dee, filmmaker St. Claire Bourne, and film scholar Scott MacDonald
- Interview from 2006 with actor Steve Buscemi
- Trailer
- An essay by critic Amy Taubin and production notes by William Greaves for Take One