I'm not sure to recommend The Trip as a great look at the psychedelia times of the late 60s, and if it serves any purpose for today. It's now forty years (strange to think it's been that long), and it holds resonance only in that it could provide some with a look at how to do a really trashy art-film with no real moral code to identify, and for the nostalgia of the cast and writer of the project. Corman even admits on the DVD that he tried to take a neutral position to LSD for the audience, despite the opening warning, which was probably a given for the exploitation-nature of AIP at the time, and that Corman really didn't have too many bad things to say about his own trip when he tried LSD.
So the film only slightly gives an endorsement for the drug, but not really at the same time- on the one hand one might look at the initial reasoning for Peter Fonda's character Paul to take the drug, that it might open him up and that he might learn something about himself. On the other hand, one might also question as to whether or not complete distortion of reality, insane montages, figures in black cloaks riding on horses, and moments of death coupled with paranoia and occasional sexual joys all colored in psychedelia is worth it.
In a way, Corman still has a little of the horror aspects of his 60s Edgar Allan Poe pictures running through here, only through a Tim Leary sensibility. But it's also Corman trying something new, and through a screenwriter, Jack Nicholson, who had taken the drug quite a number of times by then (having read bits of Nicholson's biography, and just looking at his work at this time period, culminating to Easy Rider, shows how much Nicholson was into this culture and time in America). But there's something else too that's intriguing, which is the personal connection of Nicholson's marriage, divorce, and sexual appetite working it's way into the film.
They're really some of the best scenes in the film, where ambiguity is worked in with Fonda's severed relationship with his soon to be divorced ex, and how this comes into a big part of his trip (we see some overtly f****-ed up sex scenes, with manic lighting effects and special post-production work included by the great Allan Daviau). Another very fine scene with a darkly comic touch comes when Fonda, wandering a California city after his guide (Bruce Dern, with an awesome beard) loses him, wanders into a laundromat and nearly gets freaky with either/or the woman waiting for her laundry, or the laundry itself.
Actually, most of the Trip is freaky, and usually in that quick, cheap Roger Corman style that ends up working more to its advantage than I figured at first. Surrealism, to be sure, isn't really Corman's forte, but he does what he can with making this a whacked-out look at LSD. It's a drug I've never taken, so I can't say whether the film comes close to what an actual 'trip' is really like or not. And this causes sort of a problem for most to watch the film- it captures a 'side' to what a trip must be like, and all in the space of the picture's 80 minute running time. It also ends on a pretty inconclusive note following too much random montage and clips back to earlier in the film (as Paul is supposed to be coming down off the drug). But it was a lot of fun, as mentioned, in a trashy way to see how Corman and Nicholson decided to approach a lot of the hallucinations and visions. Obvious maybe, sure, but the tongue-in-cheek is also shown in a light of this being not too far from being how a trip might actually take hold.
And there are two sides to the interest of this trip in Corman's style, how he goes from his standard set-ups in a scene with dialog, like when Paul goes into a random house and gets milk for a little girl, or when Paul first gets into the city and (under fantastic 2nd unit shooting by Dennis Hopper, who also is great as a guru type stoner) we see everything becoming wild and choppy and with music that goes oddly jazzy.
The Trip is a capsule that only somewhat delivers a good enough look into the drug community, and more so into the psychology of its writer (who probably took on escapism and promiscuity at the time), and of the chances the filmmaker wanted to take with the subject matter. Far from being really sensational, and it gets nowhere near 2001: A Space Odyssey for visual virtuosity or Easy Rider for a more potent look at the culture and at subjective surrealism. But it's some good fun, and the whole AIP gang made such ambitious collages of items to see and with a delirious Fonda performance that it doesn't out-run its welcome. Cool music by the American Band too.
So the film only slightly gives an endorsement for the drug, but not really at the same time- on the one hand one might look at the initial reasoning for Peter Fonda's character Paul to take the drug, that it might open him up and that he might learn something about himself. On the other hand, one might also question as to whether or not complete distortion of reality, insane montages, figures in black cloaks riding on horses, and moments of death coupled with paranoia and occasional sexual joys all colored in psychedelia is worth it.
In a way, Corman still has a little of the horror aspects of his 60s Edgar Allan Poe pictures running through here, only through a Tim Leary sensibility. But it's also Corman trying something new, and through a screenwriter, Jack Nicholson, who had taken the drug quite a number of times by then (having read bits of Nicholson's biography, and just looking at his work at this time period, culminating to Easy Rider, shows how much Nicholson was into this culture and time in America). But there's something else too that's intriguing, which is the personal connection of Nicholson's marriage, divorce, and sexual appetite working it's way into the film.
They're really some of the best scenes in the film, where ambiguity is worked in with Fonda's severed relationship with his soon to be divorced ex, and how this comes into a big part of his trip (we see some overtly f****-ed up sex scenes, with manic lighting effects and special post-production work included by the great Allan Daviau). Another very fine scene with a darkly comic touch comes when Fonda, wandering a California city after his guide (Bruce Dern, with an awesome beard) loses him, wanders into a laundromat and nearly gets freaky with either/or the woman waiting for her laundry, or the laundry itself.
Actually, most of the Trip is freaky, and usually in that quick, cheap Roger Corman style that ends up working more to its advantage than I figured at first. Surrealism, to be sure, isn't really Corman's forte, but he does what he can with making this a whacked-out look at LSD. It's a drug I've never taken, so I can't say whether the film comes close to what an actual 'trip' is really like or not. And this causes sort of a problem for most to watch the film- it captures a 'side' to what a trip must be like, and all in the space of the picture's 80 minute running time. It also ends on a pretty inconclusive note following too much random montage and clips back to earlier in the film (as Paul is supposed to be coming down off the drug). But it was a lot of fun, as mentioned, in a trashy way to see how Corman and Nicholson decided to approach a lot of the hallucinations and visions. Obvious maybe, sure, but the tongue-in-cheek is also shown in a light of this being not too far from being how a trip might actually take hold.
And there are two sides to the interest of this trip in Corman's style, how he goes from his standard set-ups in a scene with dialog, like when Paul goes into a random house and gets milk for a little girl, or when Paul first gets into the city and (under fantastic 2nd unit shooting by Dennis Hopper, who also is great as a guru type stoner) we see everything becoming wild and choppy and with music that goes oddly jazzy.
The Trip is a capsule that only somewhat delivers a good enough look into the drug community, and more so into the psychology of its writer (who probably took on escapism and promiscuity at the time), and of the chances the filmmaker wanted to take with the subject matter. Far from being really sensational, and it gets nowhere near 2001: A Space Odyssey for visual virtuosity or Easy Rider for a more potent look at the culture and at subjective surrealism. But it's some good fun, and the whole AIP gang made such ambitious collages of items to see and with a delirious Fonda performance that it doesn't out-run its welcome. Cool music by the American Band too.