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Privilege

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The formerly preposterously rare (two extant prints in the universe) 1967 film "Privilege" has just been digitally restored in its original color and will be offered for sale by Amazon et al in a month or so.

This matters for several reasons. Firstly, because the film was as prescient as many consider Nostradamus to have been. Its plot, considered so far-fetched at the time that the film was oft labeled science fiction, centers around an increasingly totalitarian government in a first world country that attempts social engineering at all levels, including utilization of pop culture. It's hit on the formula to control youthful rebellion and dissent in general by investing a young pop idol with state-sponsored power (more in a minute) as centerpiece of national obsession. EVERYONE cares about this particular pop idol and what happens to him every week, since his act has been designed to attract universal sympathy and diffuse caring about one's self and one's own troubles. I'll not reveal how because the strange design of the first tour of his that viewers see is a revelation within itself.

What he says, what products he endorses, and how he steers the populace into state-sponsored trends and philosophies is a fait accompli in the film. The government notes a surplus of apple crops, idol Steven is immediately shown eating lots of apples, as now will the general populace. Got religion? Steven now does, and you will too. It always works. You buy what he wears, what he endorses. But what sort of personality would go along with being such a figurehead? And what sort of actor could even pull this messianic stardom off realistically, since the film is made in documentary style?

Luckily, the answers are pretty good. The plot centers on the gradual breakdown of this personality, as no one but an insane megalomaniac could keep this up forever, his world of his every action micro-managed by others and every "creative" output predetermined for him. (Not like....now in 2008!) This person hired to quell all rebellion eventually starts to rebel against the state-sponsored "love." And the actor hired to be both this convincing a pop star and soul tormented practically to torpor was an actual rockgod, Paul Jones, the tall, good-looking blond singer of the Manfred Mann group of the mid-60's, if you recall the hearty voice on classic Brit oldies "Do Wah Diddy" and "Pretty Flamingo."

"Privilege"'s director Peter Watkins, known for terrifying all of Britain with the first realistic, ultra-violent post nuclear apocalypse film "The War Game," knew how important casting is, despite trade-offs. Paul Jones was of the minute modern, and could convey this fantastical idea of Orwellian government control through a pop star by being a credible pop star known at the time. His co-star, 1960's icon Jean Shrimpton playing the instigation of the star's rebellion, was the most beautiful and famous model ever, at that particular moment in history. The trade-off was you believed them in their roles, even if you didn't believe them as trained actors.

It's not so much that they can't act, more that both leads were directed to be underplayed a la Garbo: you put your own reflections of the proceedings on their visages, in contrast to the freneticism of Steven's fans and the steely controlling of his handlers. Suffice it to say, their roles and performances well hold up today: they are who they play, and they look perfect.

Jones is actually a compelling performer and great vocalist, singing real (as opposed to "movie") rock songs in this film. Pretty good rock songs too: one was covered 25 years later by Patti Smith and Paula Pierce and The Pandoras, which then sounded as modern as ever. Punk legends Chainsaw based their one ballad on the opening scene of "Privilege."

And Shrimpton!* Even with purportedly wooden acting, she remains a focus you can't take your eyes off of. You instantly understand her visual domination of the first half of the 1960's and her incontrovertible allure.

In fact it all holds up pretty well today, and the film appears far more tellingly intelligent than it did when it was released and reviled enough to force its director to move abroad. It's been a lost cult classic ever since 1967, and, with the recent release of Brian Wilson's lost "Smile" album, finally completes gaps in the best of pop culture from the 1960's, ironically so with its very indictment of pop culture manipulation gone totalitarian. "Privilege" feels more real and works better today in 2008 than when it was released forty one years ago. Check this treasure out!

*Her photographer mentor/lover David Bailey and she were heroes to my generation, for being their own personas and successes to boot: the "one of ours" syndrome. A wrongly ascribed shyness was assigned to this, her one acting role. In front of the still camera she was as extrovert as you can get, confident, dazzling and compelling. I'm a still photographer, and I know what it takes for model to project: something from within beyond the interaction of mere direction.

She was ultra-successful, but not well remunerated, as the book "Model" which explored the various decades of the profession pointed out (only models after the mid-70's became millionaires as the business changed along with the agencies and licensing practices.) She even verifies this, without bitterness. Folks question why she retired seemingly off the face of the earth (Cornwall, actually.)

Lastly, people who were successful in their aspirations but not necessarily in finances offtimes think in terms you might not suspect: I've done it all firsthand, I was at the center of the hurricane's eye, I don't need to continue immersing myself in this business anymore and pretend to go along with the changes in fads; I can happily go away and be at peace. This just makes heroes like Shrimpton, (and little known photographers like me) artists, not artiste manques.

Almost a template for the modern "mockumentary," this 1967 film from director Peter Watkins spins out the cautionary tale of pop idol Steven Shorter (an enigmatically understated Paul Jones) in a near-future Britain, where the government uses Shorter's popularity as a means of controlling the youth of the nation. This somehow sweetly-sad film has film has become surprisingly relevant in today's world of media-created celebrity, and it's laced with such subtly-blended black humor that it feels almost Kubrick-ian at times. Mike Leander's score and songs fit the film perfectly.

This movie, I assure you is worth every penny you put into it! Paul Jones ( Paul Pond ) makes an amazing appearance starring as a pop icon in this film, and I must say- absolutely remarkable film for my taste. ~( May not apply to all. )~

When I was fourteen, growing up in Auckland, New Zealand, I saw this film, and was immediately smitten. Since then I have made strenuous attemps to view it again - only when I contacted the British Film Institute did I find that the film had not been released in the UK. I arranged to view the copy held by the BFI, under not-ideal circs, changing the reels myself. Badly.

Now, thanks to Amazon's world-wide reach, I have had the luxury of viewing this film under proper circumstances and with additional, helpful material; it has lost nothing in the forty-year period, and is still a very powerful piece of journalism. Thanks, Amazon.

Privilege, released in 1967 and starring Manfred Mann lead-vocalist Paul Jones, is a compelling look at stardom and media manipulation. Jones plays Steven Shorter, a sullen, withdrawn, brooding and childlike rock star who turns out to be a puppet front man for a business he doesn't control. His choices of music, message, performance, clothes and endorsements have been usurped by the media machine that created him; he's a ghost within his own life story. Shorter is lent to whoever will pay for his services, whether it's an advertisement for apples or a Christian crusade.

The film is structured as a quasi-documentary with a dispassionate narrator and interview clips. There's also an air of behind-the-scenes authoritarianism that parallels the tone of Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner. Shorter is trapped by his totalitarian masters, and his manufactured popularity is used to influence and control the masses via media manipulation. Shorter himself turns out to be just another cog in the mass, as he emotes through a cynical rock take on "Onward Christian Brothers" and finds himself posed as a faith-healing messiah for a Nazi-styled Christian rally. He's a scripted prophet whose awakening from ambivalence is his final undoing.

Superb art design, staging and photography complement by a tartly cynical script that would play well with other media critiques such as Ace in the Hole and A Face in the Crowd. This edition includes the film's original trailer and a 1961 short, Lonely Boy, that offers a behind-the-scenes look at the career of Paul Anka. Director Peter Watkins apparently drew from the short's style, particularly the narrator's tone and the use of voiceovers, first deploying them in 1965's The War Game and again here. The DVD offers subtitles, but unfortunately, no commentary track. 4-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

And enjoyable it is. Its dry wit runs throughout (you'll have to purchase to see how that is visually accomplished). Some of the scenes that were improvised are hilarious, the detached and caustic comment that the funding for an abortion was taken out of petty cash and the apple commercial with its director's delusional talk-over work the best. An iconic image must remain the three extras dressed as chewed apples and the comment about the director being out of his mind. To which director was he referring? "His songs were so bad they had to be rewritten before they could be thrown away". Beyond the (now) timely importance of the message the opportunity to see Jean Shrimpton speak and move as opposed to just being a still image is a joy. Paul Jones is rather carefully reserved (he is only a "puppet"). The direction in many scenes is visually striking and occasionally comparable to some of Kubrick's (especially A Clockwork Orange), as has been previously pointed out. If you also enjoy Lindsay Anderson films you will enjoy this. Get it before it goes out of print. It is a gem.

Privilege is about the career of a pop star who is controlled by the media to placate the masses with his music. He enjoys this privilege until one day he meets a woman who changes his outlook on life. But the stress of being the most loved person in Britain becomes a bit too much. About time this movie was made available for purchase.

Highly recommended

Similar to Wild In The Streets except the youth are controlled by the government through its main pop star. I would find it hard to believe that Pete Townshend of the The Who wasn't influenced by this movie when he dreamt up Tommy. Even the artwork looks the same.

What keeps it from being a truely great film is the slow pace and acting by its two main stars. Both Paul Jones (of Manfred Mann) and Jean Shrimpton are a bore.

Worth renting anyway.

[DW]

When Steven Shorter came back from his American tour, the city of Birmingham threw the very first tickertape parade ever seen in Britain in order to welcome him back. Screaming girls lined the streets as their king proceeded slowly down Birmingham High Road, under white banners, a distracted, puzzled look behind his eyes. He can scarcely be bothered to wave, Meanwhile, the young painter Vanessa Ritchie has been eying Steve at a press function, which she has attended as eye candy on the arm of someone high up in the Steven Shorter organization. She is miles more sensitive than any of the mindless and ambitious drones who feed off Steve, and she sees right away what none of them have noticed (save the president of the corporation), that Steve Shorter, the most "desperately loved entertainer in the world," is suffering from spiritual emptiness.

"He was empty," she tells Peter Watkins' camera, which is always there at all the right moments, just like TV's The Office. "Empty, like a rolled up tube of toothpaste. Empty, like a haunted house. And yet you could tell once there had been a real boy inside." She makes it her mission, in subtle strokes, to bring Steve out of his shell while painting his commissioned portrait. In one sequence, they have the radio on in the background while she applies her tiny brushstrokes in a aluminum white, and the station is playing Steve's current pop hit. "Can't we turn on something else?" He complies--by tapping a button on his wristwatch! It's the same track playing. Again he taps--the station switches--the same silly song. "You're smiling," she cries out with real pleasure. "Do you know, this is the first time I've ever seen you smile?" "I'm human," he admits, and this little exchange is the real hinge of the film. Half satire, half futuristic mood piece, Privilege holds up remarkably well next to Watkins' other celebrated films of the era like Punishment Park, or The War Game. Some critics don't like Jean Shrimpton, but then again they would find fault with an angel. She's not great at acting, that's true, and she swallows half of her lines as though caught in the process of inventing the mumble, but she brings heart and soul to an otherwise cold film. (The lines you can hear, gossips said, were dubbed in by an anonymous actress, some say Billie Whitelaw.) It's kind of a shock when the camera, hitherto shy of crossing the filmic space, finally gets up the gumption to peer into the ongoing portrait. We might have assumed we'd be getting sort of a Laura Ashley style of illustration, but instead we are confronted with the harsh, X-ray vision of a Francis Bacon--the hollow man, the body without organs, the face without eyes. (Bacon himself did the sketches for Steve Shorter's portrait as a favor to the film's producers.) Jones himself isn't everyone's cup of tea; he's handsome and all, but from some angles has a weird resemblance to Michael Crawford in his "Some Mothers Do `Ave `Em" period... In general his performance is excellent; only now and then his broad playing of boredom and ennui gets risible, but you believe him as a rock star, and the final concert he gives is memorable, backed as he is by a sixty-foot blowup of his own horrified face.

As one of three films made in the 1960s ("Wild In The Streets" and "A Face In The Crowd" being the others) that took on the subject of using the "Media" to influence politics among the masses "Privilege" was definitely controversial. Filmed in Britain, where the action takes place, this was the first commercial feature by Director Peter Watkins after he left the BBC when his anti-war satire "The War Game" was banned by the network. "The War Game" has been available on home video but not "Privilege", until now. In fact, though owned by Universal - who withheld the rights for nearly 30 years - it has been released by New Yorker Films. The print is from the newly transferred print made in 2000 for a museum exhibition. It looks great!

Filmed in 1967 at the prime of the "Swinging Sixties" music scene in the UK, the words "Mod" and "Carnaby Street" come immediately to mind. In fact, Watkins cast the top supermodel Jean Shrimpton - whose amazingly large, and beautiful, eyes pretty much defined the period - as the leading female character. For the male lead - as the "teen idol" who is used by a large entertainment company to help the Anglican church influence the moralality of 60s teens - Watkins chose the lead vocalist of the band Manfred Mann ("Do Wah Diddy",etc), Paul Jones. He does an adequate job.

I remember seeing this film when originally released and always thought about it's similarity to "Wild In The Streets", which is also a "period piece" but I thought a better film.. I had not seen "Privilege" until this new DVD reissue.

Though the packaging front makes it look like a simple reissue, it's much more than that. And, actually, watching the 103-minute film is only one aspect to this "study of the influence of Mass Media on the population". Included on the DVD is the 26-minute short film from 1962 (5 years before Privilege was made) titled "Lonely Boy". Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, this documentary - which has been available for years on DVD as part of a Paul Anka biography - documents the then 19-year old pop star on his engagements in Atlantic City and at the Copacabana in New York. Watkins watched this film (which I think is better than "Privilege") over 100 times and used many of the scenes of screaming young women as the basis for Jones' fans in his feature. (It's worth renting this DVD just to see the Anka short.) The package also contains a 40-page booklet with photos and press materials from the film as well as an 18-page "self-interview" by Watkins. (It's noted that he does not give interviews but, rather, asks himself questions he thinks people want to know and then answers them. So you'll spend much more than 103 minutes delving in the film.

As for the film itself, the opening scenes of the self-destructive stage act by Jones (as the character Steven Shorter) are quite violent. Not as violent as, say, Alice Cooper biting the head off of a bat, but still pretty strong.

As Shorter (the lead character) says in the film, "Being an individual in a society of conformists, can be difficult.). Watkins tries to be that when making films. But society has changed a lot since 1967. Or has it? Are Brittany or Miley drawing in the young minds as they pack the huge stadiums with their concerts - and of course sell products for Live Nation and their sponsors? Could be?

It's nice to know that "Privilege" is at least available again in a decent print so it can be studied along with Watkins other films.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"