Customer Reviews

Timothy Leary's Dead [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Reviewers such as THE NEW YORK TIMES' Janet Maslin got it right when she called this doc "The right final vision of Leary and his times" - and so did the Toronto Sun which said "Somewhere over the rainbow Timothy Leary is laughing his head off, if he still has a head, that is." Anyone who takes all the scenes in this movie literally (like some of the reviwers below) ought to have his head examined, since the movie makes obvious leaps into psychedelic madness everywhere, including a scene filmed like a silent movie in which a frantic mother cautions her son not to eat Timothy Leary's brain, and another scene in which Leary's opinions about alien abduction are dramatized by an alien hopping into bed with a little ol' lady from Iowa. To those who think Leary's family was shocked by the film, they obviously are unaware that Leary's ex-wife Rosemary invited friends to a private screening in San Fran and gave the film her blessing by saying Tim would have loved it (he passed before its completion). For those who scream it's unauthorized, they should note that Leary not only signed a contract giving the producers permission to do exactly what they have done in the movie, but he cooperated every step of the way, leaving a big hint in the end credits about how to separate reality from the surreal in the film. For more clues, check out the Director's Commentary on the DVD, which deals with the controversy this film created. The bottom line: Any movie about Timothy Leary that doesn't blow your mind doesn't even begin to convey the real Leary, and this one delivers Big Time. Besides, the film wouldn't be doing its job if it didn't make some opinionated fans angry (as well as offend some of the stodgy webmasters of the official Leary website who have been in misery for years because their own effort at a Leary biopic was never released). However, by all means, avoid this film if your mind has fossilized, and you do not want your views about reality (or about who Leary was) to be challenged. Also avoid it if you think you need to believe everything you see in a documentary.

Timothy Leary comes off as a man ahead of his time: fearless, sacreligious, funny, defiant, quick-witted, iconoclastic. No wonder Richard Nixon called him the most dangerous man alive, he was afraid of Leary's Irish wit...I would recommend the film to anyone who, "thinks for himself," or is curious about a man whose appetite for life was, arguably, as big as the sword-fighter-scientiest explorer's: Sir Richard Burton. I couldn't take my eyes off Leary.

The best part of this for me was the interviews with Dr. Leary. I have been a fan of Leary's since my Tai Chi coach, legendary martial arts engineer Tom Updegrove, first lent me a copy of Timothy's Exo-Psychology over 23 years ago. Since then I have probably read 90% of his works. Apparently, no one who interviews him has read more than a few blurbs.

Once again, we are treated to having Tim answer some of the most idiotic questions from uniformed people. But being true to his character, he does his best to explain his stance on his past events and theories. Especially enlightening for me was his experiences in jail and the attitude toward the establishments and politics that put him there. Never bitter, Tim appears to take nothing personal, just business as usual for a society in development.

As a CISSP, I have made (and continue to make) a very lucrative career helping secure cyberspace. I owe much of my success to the teachings of Dr. Timothy Leary. One of his lessons that even the most ardent of Leary supporters, Robert Anton Wilson (my favorite living author), Terrence McKenna, Antero Alli, seem to mostly neglect, is what I consider his most inspiring theories, that is, evolution and particularly space migration. For me, Exo-Psychology (now Info-Psychology) remains his most prophetic work and the most accurate map of both past and future history I know of.

While this DVD isn't as good as maybe it could have been, it was a great buy and I recommend it to all Leary fans.

Larry Greenblatt
(...)

a great compilation of tim interviews ranging from back in the day to just before his departure. unfortunately there is a bit of litter to step around on the way...although i honor the film makers for choosing an excellent person to document...i think the questions they posed to tim in their interviews were a bit ridiculous (tim handles them quite tastefully and humourously), the "neo-hippie" footage gave it away...the producers were in it for the cash and the chicks. bad boys..."isn't it delicious to be naughty and get spanked?"...disappointing. the ending scene is quite surreal but, i have read that it was not approved of by neither leary or his family...i hope the people who made this film can sleep ok at night because if it were me, i'd be ashamed. even though you may be hesitant at this time to give your money to these people, it's still the best leary video i've seen. PLEASE SOMEBODY!, MAKE A GREAT LEARY DOCUMENTARY!

Not a very well-edited film. It's very worth-seeing though. The ending of it is pretty um.. shocking. The subject of the film is Tim Leary, and it's not too hard to make an interesting documentary of him. Still, there's a lot of good commentary by people other than Leary too. There's some funny stuff done with this film. I loved some of the scenes that were made up, like the one with the alien and the one with a kid about to eat Leary's brain. This film is pretty subversive and also pretty daring. I liked some of what the director did with Leary's audio and various pictures and videos of him. The soundtrack to this is all wrong. It could actually pass as a great documentary if it had some great music. My final complaint is that it didn't present things as big as they were. Like the fact that he escaped from prison. As Zach Leary said, that was pretty mythic. It was only brought up for about a minute of two here. It seemed small.

So it's a very flawed film, but it's als very worth watching. It was cool, but it wasn't great. That's a shame. It had potential.

I'm actually a great admirer of Leary's work and vision. I consider him, as Socrates, one of the -question authority, think for yourself- figures who not only posed as a renegade, but lived his vision the fullest, despite of the consequences: fired from Harvard, ending up and escaping from jail, on the run to Afghanistan and Switzerland, being jailed again, being called 'the most dangerous' man on the planet. Truly a remarkable life.

The docu does a good job of finding a suitable style (what else could it be than surreal) and giving the general audience an idea of what Leary is about: an original thinker, a provocator, a humanist, a libertarian, a joker.

What spoiles the docu is the end: what is not shown in this docu (finally not making it a documentation but rather fiction) is Leary finally decided to not freeze his head, nor could the live transmission of his final hours on the internet take place due to legal reasons.

Leary had often stated he would prepare for his own death, what could have been interpreted as suicide or assisted suicide. So, in the end, we will probably never know what happened in the final hours. Or may'be death was just plain ordinary.

What is certain, the end of the docu with the decapitation is completely fictious. May'be Leary himself would laugh his head of after seeing this, but this is very questionable, as it doesn't portray his ultimate wishes.

It seams rather the vision of some documentary makers who were eager to stir some controversy, but finally end up doing it in a very cheap gory way, which Leary himself never was.

its a pretty good documentary, but i wasn't able to sleep for a week after watching it because the final shot of tim's severed head keeps haunting me. eeech!

Timothy Leary, one of the great icons of the sixties and supposedly one of the great thinkers of the transitional generation fails to live up to his reputation in this documentary. Sometimes legends should be left alone in that 'mythic realm' where everything is believed but nothing is known for sure. Unfortunately this documentary exposed the frailty and weakness of Leary for all to see. As they say, "Pride comes before the fall."

The man who exhorted a generation to "turn on, tune in, and drop out" was in the end unable to follow his own advice. The sixties was all about expanded consciousness and the realization that we were more than just the physical body. It was about acknowledging that "all was one" and our essence would continue long after our death. Leary had forgotten the message.

What a sad and pathetic documentary. To see Leary in his final years still ranting and raving about injustices and on-going government surveilance that existed only in his mind was depressing. He truly believed the Republicans and the military establishment was still watching him and concerned with his subversive activities. The idea that this old mans was still a priority of the federal government was ridiculous. What made it even worse was his cocky smile and attitude about things indicated to the viewer that he really knew what was going on when nobody else did. Still the self-aborbed ego-maniac til the very end.

What we have here is the story of a man who lost his way and had become re-immersed in his own ego. I believe even his longtime friend and Harvard colleague Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) realized the truth, but wouldn't state it in his brief appearance in this documentary. He would only smile politely and say, "That's Tim."

I thought this documentary was of value until I read up on it and found out that the scene with Leary's head being cut off is a fake. In reality, Leary was planning to freeze his head, but never went ahead with this plan. That a documentary should include bogus footage is entirely outrageous, not even mentioning how disrespectful to Leary, his family, and his followers such a gruesome fake must feel. ...