Manson

Robert Hendrickson & Laurence Merrick – 1973 – USA

Fascinating snapshot of the early 70s culture wars in America, with the Manson case as flashpoint.  The film has a special charge of immediacy thanks to being shot concurrently with the events in question, just before prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter defined Mansonism as supernaturally Satanic for all time in the public mind.  Bugliosi is included, of course, as his usual hyperbolic self, but the bulk of the film is comprised of original interviews and footage taken among the uninhibited Manson family members in their desert hangouts, posing with guns and knives, and generally lambasting mainstream society and threatening more violence in the name of revolution.  By letting the delusional family members speak freely instead of framing them in a hypocritically lurid yet judgmental context, the Manson cult is provided the rope with which to hang itself.  Absent are the apologies and excuses of later years that portrayed Manson as a misunderstood hippy who was made a scapegoat by society.  Instead, the Manson girls not imprisoned at the time, such as Squeaky Fromme and Sandra Good, extol the virtues of death and killing, explaining “there is no wrong.”  Several songs by current or former family members are performed on the soundtrack.  The editing style of the filmmakers is patterned on Woodstock’s with its use of split and multiple screens and freeze-frames.