Hair (1979)

As a huge fan of musicals, I was so excited to see how Milos Forman used his as a director to make a musical. When it first began I wasn’t even sure if I was watching the right film as I couldn’t see how it was going to become a this happy, uplifting movie, which is the main convention of a musical.

If the only Forman film that you have seen was ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ , like myself, then you would have no idea that he was directed by him as it is so different.

This movie is about a young man Claude Bukowski, (John Savage), going to New York for his last days of freedom before he joins the army. On his first day there he meets a group of hippies who are lead by the charming George Berger (Treat Williams). When the group of unexpected friends meet an upper class, beautiful woman Sheila Franklin (Beverly D’Angelo), Claude and her automatically hit it off, and George and the rest of the group fight to keep this young couple together.

In traditional musicals the songs are an inefficient way to move the story along but Hair is not an ordinary musical, the songs add something to narrative. The lyrics was written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and the music was composed by Galt Macdermot. The songs are the main source of comedy in this film, with the odd funny moment written throughout the script, written by Michael Weller, the songs reflect the ‘hippy’ feel, some of them were just words and sentences put together, I would describe them as ‘Free spirited’. It really doesn't follow a ‘traditional musical story line’ which was very refreshing to see. I also felt that they spent a lot of time casting good singers as well as actors because the vocals were great.

I also really enjoyed each of the characters, I think they were not only written really well but they were acted and portrayed so well also. Claude and the rest of the hippies are such a weird friendship as they are so different from one another, Claude is joining the army and hippies are known for being against war/violence. It was also nice to see more than one or two plots, as in there were so many ways the plot went, we saw more than one backstory and the film covered over a huge amount of time but it seemed to work. The story line was so unique, not only have I never seen a musical like this, but I have never seen a movie that followed this route. Despite this, I would say that Claude and Sheila’s relationship seemed sort of forced, I felt like she had more of a connection with Berger. Another part of the film that surprised me was the ending, it was a completely different ending for a musical.

Overall, I would describe this as the ‘weirdest musical I have ever seen’ but in the best possible way. If you are a lover of musicals, Milos Forman or just good movies I would definitely give this one a watch.