Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1971) User Reviews

Too bad this film is not available

[carodel5 · 5 June 2004]

I saw this movie when it came out briefly in the theater. I totally disagree with Chip_Douglas' write-up, but I can can understand that some people like only classical music and couldn't stand rock, so people have different likes and dislikes.

When I saw the movie, I thought, "how can they get away with this? Is this really going to last?" It is a collage, somewhat of a satire, but also a work of art in studying some archetypes of a period. If the movie were available, and shown several times on cable or satellite, I think it would become a cult classic. You cannot view it in a serious way because it is a view of extremes. It's not supposed to be a real-life story. Somebody please put it on DVD! It would be similar in television to the fantastic American Gothic series, also practically unavailable.

This novel needs to be filmed again

[writer890-1 · 2/10 · 16 February 2006]

The novel "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me" by Richard Farina is fantastic, a singular achievement that deserved better treatment than this film, which basically left out all the really good stuff, the fear and loathing political content, and used only the easy material. I saw a really bad copy of it, but it was clear enough to see that they missed the point pretty much completely. Unfortunately, the soundtrack was in good shape; I say unfortunately because most of the music, aside from the background 50s rock, was totally inappropriate for the time period - seventies folk/pop crap instead of jazz.

Supposedly the film was set in 1959, but the novel sure felt like 1965 to me. It could have been any time in the early 60s, I suppose. I recognized many of the people in the book from my own experiences in the 60s, and the film actually got a couple of them almost right. But the film all but ignored one of the central characters in the novel, G. Alonso Oeuf, and turned Kristin into less of a villain than she really was. Yes, I realize that they didn't want to make a 3-hour movie in 1971, but I think they could get away with it today. Get the right person to play Gnossos, give it some narration, use jazz only for background music, keep the campus political stuff, and I think it could be done. Hollywood is so busy remaking bad TV shows and re-doing movies that were fine the first time; maybe they should try getting this one right instead.

The only inspired thing about this is the title

[Chip_douglas · 19 October 2003]

Based on the novel by Richard Farina, "Been down so long it looks like up to me" is not so much a coherent story as a series of chapters concerning a young (con-)man's college years in the late fifties. He experiments with drugs, free love and proceeds to party and disregard every rule, as if he were already living the late sixties. This may sound like a fun hippie comedy, but unfortunately it's not.

The film features some familiar faces before they became familiar: A very young Bruce Davison, the late great Raul Julia in one of his earliest roles and even a Pre-Spiderman, Post-Sound of music Nicholas Hammond. Unfortunately, the movie is not about any of them but about a pathological liar named Gnossos, played by Barry Primus.

Gnossos keeps pulling scams and deceiving everybody he meets, but not in a very enjoying of funny way. In fact the character is so unlikable and his misadventures so unrelated to each other that the movie soon becomes tedious. When he starts having bad drug trips this viewer just didn't care anymore and wanted the film to end. But it gets even more depressing from there on.

4 out of 10

Derivative

[aimless-46 · 1 August 2023]

I first saw "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me" (1971) at the base theater during my Air Force days. I found it intriguing enough to track down a paperback copy of the source novel which had a cover photo from the film.

The title comes from Memphis street sweeper and musician Furry Lewis' song "I Will Turn Your Money Green" ("I been down so long/It seem like up to me"). The Doors referenced Farina's book in Jim Morrison's song "Been Down So Long".

Richard Farina's novel was based largely on his college experiences and travels. Although published in 1966 it was written while Farina was a student at Cornell University in the late 50's and references 1958 several times. It is full of pseudonym references to Cornell (Mentor University), to Ithaca (Athene), and to campus landmarks. In the book the fraternity dinner is held at the Delta Upsilon house. In the film one character reveals it is the Phi Delta Theta house.

The film is an incredibly poor adaptation, poorly directed with weak production values although the quality of available DVD's is too marginal to really tell. Not surprisingly the story in the film version is quite condensed and simplistic. Choices of what was included and excluded are inexplicable. The music is awful. Primus is adequate but he was over thirty and looked it, playing an early to mid-20's college student, so you have to suspend considerable disbelief.

The book and the film are very derivative as the central character - Primus as Gnossos 'Paps' Pappadopoulis - is basically a somewhat tedious version of Kerouac's Dean Moriarty (thought to be Neal Cassady). Kerouac's "On The Road" was published in 1957 so I am surprised that the similarity was not a major issue.

Both Dean and Gnossos figure loosely as a heroes. Incredibly flawed heroes who tend to abandon those who love them and feel no remorse whatsoever at their poor judgment and horribly timed actions. But heroes nonetheless.

The psychedelic scenes hold up reasonably well although they do little to advance the narrative. The film opens with its strongest scene, not surprisingly the one occasion when they are faithful to the source material. Marion Clarke plays Pamela Watson-May a very proper and confident British student at Cornell negotiating the subletting of her student apartment to Farina's alter ego. Freshly showered and in a loosely tied terrycloth robe she absolutely captives her visitor and they end up taking a tumble in the hay so to speak.

Farina gave this a mix of casually erotic elements that have a huge appeal. A nice example in the sexy teacher-librarian-computer geek overcomes her inhibitions genre. The film does not do nearly as well with Farina's other erotic fantasy, the love interest in green knee socks. Instead of an evil user she is turned into an early manic pixie dream girl.

I'm glad the film was made as it gives exposure to the book although I wish it had been made better. I think it would have received a better reception if it had been promoted as a "R" rated student film. With a first and only time director, a modest budget, and a pretty green cast it would qualify for that designation.