Runaway America (1982) User Reviews

The most atmospheric soundtrack ever

[francomartini · 10/10 · 15 March 2021]

I saw this film only once circa 1990 (if I remember correctly) on Italian TV. It consists of a long series of newsreel clips mostly from US nightly news and mostly in black and white which concentrate on the biggest political event of the 1965-1975 era, namely the Vietnam War, and its repercussions back home in terms of the clash of generations (the establishment mainstream vs flower power/Woodstock hippiedom) and various protest movements such as Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, Vietnam Veterans Against the War some of which resorted to armed struggle such as the Weathermen (or Weather Underground) and the Symbionese Liberation Army. This collage is not narrated as such but rather is overlaid with the music of the era. Everyone from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to the Rolling Stones (Gimme Shelter and Jumping Jack Flash), Buffalo Springfield (For What It's Worth), Creedence Clearwater Revival (Run Through the Jungle), Jefferson Airplane (White Rabbit), Crosby, Stills & Nash (Wooden Ships), Jimi Hendrix (Purple Haze), etc., etc., etc. I'm going entirely from memory here and there's lots I've missed out or forgotten. There is very little information available on this film. To my knowledge it was a project undertaken by a group of film students in Rome in the late '70s (?) and I have never seen it mentioned anywhere other than that one time when it was shown on Italian TV. (I was living in Italy at the time.) Needless to say that it left a deep, deep impression on me because I grew up with this stuff from the age of ten through my to my late teens every evening on the nightly news. The music, the war and the cultural upheaval of the time (from the Kennedy assassination through Watergate) cannot be separated because the music took its cue from the political events of the day and the soldiers carried that music into battle with them. Each fed off the other and the outcome was incredible and will never be repeated. Later generations need to experience this film. They will get an education into both the political events and the music of an era. PS: This film is not in Italian. The only language you will hear is (American) English as spoken by the original protagonists.