With guest directors Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood and special guests
7:00 PM McDonald Theater, Eugene
Cosponsored with UO Libraries Special Collections
Afterparty to feature live Dead music by Dave Coey and Alan Toribio! Ken Kesey gallery exhibit and readings! Free refreshments and gifts for all!
Come in appropriate attire— Tuxedo. Tie-dye. Eugene casual.
All ages advance tickets are seated general admission and available NOW for $20 at all Safeway TicketsWest outlets and online here:
USA (2010)
Directed by: Alex Gibney, Alison Ellwood
Written by: Alex Gibney
Produced by: Will Clarke, Alex Gibney, Alexandra Johnes
Edited by: Alison Ellwood
With: Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, Ken Babbs, Stanley Tucci (narrator)
Running Time: 90 min.
When author Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters set off in 1964 on their famous cross country road trip (recounted by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), they brought with them a 16mm camera and audio recording equipment with the intention of creating a documentary of their journey. Directors Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood were given full access to the original recordings by the Kesey family; they restored these original recordings and spliced them together with psychedelic animations and archival interviews to create Magic Trip.
Kesey and the Pranksters board their kaleidoscopic converted school bus and set out from California to attend the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. The destination ultimately disappointed them, but the journey was unforgettable. Bus driver Neal Casady, the inspiration for “Moriarty” in On the Road, leads the voyagers through a series of adventures that include a cast of cultural legends such as Jack Kerouac, Allan Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Baba Ram Dass, and Larry McMurtry. When the Pranksters end up in San Francisco and connect with a band called the Warlocks (the future Grateful Dead), the seed of the Beat Generation grows into the Sixties Counterculture. Gibney and Ellwood’s film demonstrates that the Magic Trip was the vital link that sparked a cultural revolution.
One of the most talked about films at the Sundance Film Festival this year, Magic Trip is, according to John Anderson of Variety, “the counter-culture equivalent of an archaeological dig—or maybe an acid flashback.” It is a beautiful tribute to the free-spirited and adventurous nature of Kesey and the rest of the Pranksters.
In the past few years, Alex Gibney has become the most prolific and successful director of theatrical documentaries in the United States. His 2006 feature Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room was nominated and 2007’s Taxi to the Dark Side won the Oscar for best documentary. Last year, Gibney released Casino Jack and the United States of Money, My Trip to Al-Qaeda, and Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Gibney is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and has written for Newsweek, The LA Times, New Republic and other publications.
Alison Ellwood is a senior editor and a producer at Jigsaw Productions, where she has edited many of Alex Gibney’s features. She also produced Morgan Spurlock’s hit television show 30 Days, for which she received a PGA Award, as well as producing and editing R.J. Cutler’s Emmy award-winning series American High.