Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me
1971·Drama·1h 30m
7.1
★
Free-thinking student tries to put up with life at a straight-laced college in 1958.
Directed by Jeffrey Young
kiss
college life
IMDB
N/A
Where to Watch
Cast
Barry Primus
Gnossos "Paps" Pappadopoulis
David Downing
Heff
Susan Tyrrell
Jack
Bruce Davison
Fitzgore
Zack Norman
Mojo
Raúl Juliá
Juan Carlos Rosenbloom
James Noble
Father Pettis
Cynthia Harris
Beth
Guy Deghy
Kovacs
Nicholas Hammond
Agneau
Paul Jabara
Heap
John P. Ryan
Oeuf
Popular Reviews
1 review
Max Kowalski
6.0★ · 08/28/20
“A soup·çon of cocaine, for flavor.”
What i love about gnossis is that he is impatient, jaded, world weary and just wants to feel OK, and i related to that when i first read the book in high school, desperate for some form of enlightenment that would rectify mental anguish. Trying to turn all that experience into wisdom.
This adaptation has one of the most miscast soundtracks imaginable, and for some reason chooses to highlight the more problematic aspects rather than the complexity, and his dating rather than his friendship with Heff, which I always felt was the heart of it, so that at the end you can feel more strongly about the shift in character.
On the plus side i thought David Denning as Heff had potential, and I liked Susan tyrrell ... Barry Primus was ok- just holding back? Under used?
Ultimately this could have been more brutal/intense. And longer/slower so we could settle in to the characters.
I hated the set design- everything looked muddy.
Young Raul Julia is in it, which is wild.
Is it wrong to say I wish someone would try to remake this again?
It’s still pretty relevant. Douglas Cooke’s interpretation sums it up pretty well;
“Herein lies the protagonist's central conflict. He went in quest of something Real, but he has found and seen things of such terrifying reality that he needs to numb himself. He anesthetizes himself through drugs, through his posture of coolness, through masquerading as superheroes and other heroic figures of myth and history, and most significantly through his declaration of Exemption.”
This version just skips over a lot of the nuance. I still enjoyed it though! It just makes me want to reread the book for the 100th time.
What i love about gnossis is that he is impatient, jaded, world weary and just wants to feel OK, and i related to that when i first read the book in high school, desperate for some form of enlightenment that would rectify mental anguish. Trying to turn all that experience into wisdom.
This adaptation has one of the most miscast soundtracks imaginable, and for some reason chooses to highlight the more problematic aspects rather than the complexity, and his dating rather than his friendship with Heff, which I always felt was the heart of it, so that at the end you can feel more strongly about the shift in character.
On the plus side i thought David Denning as Heff had potential, and I liked Susan tyrrell ... Barry Primus was ok- just holding back? Under used?
Ultimately this could have been more brutal/intense. And longer/slower so we could settle in to the characters.
I hated the set design- everything looked muddy.
Young Raul Julia is in it, which is wild.
Is it wrong to say I wish someone would try to remake this again?
It’s still pretty relevant. Douglas Cooke’s interpretation sums it up pretty well;
“Herein lies the protagonist's central conflict. He went in quest of something Real, but he has found and seen things of such terrifying reality that he needs to numb himself. He anesthetizes himself through drugs, through his posture of coolness, through masquerading as superheroes and other heroic figures of myth and history, and most significantly through his declaration of Exemption.”
This version just skips over a lot of the nuance. I still enjoyed it though! It just makes me want to reread the book for the 100th time.
“A soup·çon of cocaine, for flavor.”
What i love about gnossis is that he is impatient, jaded, world weary and just wants to feel OK, and i related to that when i first read the book in high school, desperate for some form of enlightenment that would rectify mental anguish. Trying to turn all that experience into wisdom.
This adaptation has one of the most miscast soundtracks imaginable, and for some reason chooses to highlight the more problematic aspects rather than the complexity, and his dating rather than his friendship with Heff, which I always felt was the heart of it, so that at the end you can feel more strongly about the shift in character.
On the plus side i thought David Denning as Heff had potential, and I liked Susan tyrrell ... Barry Primus was ok- just holding back? Under used?
Ultimately this could have been more brutal/intense. And longer/slower so we could settle in to the characters.
I hated the set design- everything looked muddy.
Young Raul Julia is in it, which is wild.
Is it wrong to say I wish someone would try to remake this again?
It’s still pretty relevant. Douglas Cooke’s interpretation sums it up pretty well;
“Herein lies the protagonist's central conflict. He went in quest of something Real, but he has found and seen things of such terrifying reality that he needs to numb himself. He anesthetizes himself through drugs, through his posture of coolness, through masquerading as superheroes and other heroic figures of myth and history, and most significantly through his declaration of Exemption.”
This version just skips over a lot of the nuance. I still enjoyed it though! It just makes me want to reread the book for the 100th time.
What i love about gnossis is that he is impatient, jaded, world weary and just wants to feel OK, and i related to that when i first read the book in high school, desperate for some form of enlightenment that would rectify mental anguish. Trying to turn all that experience into wisdom.
This adaptation has one of the most miscast soundtracks imaginable, and for some reason chooses to highlight the more problematic aspects rather than the complexity, and his dating rather than his friendship with Heff, which I always felt was the heart of it, so that at the end you can feel more strongly about the shift in character.
On the plus side i thought David Denning as Heff had potential, and I liked Susan tyrrell ... Barry Primus was ok- just holding back? Under used?
Ultimately this could have been more brutal/intense. And longer/slower so we could settle in to the characters.
I hated the set design- everything looked muddy.
Young Raul Julia is in it, which is wild.
Is it wrong to say I wish someone would try to remake this again?
It’s still pretty relevant. Douglas Cooke’s interpretation sums it up pretty well;
“Herein lies the protagonist's central conflict. He went in quest of something Real, but he has found and seen things of such terrifying reality that he needs to numb himself. He anesthetizes himself through drugs, through his posture of coolness, through masquerading as superheroes and other heroic figures of myth and history, and most significantly through his declaration of Exemption.”
This version just skips over a lot of the nuance. I still enjoyed it though! It just makes me want to reread the book for the 100th time.
