Now celebrated as a proto-psychedelic classic, Disney’s visually dazzling version of Alice in Wonderland was poorly received in its first release when it met criticism for not remaining sufficiently faithful to the Lewis Carroll original. Stung by the film’s box-office failure, Walt Disney reportedly vowed the film would not be theatrically released again in his lifetime. Following the countercultural success of Fantasia when it was rediscovered as a “head movie” by youth audiences in the late Sixties, Alice in Wonderland subsequently found a new life when it was rereleased in the early Seventies and became a runaway hit on college campuses, where its oneiric tale of magic mushrooms and rabbit holes had taken on obvious new resonance. – Haden Guest
Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske | US, 1951, 35mm, color, 75 min.
Peyote Queen (1965, Directed by Storm De Hirsch)
Visit the screening page on the HFA Website
Psychedelic Cinema is cosponsored and hosted by the Harvard Film Archive. Rather than solely focusing on LSD films that more directly depict or allude to drug use and psychedelic culture, this series aims to expand the notion of psychedelic cinema through the hallucinogenic lens. Through sounds and visuals, the films seek to bring viewers to an altered state of mind in which the impossible becomes possible and the unexpected becomes reality.
The series runs from September 6 through November 7. For the full screening schedule, visit the series page HFA website:
The Study of Psychedelics in Society and Culture, an interdisciplinary effort across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Divinity School, seeks to transform the psychedelics research landscape by producing cutting-edge scholarship and convening faculty, students, and experts to engage in discussion around their far-reaching implications.
LOCATION:Harvard Film Archive (Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street) STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20240915T190000Z DTEND:20240915T190000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR