FLICKHEAD - by Ray Young

The Committee

A lost treasure from the 1960’s comes out of hiding

As a Pink Floyd fan during the 1970’s, I was always searching for anything that had to do with the band, especially their film work. Barbet Schroeder’s More (1969) and La Vallée (1972), which featured Floyd soundtracks, became accessible on the midnight show circuit; Ian Emes’s animated French Windows (1973) was included in The Fantastic Animation Festival (1975); and Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970) was still in limited circulation. But the one movie that eluded me above all the others was The Committee (1968). Reference books and magazines often confused it with A Session with The Committee (1969), a documentary about the comedy troupe The Committee, which had nothing to do with Pink Floyd. Either way, a soundtrack was nonexistent, and The Committee became something of a nagging obsession.
Now, seemingly out of nowhere, The Committee has arrived on DVD. And while the selling point may once have been the soundtrack (Pink Floyd’s background music is rather slim and spare), what we find is an original and often fascinating parable about independence, conformity, free thinking, and orthodoxy at war within the individual and his place in society. Given some time and enough exposure, it could eventually be acknowledged as one of the key films of the Sixties.
Written by Max Steuer, an author and lecturer in economics and social sciences, the script touches on some of the areas explored in films by Antonioni, Resnais, and Peter Watkins’s Privilege (1967). That last film’s star, Paul Jones (the front man of the pop group Manfred Mann) plays the central figure in The Committee. After a surprising episode which illustrates his antisocial impulse, Steuer then transforms the narrative into a hearing on personal desire colliding with what was once called ‘The Establishment.’ He doesn’t limit his vision to critiquing the corporations and corporate-influenced bourgeoisie who control the public through advertising and the economy, but also recognizes the broader spectrum of the committee-minded sensibilities which manipulate us in all phases of life.
Prefacing the film is a quote by economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883—1950), author of Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper & Brothers; 1942). Schumpeter once analyzed the inherent flaws of capitalism and suggested its evolution into a non-Marxist form of socialism. While his words made a superficial connection to the trends and fashions of the 1960’s counterculture—the climate in which The Committee was made—they’re far more fitting today, as imperialist capitalism systematically cuts back civil liberties and threatens the future and existence of democracy:

What strikes me most of all, and seems to me to be the core of the trouble, is the fact that the sense of reality is so completely lost.
One feels oneself to be moving in a fictitious world. This reduced sense of reality accounts for reduced sense of responsibility and for the absence of effective volition.

One has one’s phrases, of course, and one’s wishes and daydreams. One has one’s likes and dislikes. They do not amount to a will.

For the private citizen musing over national affairs there is no scope for such will and no task at which it could develop.

He is a member of an unworkable committee, the committee of the whole nation, and this is why he expends less disciplined effort on mastering a political problem than he expends on a game of bridge.

As Jones’s character discusses his actions to the Committee Director (Robert Lloyd), he trivializes the needs and rights of the man he attacked (Tom Kempinski). All this takes place at the Committee itself, a cushy weekend retreat of croquette, cocktail parties, dancing (to the music of on-screen guests, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown), and a bit of soul searching. Steuer’s screenplay is rife with oblique references and metaphors, questioning common lethargy over personal betterment, and the dearth of compassion in a buy-and-sell world. It may be a 60’s film, but The Committee is still razor-sharp and pertinent. By addressing the truths that are neatly tucked away between the lines of daily drama, it encompasses the lies we manufacture—to ourselves, to others, the charade that’s conducted throughout our lives—to create that drama, intentionally or not.
Among the many remarkable things one can say about The Committee is that it is Max Steuer’s sole endeavor in the cinema. He wrote and produced the picture, and entrusted first-time director Peter Sykes to give life to his vision. (Cinematographer Ian Wilson filmed it in nicely muted black and white.) Clocking in at under an hour, the feature defies simple categorization in more ways than one: Steuer and Sykes were clearly sensitive to the film’s thrust and pared down its lofty themes to the bare essentials. At ninety minutes, it could have easily collapsed under it’s own weight.
Included on the DVD is a fifty-minute documentary offering recently filmed interviews with Steuer and Sykes, who clarify some points in the film while raising still others.

http://home.comcast.net/~flickhead/Committee.html

Jazzwise Review of THE COMMITTEE September 2005 Three Stars***

Artists include Pink Floyd, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Paul Jones (DVD); Tim Whitehead and the Homemade Orchestra (CD). Rec. 1968

Thought to have been lost for the past 35 years this 1968 arthouse movie, written by Max Steuer and directed by Peter Sykes, is a surreal, slightly chilling exploration of the individual, society and alienation, that’s loosely based around the thoughts of radical sixties psychiatrist RD Laing. Atmospherically shot in black and white, there’s more than a whiff of Antonioni’s early sixties films as the central chraracter ¾ ex-Manfred Mann singer and former Jazz FM presenter Paul Jones ¾ haunted presence is framed by long lingering camera pans and tracked by an eerie improvised Pink Floyd soundtrack, that’s among their most obscure and sought after unreleased recordings. Featuring early outlines of ‘Careful With That Axe Eugene’ and the final part of ‘Saucerful of Secrets’, among other random sonic sketches, it was recorded weeks after guitarist David Gilmour replaced Syd Barrett and still exhibits their early fascination with the work of AMM and John Cage. The movie also features underground compatriots The Crazy World of Arthur Brown performing the jazzy, jarring ‘Nightmare’ and a Jimmy Smith-like Hammond organ groover filmed at a party scene in the LSE, while a bonus CD features a recent arrangement of the song ‘The Committee’ by saxophonist Tim Whitehead, with vocals by Paul Jones, plus two tracks from Whitehead’s Homemade Orchestra. Brilliant to some and bonkers to others, it’s a brave move for Basho and one of their most intriguing projects to date.

Jon Newey

Mojo Review of THE COMMITTEE September 2005 Three Stars

Rare 1968 film stars Paul Jones’ malevolent hitchhiker. Arthur Brown cameos, soundtrack by Pink Floyd.

Sounds like the kind of hoax rare video sellers make up and list for sale to amuse themselves. Yet this slightly less than an hour-long impenetrably surreal black-and-white film really was made, and in its most infamous scene, Jones really does decapitate (and reattach) the head of the bore who gives him a lift. That’s the main action here, for the film is mostly a talky, tense, and artfully shot look at a man nudged back into line by a benignly Orwellian “committee” during a weekend retreat in the country. The rather heavy, ponderous ambience is long on dialogue, with both answerless philosophical discussions and briefer non sequiter quips. It’s given a lift, though, by the electrifyingly off-the-wall insertion of a fire-helmeted Arthur Brown performing Nightmare at a party scene, as well as spooky incidental sound-track music (never issued on record) by the just-post Syd Barrett Pink Floyd. Lengthy interviews with director Peter Sykes and producer-writer Max Steuer are illuminating DVD extras.

Richie Unterberger

"For decades, Peter Sykes’ 1968 head-trip film The Committee (Eclectic/MVD) was best known for its soundtrack, which features pastoral instrumentals by the still-fledgling Pink Floyd and a freaky live performance by The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. But the movie’s a neat little counterculture curio, with striking black-and-white cinematography and a camera that moves through multiple axes while exploring corporate conformity. Granted, the satire only extends as far as having an uptight young men in suits prattle on about “processing the forms,” but even though the Kafka-esque tidbits turn up stale, the progressive music and crisp look make this sociological study go down easy…"

Music DVD of the Week: The Committee. This Music Video Distributors release is extremely bizarre. Not only do you have a narrative going on about a whacked out murder and a secret organization that runs the world, but the whole thing is set to the musical score by Pink Floyd. And if that wasn't enough, you also get "Fire" performed by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, which was one of the seminal vinyl singles of my childhood. And yes, that explains a lot. (Buy it)

The Committee (Scored by Pink Floyd)
By Robin Steeley CRAVE MAGAZINE

This film has been unavailable since the 1960’s until its recent Basho Records release and it has a popular history especially among Pink Floyd fans for its soundtrack that was recorded by the band one morning in the studio. The Film is 55 minutes long and done in Black and White. The DVD has an interview by Oscar winning director Jon Blair with Max Steuer (writer and producer) and Peter Sykes (Director). There is also included a CD with three tracks by the Homemade Orchestra, a classical/jazz fusion group performing the song ‘The Committee’ arranged by Tim Whitehead as well as two other Homemade tracks.

The fact that the musical score is written and performed by Pink Floyd is enough to make this movie successful, regardless of its merit, but lets not stop short at the music. For the time in which it was created, the film is extremely well preserved and the production and audio quite decent. The movie itself tends towards the bizarre with interesting direction. The plot itself can be at times confusing and twisted, which might have been the directors intention.

The Committee stars Paul Jones of Manfred Mann fame and it is a documentary of Britain in the 1960’s, a controversial subject at its best. The story is about a murder, but the real subject is the controversy between the bureaucracy and individual freedom. The story unfolds in a haphazard way that will still manage to captivate you to the very end.

This is worthy for any independent film buff, and any fan of Pink Floyd that would like to hear some lost tracks.

http://www.portlandmusicians.com/crave/2005/09/film.shtml

The Committee Movie City News

Despite the casting of Paul Jones (a.k.a., Manfred Mann) in a central role, a musical performance by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and a free-form soundtrack by Pink Floyd, The Committee remains a relic of British psychedelia too obscure even to have attained cult status … let alone, a regular home on the midnight-movie circuit. This probably had more to do with a grisly beheading (a Mercedes hood is used as a guillotine) and similarly disgusting re-heading, both of which occur in the film's first 10 minutes, than any of the existential mumbo-jumbo that followed. The pop sociology at the heart of writer-producer Max Steuer's 55-minute exercise in paranoid scholarship -- the world is ruled by committees, whose members are enemies of freedom and individuality -- is almost embarrassingly trite. And, yet, The Committee remains oddly compelling. More than any of Steur's ideas about contemporary alienation, the sustaining interest here derives from the music. The MVD release includes a CD, with Jones singing the theme song and other music from Homemade Orchestra. From here, director Peter Sykes would go on to helm To the Devil a Daughter, and, when he wasn't teaching at the London School of Economics, Steuer would set several world records as a hot-air balloonist. No kidding. -- Gary Dretzka

http://www.moviecitynews.com/reviews/DVD/2005/050915.html

The Committee (DVD/CD Set) Nicholas Sheffo

Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: B-

Peter Sykes is an interesting and distinctive British filmmaker and one of his early successes was the long-out-of-circulation The Committee from 1968. The film begins with a simple conversation between a car driver and the hitchhiker he picks up, taking a surrealistic turn and going from there. Paul Jones (aka the music artist Manfred Mann) turns in one of his little-known acting performances as the unnamed main character in this tale of a near-future Britain where murder, the state and the individual are looked at in a new way.

The twist here in the Max Steuer/Peter Sykes screenplay (from Steuer’s original story) is that the hour-long film that wants to question the idea of the individual insofar as that one is not flawless. This is in the face of State power and it is something worth looking at, though it eventually brings one to the slippery slope that because individuals are flawed, they deserve to be ruled by a bureaucracy or worse. The film does not go there, but it unfortunately leaves that door more open than one would like. The film is slightly left of center in all this, reminding us that the title entity is involved with all state and corporate power.

Sykes went on to do a few episodes in the final season of The Avengers (reviewed elsewhere on this site), followed by some memorable Horror genre films like To The Devil… A Daughter (also reviewed elsewhere on this site), Venom, Demons In The Mind and The House In Nightmare Park. He is a really good director who did not get to work as often as one wishes he could have, but this is maybe the toughest of his works to find. How great it is now available on DVD.

The 1.33 X 1 full frame image is not bad, shot by cinematographer Ian Wilson, B.S.C., who shows he can handle black and white as well as he handles color. This is the film that helped to put him on the map, only his second, going on to lens And Soon The Darkness, Fright, Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, Derek Jarman’s Edward II and the fourth series of Quatermass (reviewed elsewhere on this site). Wilson and Sykes would work together several more times, making for one of the less-known but very effective British director/cinematographer teams.

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is not bad for its age, with about 17 minutes of music by no less that Pink Floyd (without vocals, around the time they would also contribute to Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970) before coming into their own). The only extras include the three-song CD that includes Jones new recording of the title song and two instrumental re-recordings by The Homemade Orchestra of Bird and Here Comes The Flood, as well as an interview with Sykes and Steuer that runs 51:05 and is well worth your time AFTER you watch the film.

One other thing that makes the film interesting is that it is a portrait of a future England that is not A Clockwork Orange or Brazil, part of a cycle of such films that are too little scene. Now that it’s on DVD, The Committee will be discovered bya whole new generation of film and music fans. A terrific portrait of the 1960s as well, it is highly recommended.

THE COMMITTEE
Director: Peter Sykes
Cast: Paul Jones, Tom Kempinski, Robert Lloyd, Pauline Munroe, Jimmy Gardner
(Craytic, 1968)
DVD release date: 13 September 2005 (Music Video Distributors)
by Hunter Felt

A Pop Singer, a Professor of Economics, and One of the World's Biggest Pop Acts Walk Onto a Movie Set...

The Committee's marketers had two options in how to sell this strange '60s curio, now released on DVD for the first time. First, they could have hailed it as a lost art film classic, a bizarre collaboration between a budding commercial director and a noted professor of economics that embarks on a nuanced take on the morality of rebellion..........
http://www.popmatters.com/film/reviews/c/committee-1968-dvd.shtml

The Committee comes to DVD with Pink Floyd
July 14, 2005


The controversial UK documentary The Committee is making its way to DVD from Eclectic DVD along with a long lost musical score.
The Committee, starring Paul Jones of Manfred Mann fame, is a unique and controversial document of Britain in the 1960s. Avoiding easy answers, The Committee uses a surreal murder to explore the tension and conflict between bureaucracy on one side, and individual freedom on the other. Unlike many films of the era that vilified the state as repressive, The Committee also explores the inherent weakness of the individual. Writer and producer Max Steuer and director Peter Syke’s complex vision is presented with creative and often bizarre techniques, placing this film firmly within the 60’s psychedelic movement.
The musical score is a major element of this film. Written and performed by the Pink Floyd, the soundtrack is some of the most intellectual music Pink Floyd has ever produced, according to music writer David King. This music has never before been released on any format, and is a must for all Floyd fanatics. Also featured in the movie is Arthur Brown performing his hit Fire.
The DVD includes a CD of the Homemade Orchestra, a classical/jazz fusion group, performing the song The Committee, written by Steuer and Jones, as well as two other Homemade Orchestra tracks. The DVD also includes 50 minute interview with Steuer and Sykes who take us behind the scenes of The Committee. Oscar-winning documentary-maker Jon Blair conducts the interview and explores the fascinating and complex ideas behind the The Committee and humorously reveals the trials of making an independent film.

A Pair of Pink Floyd Rarities Hit DVD
Story by John James

Forget all that Austin Powers nonsense and get truly psychedelic this coming Tuesday, as Snapper Records is releasing a rare, seminal documentary of the swinging London scene of the late 1960s. Now on DVD for the first time, Pink Floyd London 1966-1967 captures the band at its creation, with rare footage taken from Peter Whitehead’s film Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London. The sights and swirls of this “new Elizabethan” youth culture glow with blurred neon trails and slow-motion wig-outs under the colored lights and strobes. Abuzz with the sexual and pop-art revolutions, these club kids still danced to live music (!), with young men in suits trying to keep up with gyrating miniskirts and other groovy accoutrements on the dance floor. A friend of the band from Cambridge, Whitehead invited the then-unsigned group to a three-hour recording session – the band’s very first – in hopes of producing original music for his film. Letting the cameras run in the recording studio, the band performs its first recorded version of “Interstellar Overdrive” and the new improvisational music for the session, entitled “Nick’s Boogie.” Another highlight is the band’s performance at the “14-Hour Technicolor Dream” at Alexandria Place, documenting what is believed to be the night John Lennon met Yoko Ono. As a bonus, commentators Whitehead, Mick Jagger, artist David Hockney, and actor Michael Caine speak extensively about the swinging London underground of the day. More Pink Floyd rarities are found in another DVD just released by Basho Records and Eclectic DVD. A hard-to-find film from 1968, The Committee is a surreal black-and-white nugget of paranoia, featuring an emotionless, wandering young man who is chosen to participate in a “committee” at a tranquil, mysterious campus, doing as he is told, “to keep the system going.” Staring Paul Jones of Manfred Mann as the young hitchhiker, the film’s score was written and performed by Pink Floyd, never before released before in any format. One segment of the film is a tripped-out must-see – a metallic-masked Arthur Brown sporting an on-fire headpiece, freaking out a living-room gathering with a crazy performance of “Fire.”