Alice's Restaurant

 Alice's Restaurant (Penn, 1969)

Based on Arlo's own attempts to avoid being drafted into Vietnam War

He visits his friend Alice - having been asked to leave college

Thanksgiving

He and a friend dump rubbish and are arrested

He comes before the law for this

Penn's auteurship:

'quintessentially' counter-cultural - rebellion

Youth - new generation 'hippy' culture

Anti-Vietnam

Old vs young

Plot summary:

Arlo attempts to avoid being drafted in the army to fight in Vietnam but he gets kicked out of college, meaning he has no excuse not to go. He goes off to live with Alice in a hippie commune in an old church whilst she opens up a restaurant. Their friends are either traumatised from Vietnam, heavy drug users or plain old folk-singing hippies but they all live together in a society designed to hate them. Arlo visits his dying father, Woody, who has Huntington's, Arlo is concerned due to its hereditary nature. After a run-in with the law when he gets caught littering, Arlo realises that his army physical is coming up but his counter-culture nature means he isn't accepted. Then his father dies as well as his friend who was traumatised from Vietnam.

Timeline:

1. Being drafted into the army before being kicked out of college

2. Goes to live with various people before settling with Alice, who is repurposing an old church into a restaurant

3. He visits his dying father who is getting worse (this happens twice)

4. He gets arrested for littering all the rubbish from Thanksgiving and is bailed out but has to leave the state, with Roger, and dispose of the rubbish elsewhere

5. He goes to New York to do his army physical where they don't accept him

6. Shelly and Alice are very close, creating a divide once he overdoses and dies

7. Arlo's father, Woody, also dies and we met his mother

8. Alice and Ray get married and Ray gets very drunk

9. Everybody left and began to move on whilst drunk Rey begged them to stay, symbolising that everyone is moving on

10. Alice is left standing on her own, even after marriage, she has lost everybody

Counter-culture in Alice's Restaurant:

Youth vs older generation
Conflict of ideals, values and politics 
Alternative society: hippies, communes, sharing, reaction to power and greed
Broken America - divided country
Hippie lifestyle - erratic, itinerant
Motif of motorcycles - new energy, drive, youth, rebellion
Spaces - old church becomes restaurant - old places, new ideas: like America
Insanity of war - anti-Vietnam

The 'drafting sequence' - Importance of 1960s counter-culture:

Rebellious - doesn't take the war seriously
Dresses with long hair, long clothes and a hat - counter-cultural
Hear parts of the scene during the title sequence - goes against film conventions
Waiting room - dark as they are waiting to be drafted for the war
High angle - makes her look small, looking down on her
Mise en scene - knitting is peaceful, harmless
Lighting - harsh, white light

All boys - same clothes/underwear - seem as the same and worthless - foreshadows dying at war
Forced to strip - dignity and identity taken away
Walking through corridor - Arlo tells the story of his crimes - tracking shot, whole figure in frame; further and further being drafted - movement
Officer's shock - contributes to failure of the exam
Arlo visits psychiatrist - test 'takes the micky' makes a joke out of it
Soldiers 'respect' this -  irony
War cruel and inhumane
'Funny' - he can't be drafted for litter but can for wanting to murder
Lighting - warm tone - reflects Arlo

Penn As An Auteur - Similarities

Strong female roles and representations - Alice and Bonnie
Performance - Alice very mothering, swimming sequence - Bonnie is more masculine - gun
Glamorise crime and sub-cultures
Younger generation, influential; positive representation 

Celebration of youth in cinema - Penn uses youth - wider audience
Excitement in cinema unprecedented
Changing themes - new way of thinking - e.g. gender roles, expectations, inspiration to react to change
Penn pushes boundaries: discuss topics that aren't discussed much in society
Representations of the 1960s
Arlo and Bonnie - leaving parents ahead - rejection of traditional ideas
Penn emboldens male characters to be true to their feelings

Penn As An Auteur - Differences

Released at the same time it was set in
Bonnie & Clyde has a specific focal point - Alice's Restaurant is more broad
Alice's Restaurant has concrete locations
Alice's Restaurant is less subtle about its ideas
Diegetic music
Voiceover
Pacifists in Alice's Restaurant whereas violence embraced in B&C