What to Rent on DVD - Hair

Hair! Hair! Long beautiful Hair! A rousing song for the masses. But this is not the only or the best song in this film. In fact this is a 1979 musical about the war in Vietneam which lasted up until 1975. With the direction of one of the greatest directors of all times Milos Forman, the great actors like Treat Williams and John Savage in the starring male roles, and the music and lyrics from Gerome Ragni and james Rado, Hair is possibly one of the greatest musicals ever put to screen.

Hair details the angry, despairing and dutiful feelings of the younger American generation, the hippies mostly, pertaining to the Vietnam war during the 1960's and 1970's. From the political issues of war, to the sexual revolution to women's and minority's rights to draft to the cultural change in the world at the time, Hair explores these issues with music and pure emotion.

John Savage plays a good ol' boy from the Midwest who is drafted and on his way to Washington. He feels a duty to his country to fight but when he meets a group of protesters in the park on his way to the capitol, he is amazed by their thoughts ideas about human rights. Treat Williams plays the leader of this group. He is emphatic about where the world is going and thinks it is each individual person who can change things, a mantra of the 1960's hippie playground.

The opening of the film is one of the greatest in musical film history. We see the hills of Alabama, we see the plains of the Midwest, we see the country's people in peace. And with a funky beat behind it the song Aquarius is belted out by the group of hippies in the park. With such great feeling and self-awareness they have, Savage happens upon them and tries to understand what's going on.

Other fantastic songs from the film besides Aquarius is Easy to be Hard, the ward-winning song and Let The Sunshine In. Those songs take on a new meanings in the context of this film which is the greatest thing about musicals in general. But Let the Sunshine is a song of power during the end of the film. With added lyrics from the play that never plays on the radio, we understand that the younger generation feels that the world has grown dark and shrouds the real problems of the world with its wars.

Throughout the film, Savagae learns what it means to be free but still feels the need to fulfill his obligation. But to save him, Williams goes to war in his place. One for the saddest, relevant, and controversial films of all time, Hair sets the tone for the battlefield on the topic of war that every American understand. We all have our own beliefs on the justice and injustice of war. And this film shows just how much the your position on war can be just as brutal of a battle as war itself.