Review by Gary Tooze

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• Introduction by Luc Lagier (6:24 in French, no subtitles)
• "Before Taking Off Milos Forman en route to America" (Fiction Factory) Forman says the beginning of his career in the Soviet Czechoslovakia and the genesis of Taking Off between France and the United States (29:47 - English with French subtitles)
• "Two European in New York": Jean-Claude Carričre, who co-authored Taking Off Milos Forman, remembers their meeting and unique experience of New York hipster (16:16 - French - no subtitles)

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Description: Czech filmmaker Milos Forman's first American production stars Linnea Heacock as Jeannie Tyne, a runaway teenager. While she wanders aimlessly around New York, her suburban parents, Lynn (Lynn Carlin) and Larry (Buck Henry), desperately search for their "missing" daughter. Larry and his best friend, Tony (Tony Harvey), inaugurate a search, but their expedition is sidetracked by a drinking binge at a local bar. Meanwhile, Lynn and Tony's wife, Margot (Georgia Engel), begin discussing their sex lives. Jeannie does finally return home, to constant questioning by her parents about which drugs she has taken; later, after Lynn and Larry join a support group for the parents of runaway children, they turn around and get stoned on marijuana themselves during one of the group meetings, then lapse into a randy game of strip poker -- little realizing that their daughter is close at hand and within earshot. As a critically revered lampoon of late-'60s sensibilities, Taking Off is full of "unknown" Manhattan-based performers who became famous during the '70s and '80s, including Paul Benedict, Vincent Schiavelli, Allen Garfield, Audra Lindley, and, in fleeting roles as auditioning singers, Carly Simon, who performs "Long Time Physical Effects," and Kathy Bates (billed as Bobo Bates), who performs "Even the Horses Had Wings".

 

 

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Carlotta provide a 6.5 minute Luc Lagier in French only - as is a 16-minute piece interviewing Jean-Claude Carričre who co-authored Taking Off with Milos Forman. There is also another of Robert Fischer's excellent Fiction Factory documentaries described as "In this newly edited and illustrated archival interview from 2000, Czech director Milos Forman talks about his childhood and youth, the advent of the Czech New Wave and his opportunity to go to New York to shoot his first American film: TAKING OFF (1971)." It is excellent and runs just shy of 1/2 hour.