Movie

Snapshots

This experimental film, a self-described mix of reality and fiction shot in Greenwich Village and a Vermont commune, captures past and present moments from the life of Mel Howard, the film’s co-writer & co-narrator. Scenes chronicling Howard’s doomed romance with Scandinavian girl friend Turid Aarsted are interwoven with scenes detailing Howard’s relationship with his parents and with a former girl friend, as well as his failed attempts at moviemaking. One sequence depicts Aarsted leaving the thirty-seven-year-old Howard for the film’s cameraman, Paul Goldsmith, and includes a sex scene between the new lovers. In off-screen commentary, producer Kenneth E. Schwartz expresses concern about the film’s content. He reveals that he raised $50,000 for the project, complains to the viewer that the film was not supposed to be a “diary of freaky people.” Eventually he and Howard come to terms about the film’s direction and allow the film’s story to unfold unobstructed.

Director

Irving Horowitz

Status

Released

Release date

29/01/1973

Original language

English