Medium Cool (1969)
- What sorts of arguments are being made about media, the way media presents information and events, and/or the news media's complicity in its own use or irrelevance?
- How does the audience of news media come off in this film? How complicit is the audience in demanding a media that serves up shock value rather than information?
- What kinds of “hidden stories” are this film dealing with that the implied news audience in the film isn't aware of?
- Consider our fiction/reality model and the idea of numbness: If you were to sketch this out for Medium Cool, how might it look? In other words, what are people not responding to in this film, and how does that sort of unawareness have real consequences?
- Where do you see ironic detachment in this film? Ironic engagement?
- How can this film be read in conjunction with Marshall McLuhan's essay Media Hot and Cold?
- Say Plato watched this film and then sat down with the director Haskell Wexler for a drink; how might Plato approach this story? What would he find?
Medium Cool Synopsis | The New York Times
Medium Cool | The Village Voice (2002)
The 'X' Stigma Stunts Films' Creative Growth | USA Today (1990)
Look Out Haskell, It's Real! | Library Journal (2004)
Real Events of '68 Seen in Medium Cool | The New York Times (1969)
