Commune
List Price:
Our Price: $13.74
You Save: $11.21 (45%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $13.00 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Allegra Brucker, Catherine Guerra, Creek Hanauer, Harriet Beinfeld, Tesilya HanauerBrand: First RUN Features
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 78 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-10-23
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
DVD Reviews of Commune
DVD Review: Building the new in the shell of the old
Summary: 4 Stars
What do you do when you become convinced that your country is unchangeably repressive and that efforts at reform at best tinker around the edges of it? For thousands of people in the 1960s, the answer was to build alternative communities--"communes," as they were called then, "intentional communities," as they're called today. One of the longest-lasting of these 1960s-era communities, Black Bear Ranch, is explored by director Jonathan Berman in his fascinating "Commune."
Founded in 1968 on 80 secluded acres in northern California, Black Bear is still up and running, although with a different generation of residents. Berman tracks the commune from its early days through the present with generous interviews of some of its founders, many of whom--actor Peter Coyote, Osha Neumann, Herbert Marcuse's stepson--have since "gone respectable."
One of the best features of Berman's film is its balance. Like all communities, Black Bear had its ups and downs--youthful idealism and youthful naivete, sexual freedom and sexual jealousy, tolerant earnestness and dogmatic zealotry--and Berman goes to some pains to make sure that his audience is exposed to both. His interviews with the commune's residents also reveals, without hitting the viewer over the head, that communal living can bring out the best as well as the worst in individual personalities.
One of the more touching interviews in the film was with the dying Richard Marley, co-founder of Black Bear. Marley's transformation during his years at the commune, from a rather authoritarian type to one who gradually learned to embrace "open-heartedness"--is one of the individual success stories from the experiment, and in many ways it symbolizes the general transformation the community went through (one of the most obvious of these is the change of attitude towards women as equal partners).
Black Bear's motto from the very beginning was "Free Land for Free People." There are hazards, of course, when one embraces freedom, but there are also great possibilities. Berman's "Commune" is a testament to both. But it would've been good to hear a bit more than Berman delivers about the nature of the alternative society that Black Bear residents hoped to build--their values, their hopes, their vision.
Description of Commune
COMMUNE - DVD MovieBestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
AdriftUniversal; Release date: 2011-06-14; DVD
Best price: $14.69
Price in other shops:
HounddogDVD
Best price: $8.25
I Told You Not To Call The PoliceRelease date: 2010-12-07; DVD
Best price: $8.66
Price in other shops:
Tom and LolaDVD
Best price: $24.95
AngelaNew Video; Release date: 2002-11-26; DVD
Best price: $12.59
Price in other shops:
The GirlRelease date: 2011-02-08; DVD
Best price: $17.64
Price in other shops:
Notes from Nethers: Growing Up In A Sixties Communeby Sandra Lee Eugster
Academy Chicago Publishers; Published: 2007-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.57
Price in other shops:
Wild Child: Girlhoods in the CountercultureSeal Press; Published: 1999-11-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.20
Price in other shops:
Sleeping Where I Fall: A Chronicleby Peter Coyote
Counterpoint; Published: 2009-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops:
Flashing on the Sixties a Tribal DocumentRelease date: 1994-03-08; DVD
Best price: $19.98