Taking Off

Between the bittersweet brilliance of A Blonde in Love and the Oscar glory of Cuckoo's Nest, Milos Forman made this riotous 1971 oddity about America’s (counter)cultural revolution, where Nixon-voting squares are aghast that their flowers-in-their-hair offspring are embracing drugs and rock & roll. The picture opens with Jennie (Linnea Heacock, a striking actor who wouldn’t look out of place in an Altman movie alongside Shelly Duvall and Lily Tomlin) auditioning for an all-female folk ensemble.

Retaining the same nonchalant style that made him a Czech New Wave star, Forman flips between this wannabe Joni Mitchell and her middle-class New Yorker parents, who try to comprehend their daughter’s disaffection by embracing a bohemian lifestyle. Strip poker, a Tina Turner concert and – hilariously – a joint smoking tutorial from Vincent Schiavelli (a Forman regular) are their gateways to understanding Jennie’s rebellion. A biting indictment of both generations, Taking Off is, like Repo Man and RoboCop, one of the great satires on American culture from a squinting Euro-perspective.