Hang Out with Hippies – Commune

Conscious Cinema Selection – Commune

Directed by Jonathan Berman

Travel back to the tumultuous 1960s to hear first-hand what it was like to start and sustain a commune whose motto was “Free Land for Free People.” This acclaimed documentary offers a candid look into the joys and difficulties of free love, nude farming, survival in the wilderness, multiple-parent childrearing and other fascinating aspects of communal living.

Editor’s note: There is quite a bit of nudity in this film, although none of it is lascivious.

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Features interviews with several Black Bear alumni, including actor/activist Peter Coyote, alongside a wealth of photographs and home movies, this acclaimed documentary offers a candid look into the joys and difficulties of free love, nude farming, survival in the wilderness, multiple-parent childrearing and other fascinating aspects of communal living.

Movie Info from Rotten Tomatoes

In 1968 members of San Francisco’s Mime Troupe and Digger Movement decided to separate from society and form their own community, known as the Black Bear Ranch, to reconnect with nature and experience a different way of life. At the turn of the new century the resilient counterculture settlement was still active at the base of majestic Mount Shasta, and filmmaker Jonathan Berman traveled to the eighty-acre tract to explore just how the Black Bear Ranch continues to thrive despite the concerns of their suspicious neighbors and the ever-present eyes of the F.B.I. Life is lived at a different pace at the Black Bear Ranch, and now, as nostalgic members of the commune openly discuss just how life in the community has changed over the years, outsiders can finally see precisely how the bold social experiment has continued to defy all predictions regarding its longevity. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/commune/