Fritz il gatto

The bad thing about the past is that it is designed to fool you.

The idea is supposed to be that the past stays fixed, as a sort of "truth." And we change. But viewed from ourselves, often the illusion or even the truth is the reverse. We know who we are. We think we recall who we were -- which we envision is some state on the way to who we are. Something relatively static, which means that the past changes. Radically.

Or at least artifacts from the past change, artifacts like movies. All this is complicated by the fact that movies are a key tool we use to define ourselves.

So it is a strange trip indeed to encounter something that DID define us, that we allowed to tell us who we were. And to find it so vacuous, so superficial it shocks.

If you were not a hippie in that era you may need to know the great schisms at work. (I mean the era depicted here -- 1969 -- not the actual date of the movie.)

You had the east coast hippies who were the sons and daughters of the beat generation. We were interested in ideas and art, and life as both. You had the "political" hippies, who were motivated by unhappiness and determined to change what they didn't like in the name of the values of more "genuine" hippies.

And then you had the west coast hippies. These were the ones captured by drugs, "free" sex and dropping out. To differentiate themselves, they adopted the icons of death.

At the time, there was as much confusion among these three as between any one of them and the Nixonites. (This was in the days of the "moral majority" and before the rise of the religious right which evolved from it.)

And where there is is identity confusion, art rushes in. The Beatles of course, and central. Eastern "religions."

And R Crumb.

Crumb was a magnet, pulling many from the other camps into the west coast sphere. He made it seem less radical than it was -- more about cruising (which he called "truckin") and simply enjoying the cornucopia of round women God places there only for pleasure.

We bought it, all of us. It was a sort of commercial identity, sort of like what you see today that surrounds Valentine's day. A vague notion of self and others and satisfied living.

Now, we look at this and it seems the past has moved away from us, away from truth. Was this ever good, or did we only pretend it so because we were so hungry to be defined?

I recently saw a Mickey Rooney movie where he introduces himself to Judy Garland as "white, free and available." I recoiled. I rejected that past. I had nearly the same feeling when watching this, even though it is/was my past.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

The story concerns a classic 60's hero, Fritz, and his adventures through the urban underground… He loves sex and constantly claims and declares the glories of revolution… At first he is happy with just sex, but as the story moves through exotic adventures he discovers that the only way he can truly be a revolutionary is to join up with one of the militant groups… There, he's over his head…

In sharp contrast to Walt Disney's soft characters, Fritz is seen providing a bunch of screaming female cats, placing drugs, and having lots of fun… We are taken through Harlem where, in this case, the blacks are portrayed as jive-talking crows… Fritz is not a fantasy, but an animation venture into super-reality, at least as Bakshi sees it…

The animation is unpolished, graceless, but very effective… It has an unrefined or unfinished, renewable energy that brings out some of the social results of the confused sixties

I came of age in New York City during the 1960s and shared many of the same trials and tribulations of Fritz the Cat. It's hard to find your kicks when everyone around you is spaced out and hung up on aggression. All us long-hairs got a bad rap, like Fritz, because we were confused about what it is we wanted. For those of us who lived, we began to age to the point of getting knowledge and understanding. Of course by the time we understood that it was too late to do anything about it. The scene was too weird and we were too confused. Fritz the Cat is like a lot of the guys I hung around with; full of ideas and short on ambition. This film is a perfect view of what some people saw in the 1960s. 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

Anyone who didn't like Fritz the Cat is not looking at the film in the right way. A lot of the reviews I've read basically said that it is nothing more than a bad film that strives only on shock value to get an audience. I also read that it doesn't have much of a storyline and only revolves around sex and drugs......so what else did you expect a movie about the slackers of the 60s to have? Did the stoners of that decade NOT behave the way Fritz does in the movie? In order to understand the point of the movie you have to put yourself into Fritz's shoes and let him guide you through his life as a college drop-out trying to find his purpose (Existentialism for those who are not familiar with philosophy) in life and still have a good time. Of course his journey leads you to animal orgies and a crow that hides pot in awkward places, but that is the beauty of this movie--it's about freedom! I also do not believe it is outdated because Fritz's trippy surroundings and his pseudo-intellectual thoughts were enough to make me melt! It's all about the mood. The animation and music put the viewer in a hypnotic state where nothing else matters except pleasure and happiness. If you can't identify with Fritz then you have lost the feel of what it's like being young.

And just for some peoples' info. the movie is not X-rated because it has explicit sex scenes (any viewer of pornography, also X-rated in some form, knows that we have seen much more of the human body then is depicted in this film), it is X-rated because there are CARTOON ANIMALS HAVING SEX. Anyone who would give this film an R-rating because there are no close-ups should not plan on an MPAA career in the near future

I came across the recently released DVD of this film in, of all places, the children's video section of Virgin Megastore. Whether or not this poorly miscategorized placement was of simple ignorance or whether the intent weas subversive and it was intentionally and deliberately placed in the children's section, I found myself grinning and reluctant inform anyone of the error. After all, nobody gave me any forewarnings when I was a kid either, as some things you just have to discover on your own, and the thought of some poor innocent parents popping this film on for their kid only to look on in horror at the visions that would soon unfold sounded dastardly and funny indeed.

I was 7 years old when Fritz the Cat first hit the screen, and while I didn't see the film for the first time until I was well into my twenties, the film nevertheless had a lasting impact on my childhood. This film had taken on a reputation of mythical proportions in my Brooklyn hometown neighborhood, partly due to the older teens on my street who were all too eager to share shocking details contained therein, as only the best subversive intentions can do, and further securing the film's status as "every parent's nightmare". To a child about to undergo serious growing pains and a naturally growing curiosity towards all things "adult-related", Fritz the Cat was very much my earliest childhood memory of the themes of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, racism, you name it, and it was a symbol for naughtiness that all coming of age kids couldn't wait to catch a sneak peak of, or at least couldn't wait to reach the age when we could view such subject matter freely.

As a movie, it hasn't lost any of it's impact in 30 years, and fewer films truly capture the grittiness and raw edge of New York city in the 70's (French Connection is another good example). I dare say that it could be considered more offensive now than ever, as I fear that today many just might not "get it," despite our self-proclamation that we've come a long way in maturity and tolerance of such sensitive issues. Modern society has become so politically correct and desensitized to controversial issues that we're less tolerant and understanding of the original intent of a film such as this, especially when it's messages are not consistent with our modern value system. Thus, some of the obvious stereotypes presented in this film (such as the pigs portraying cops and the crows portraying blacks, for example), could never be presented in a film today. Granted, these images were meant to be offensive in the 70's as well, but they were obviously taken in a different light back then, as they were indicative of a specific brand of biting satire found in the 70's and hippie culture and a reflection of how that particular generation could openly address such social issues. These issues, such as racism, are clearly still relevant today, we just address them in a different manner, which is why Fritz the Cat still has potency yet is more or less looked upon as a curious time capsule of a bygone era today.