Daria Halprin Movies
Daria Halprin's screen career is the embodiment of the Andy Warhol-spawned notion of 15 minutes of fame. She was the daughter of San Francisco-based choreographer Ann Halprin, and grew up in the Bay Area. Although she never trained as an actress or aspired to a movie career, she ended up in one of the best documentaries ever done about the San Francisco of the late '60s, and also starred in one of the most controversial feature films ever released by MGM. A free spirit in the best 1960s tradition, Halprin studied dance and appeared in one experimental movie during the mid-'60s. She also showed up in Revolution (1968), Jack O'Connell's celebrated (though too seldom seen) documentary about the city's hippie population. Halprin was chosen by director Michelangelo Antonioni to play the female lead in his debut American feature, Zabriskie Point, a movie intended to address the violence that seemed to be infecting American life at the end of the 1960s. Halprin's naturalism, coupled with her good looks and her dance training -- which seemed to inform her movements on camera -- made her far more memorable in the movie than her leading man, Mark Frechette, a non-actor who was literally recruited off the street. Apart from a fairly explicit (for the time) sex scene between the leads and two sequences depicting police violence and an explosion, however, most of the movie's visuals were eclipsed by the soundtrack, which included the Rolling Stones, the Youngbloods, the Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd. None of those attributes were sufficient to help the film earn back more than a fraction of its multimillion-dollar cost. There are moments when watching the movie (and Halprin's work) in which one could forget that it was a film, although overall, the picture was an embarrassment to all concerned, including MGM, which financed it. In 1972, Halprin appeared in her third and final film, John Flynn's thriller The Jerusalem File, made by MGM, in a major role alongside Nicol Williamson, Donald Pleasence, and Ian Hendry -- that same year, she married actor/director Dennis Hopper, who, in the wake of his own financially disastrous feature, The Last Movie, had entered a period of professional eclipse. The two were divorced in 1976, and Halprin was later known to be a successful dance therapy specialist. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide- 1972
- PG
A well-meaning American finds himself in the midst of political turmoil in the wake of the Arab-Israeli Six Day War in this drama. David (Bruce Davison), an American student doing graduate work at Tel Aviv University, becomes reacquainted with Raschid (Zeev Revan), a young Arab who was David's roommate while attending Yale. David and Raschid are studying archeology, and in the interest of friendship, David begins acting as a go-between for Arab and Israeli students, unaware that he's aiding an underground terrorist operation in the process. The supporting cast includes Nicol Williamson as Dr. Lang, one of David's professors, and Daria Halprin as Nurit, one of Lang's students (and also his lover). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Davison, Nicol Williamson, (more)
- 1970
- R
Zabriskie Point, director Michelangelo Antonioni's only American film, is an unusual, visually stunning examination of youthful rebellion against the Establishment. The film, initially presented in quasi-documentary style, presents a group of college activists discussing key issues of their political agenda. Mark (Mark Frechette) steals an airplane and flies over a desert where he meets Daria (Daria Halprin). She is the pot-smoking secretary to businessman Lee Allen (Rod Taylor), while he is a rebel searching for a worthy cause. In the midst of the arid surroundings, Mark and Daria fall in love. Antonioni's nonrealistic approach to American counterculture myths, his loose and sluggish narrative, and the dialogue (credited to Fred Gardner, Sam Shepard, Tonino Guerra, Clare Peploe, and Antonioni) caused Zabriskie Point to be poorly received when it was first released. The score features songs from Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Kaleidoscope, The Rolling Stones, John Fahey, The Youngbloods and Patti Page. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, (more)
- 1968
Primarily filmed in San Francisco, this documentary features a series of interviews with those who call themselves hippies, or in some way identify with hippies. The countercultural revolution is revealed in discussions about sex, drugs, philosophy and lifestyle. Casual nudity and marijuana use is the main activity of one group. A nun who has left the order reveals her decisions to join the counterculture. Others decry the dehumanization of the modern industrial world, choosing to lead a hand-to-mouth existence. Communal living, psychedelic shows, love-ins and diverse fashion statements accompany the hippies who are many things to many people. All share a feeling of human togetherness and a live-and-let-live philosophy as they cope with the rapidly changing spectrum of social and political events in their lives. Music by Country Joe & the Fish, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Steve Miller Band, and Mother Earth. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
