GME Licenses Footage From Jonas Mekas Films For The New Errol Morris Documentary MY PSYCHEDELIC LOVE STORY

MY PSYCHEDELIC LOVE STORY is the newest documentary from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris. This film is structured as a psychedelic head trip, crossed with the story of a possible CIA conspiracy, and wrapped in a fascinating love story told by the late Joanna Harcourt-Smith about her time with Timothy Leary. In MY PSYCHEDELIC LOVE STORY, Morris and Harcourt-Smith reexamine this chaotic period of her life and explore the dark side of the Leary saga: his period of exile, re-imprisonment and subsequent cooperation with the authorities.

At the heart of the story is the woman Leary described as his “perfect love.” Leary’s former partner in crime, Harcourt-Smith, is the sole narrator in MY PSYCHEDELIC LOVE STORY, providing a colorful depiction of her time living, loving, and tripping with Timothy Leary. She talks directly to Morris throughout the film, answering his pointed questions about the enigma that was Mr. Leary. Was she a government pawn, a Mata Hari or simply a beautiful, young, intelligent woman on the trip of a lifetime? Through a series of candid interviews, Morris and Harcourt-Smith reexamine this chaotic period, resulting in a singular snapshot of the early 1970s cultural landscape – and its profound impact on the trajectory of one woman’s life.

Lou Reed and Edie Sedgwick in Jonas Mekas' WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES AND SKETCHES (1969)

Andy Warhol in Jonas Mekas' WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES AND SKETCHES (1969)

74-year-old Joanna Harcourt-Smith, with sharp eyes and a sensual Cheshire cat grin, describes in almost giddy fashion the secrets that she’s about to reveal. As one of Timothy Leary’s lovers while the LSD evangelist was hopscotching around the world to elude Richard Nixon’s opportunistic war on drugs, Harcourt-Smith fraternized with arms dealers, filmmakers, artists, and celebrities throughout the 1970s. Of course, for a privileged Swiss boarding school girl who’d always had a command over men, who frequently vacationed throughout Europe, and who lived for a spell with the Rolling Stones as a teenager, such adventures appear to have felt inevitable to her.

A scene from Jonas Mekas' REPORT FROM MILLBROOK (1965-66)

Errol Morris interviewed Harcourt-Smith at length about her experiences during those turbulent times and her relationship with Leary. In the process, Morris delves into his usual fascinations with conflicting versions of the truth, both in the historical record and in people’s own memories. Harcourt-Smith, who died this past October, got to tell her side of things on camera at last.

Using a variety of camera angles rather than just his trademark technique of having his subjects speak directly to the camera, Morris infuses the proceedings with that era’s visual feel, including psychedelic-style graphics, tinted imagery, stock footage and pop culture references obliquely commenting on the material, including clips from Disney's ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Greta Garbo's MATA HARI, Marlene Dietrich's THE BLUE ANGEL, the film noir classic DOUBLE INDEMNITY and even his own 2017 Netflix miniseries WORMWOOD. Leary is seen in numerous archival clips, as well as heard in snippets of audio interviews.

Among the archival clips included in this movie are scenes shot by experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas from his own film REPORT FROM MILLBROOK (shots of which were also re-incorporated in his magnum opus WALDEN). As per Mekas, “REPORT FROM MILLBROOK was filmed in 1965, on a weekend visit to Tim Leary's place. It was a light summer outing. No LSD. Tim took me for a walk, though, and we talked about LSD. I told him that the chemicals that motivate and drive artists are more powerful and mysterious than LSD or any drug. On that note we turned back and ended our walk. There was nothing more to say. In 1966, Tim's place was raided by the local sheriff. The East Village Other taped an interview with the sheriff about the raid. I used the interview as the soundtrack for the film.” Mekas's intimate, idyllic footage of the Millbrook property is undercut by audio of the sheriff's fear-mongering rationales. The interview was itself an act of subterfuge as East Village Other writer Bob Simmons posed as a buttoned-up reporter from the solidly mainstream Look Magazine to get his exclusive interview.

REPORT FROM MILLBROOK (1965-66)

Jon Gartenberg, President of Gartenberg Media Enterprises (GME), negotiated this license with Errol Morris’s production company. GME worked on this licensing project in tandem with the Estate of Jonas Mekas and Re:Voir (the European DVD publisher of Mekas’s films). For more information about Jonas Mekas’s films available for licensing, please see The Films of Jonas Mekas on GME’s website, or contact info@gartenbergmedia.com.