How Does It Feel

This pretentious documentary, financed by the Arts Council, allegedly examines 'many ideas and activities developed to heighten our sensory awareness and feelings', but is in fact little more than an excuse for a stream of blather. Neuro-psychologist RL Gregory lectures on human sensory mechanisms while watching a movie of two people apparently making love; RD Laing pontificates ('We either want to live or we want to die, and while we're alive we surely want to live more abundantly...'), and later abstractedly watches the birth of his own son; David Hockney chatters engagingly about his art, and answers questions on the level of 'Can you see without your glasses?'; Annie Ross delivers a stentorian commentary, and Elkie Brooks interminably belts out Bob Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone'. Only Michael Tippett, passionately discussing the genesis of his Third Symphony, addresses himself to the subject with conviction. These matters were dealt with more energetically and with less solemnity in WR - Mysteries of the Organism.