PURPLE HAZE

American independent filmmaker David Burton Morris and his screenwriter wife Victoria Wozniak are natives of the Twin City area in which PURPLE HAZE, their second feature, takes place. Their first film “Loose Ends” (1976) made the 10-best lists of the New York Times and the Village Voice and was a hit on the festival circuit. Growing up in the '60s, Morris was inspired to express the excitement of what it was like to be 21 in that revolutionary period; Morris feels that earlier screen treatments emphasize the decade's pain and destruction. PURPLE HAZE centers on Matt Caulfield (Peter Nelson) who, with his friends, must face the draft while coping with the political and social upheavals of the summer of 1968. Matt is expelled from Princeton for smoking pot, and his return to Minneapolis marks increased friction with his parents, the establishment and the draft board at the height of the Vietnam war. Going from preppie to hippie flower child, Matt joins the counterculture, observing the tumultuous events of the Chicago convention, Bobby Kennedy's assassination and the rioting students in France with mixed feelings of aimlessness, angst and protest. Sixties rock songs effectively punctuate the changing times depicted. “PURPLE HAZE excels in capturing the social flavor of the late Sixties. . .handsome production values, good performances.” – Variety