Happy Birthday Herman Hesse.

Battered copies of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha (New Direction edition) bulged in the back pockets of flower children in the Sixties as we went in search of our own personal enlightenment. It certainly kickstarted my interest in Buddhism and has, along with On The Road, Been Down So Long, It Looks Up To Me and In Watermelon Sugar, been one of those touchstones that I measure my life by. At least in terms of literature. The others, sex, drugs and rock and roll, would require a book of their own to recount.
 

 
Avon heir and reformed junkie Conrad Rooks, who had directed the semi-autobiographical head film Chappaqua, made a significant leap as a film maker with Siddhartha (1972), a sensuous and gorgeously photographed (by Sven Nykvist) movie that captures the book’s mind expanding allure. Shot in India in hues of twilight and dawn, the movie has a languorous pace and is imbued with the kind of hippie vibe that had aging flower children swaying like poppies in the Himalayan breeze.

Here’s Siddhartha in its entirety.
 

 
What do rich people do when they have too much money? Get wrecked. So it was for Conrad Rooks, who by the age of fifteen was a full-blown alcoholic. Money may give you many things, but apparently not self-control or a conscience.

Rooks’ pappy owned Avon. Ding-Dong, no need to worry about quitting the booze or getting a job. Instead Rooks started a new hobby - drugs. He jumped from booze to dope, to coke, to LSD, to peyote, to heroin, then decided to get clean. Off to Switzerland, where he was given a new treatment - the sleep cure.

This is what happened to Rooks. His story formed the basis for a 1966 movie Chappaqua, which Rooks produced, directed, wrote, and starred in. It is an interesting mess of a film. It picked up a Silver Medal at the Venice Film Festival, and became a “legendary” underground hit due to its association with drugs and the Beat Generation. This is where its importance lies today: in the appearance of William S. Burroughs as Opium Jones. Along with brief cameos from Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovksy, and the beautiful, quite stunning cinematography by Beat film-maker, Robert Frank, who made Pull My Daisy and went on to make Cocksucker Blues for The Rolling Stones. Add to this performances by Ravi Shankar, Ornette Coleman, The Fugs, and a score by Philip Glass. There is enough going on to keep interest, with perhaps the finger occasionally on Fast Forward.