SYNOPSIS

Cinema verite reaches a new level of reality in this film-within-a-film as director William Greaves dares to break the accepted rules of cinema.  It is 1968 and Greaves and his crew are in New Yorkís Central Park ostensibly filming a screen test.   The drama involves a bitter break up between a married couple.  But this is just the ìcover story.î  The real story is happening ìoffî camera as the enigmatic director pursues his hidden agenda.  The growing conflict and chaos -- accompanied by  moments of uproarious humor -- explodes on screen producing the energy, and the insights, that the director is searching for.

The director uses multiple cameras, mixes cinema verite and conventional shooting styles and experiments with a variety of other cinematic techniques including the use of simultaneous split-screen images.  The result  is a film with multiple levels of reality that reveals, and comments upon, the creative process.    

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One may well be the first self-reflexive feature film to have been produced in cinema verite style.  Greaves compares the making of ìSymbioî to jumping off a cliff without a parachute.  

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