Bruce Geisler - Free Spirits
The documentary “Free Spirits” functions an amazing window to a lost world, infiltrating the lives and minds of participants in an actual hippie commune, created in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts the late 1960s by Mike Metelica, prone to childhood visions and an interest in being a rock and roll bad boy.
The commune — originally known as the Brotherhood of the Spirit and later as the Renaissance Community — began as a treehouse in Leyton, Massachusetts, that attracted other kids to hang out — it blossomed into a naïve but fully-formed alternative society of young adults that imagined itself poised to transform the world into a new era of beautiful socialization and peace. The story, however, is not that simple — this meticulously gathered oral history reveals the ups and downs of the community, the challenges of the many to function as one, the trials of Metelica to live up to his initial reputation as a spiritual leader.
At its peak, the community had around 400 residents, all fulfilling various functions and rising to the occasions that needs demanded — if they need a building, members learned how to construct one; if they need bathroom facilities, members taught themselves plumbing. They also had plenty of time for artistic and spiritual exploration — and sexual as well — but no society can remain stagnant and the community was no exception. Their extended vacation from the harsh realities of modern America was to send them on a nosedive involving finances and drugs and rock and roll and a cult of personality that divides the community and, eventually, causes it to dissipate into the smallest pockets.
There is plenty to admire in the group — many come off as intelligent, dedicated, and capable — as well as roll your eyes. They had the inevitable religious aspect to their little society, a pseudo New Age philosophy built around energy and reincarnation that had them officially become a church at a certain point, with Metelica inevitably morphing into the stereotypical crooked cult leader who relies on intimidation to remain in control and skim a little off the top when it comes to his flock’s surrendered worldly belongings.
There is also the rock and roll side, revolving around the commune’s band Spirit in Flesh, which not only gets attention and a recording contract, but also enables Metelica’s ego to further slide into his self-destructive tendencies — drinking, drugs, and general excess mixed with paranoia to craft his downfall.
JM: What was your experience with the community prior to starting the film — and how did you come to the project?
BG: The genesis for Free Spirits came from my own youth. At the age of 21, with one semester left to complete my bachelor’s degree at Pomona College in southern California, I dropped out and drove across the United States to join up with a band of 200 ragged new-agers who had come together to form a new communal model for society and to explore their own spiritual depths. I joined the Brotherhood of the Spirit — later, Renaissance Community — in February of 1971.
Twenty years later, as a college professor and screenwriter, I attended a reunion of former commune members and was amazed at the diversity of careers and paths they had followed since the 1960s and 70s. I applied for and received a small grant to produce a documentary tentatively entitled “The Children of Aquarius – Where are They Now?” and set off around the country with a tape recorder to do pre-interviews with ex-communards about their post-communal lives.
But the more I talked with them, the more I realized that the story that most needed to be told was the amazing 20-year history of the commune itself, and its flamboyant, ill-fated founder and leader, Michael Metelica Rapunzel. It would be, I realized, A LOT more work than the original film, and I hesitated to take on a project of that scope. But that same day I received a call from a former commune friend who told me he had the opportunity to purchase several hours worth of outtakes from pieces PBS and CBS’ 60 Minutes had done on the commune during its heyday. That cinched it for me. Little did I know it would take me nearly 15 years to complete the project!
Over 2,000 people joined the commune during its 20-year existence, and it touched the lives of many more. Their experiences were often quite different from one another’s and their views were frequently contradictory. Developing a coherent narrative and telling the story only in the words of the former communards, without a narrator, were the two greatest challenges that I faced. After finding, gathering, and securing the rights to thousands of pictures, hours of videotape, 8mm and 16mm film, newspaper and magazine articles and interviewing 90 former commune members and others, I finished the first complete cut of the film in late April of 2006. I hoped the effort was worth it.
In December of 2005, I reunited the commune’s band, Spirit in Flesh, several of whom hadn’t seen each other in 30 years, to record the music for the film. On Saturday, May 6 and Sunday, May 7, 2006, we held preview screenings (two a day) of Free Spirits at the Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton, Mass., about 40 miles from where the commune was located, hoping to see how the film would play before a theatrical audience and get feedback for the final cut. — 2,400 people attended the four screenings, setting a house record, and gave us a 10-minute standing ovation. A final cut of the film, with a remixed sound track and color correction, was completed in August of 200 7
JM: Did you have any preconceptions going into the project — and how did they change as you filmed?
BG: I basically felt the commune’s story ended when I left in 1975 — I was the guy who stood up to Michael when he proposed the “zombie” march through Greenfield holder placards. I soon realized that I only knew a small part of the history of the commune — the more I talked to people the more I also realized that some aspects were almost “Rashomon-like” — that no two people had the exact same experience, even though they were in the same commune, and there were a lot of different perspectives on the place from those who had lived it. It was hard to find anything approaching a consensus regarding any of the topics the film touches upon.
JM: Did some of the archival footage that you used come from the commune itself?
BG: The commune spent a lot of money on 16mm equipment and film and videotape equipment. Unfortunately, a lot of the footage was lost in a fire in the late 70s, but I did get my hands on some of it. I got additional photographs, Super 8mm and videotape through former commune members and also found archival material stored away in closets and in the basement of the last commune property in Gill, Massachusetts. I also found two “documentaries” that the commune had done about itself.
JM: Could you tell me a little bit about their interest in technology? They had an awful lot of filmed footage of themselves for a group that often had no real money.
BG: They spent a ton of their income on music recording facilities and the above mentioned film and video equipment. At one point, commune members were generating about a $1,000,000 a year in income, and — with their group living and low living standards — it left a lot of free cash around for Michael to spend on his pet projects. Unfortunately, a lot of that money would have better been spent on building the community and feeding and clothing its members.
A more positive interest in technology arose during the building of their ecovillage. Talented members studied solar and wind technology and state of the art building techniques and put them into practice — and this was back in 1977!
JM: The word “naive” comes up a lot in the film — in regard to Michael, do you think many in the community could be termed naive in character judgment?
BG: There was a certain naivete amongst the commune members, but it was based on a sincere belief in the essential goodness of human beings. Most of them did not really see the negative changes in Michael as he descended into cocaine use and ego around 1973 and continued to trust him when they shouldn’t have.
JM: There’s a hint in the film of any number of mental issues with Michael that aren’t really addressed — was there any speculation or documentation about such things that you chose not to use in the film?
BG: Various people have described Michael in retrospect as either suffering from AD/HD — probably true — or bi polar disorder — I don’t know. He did come with a family history of alcoholism, and it was the cocaine and alcohol that did him in. But most will also tell you that Michael possessed charisma and an incredible energy that was infectious. Most believe that he had some true spiritual insight in the early years, lost in ego and drugs after a few years. As has happened so often in the past, the message got confused with the messenger and Michael started believing that he was the message.
JM: Do get the sense that many ex-members still believe in that a commune is a workable system — or perhaps a workable temporary system? Or have any disavowed the idea?
BG: Very few would want to live communally again — they feel that communal living, where all resources go into a central pot, is too open to abuse, and many have achieved very comfortable middle and upper middle class life styles at this point. There are a lot of former members who would entertain group living again — and some who are in intentional communities — but probably in a looser, co-housing format. And with democratic, not autocratic leadership.
JM: There’s an undertone that the community was doomed from the beginning because of a certain time bomb quality that Michael had – do you agree? Did you find any ex-members feel that way? Did any of them ever express that the whole thing could have survived without him, that, at a certain point, the core members could have taken the ball and run with it more healthily earlier on?
BG: The time bomb for Michael was the family history of addiction. My own opinion is that if the community had gotten rid of Michael by 1977 or 1978, the Renaissance Community would be a thriving spiritual eco-village today. He was the catalyst, the straw that stirred the drink, but, like many start-up companies, they needed to get rid of their founders early on. There were a core of really talented people who would have run the community much, much better, but one by one and in groups they lost out in power struggles with Michael. The Findhorn Community in Scotland ousted its founder, Peter Cady, around that time and is alive and well today. But members of the Renaissance could never muster the numbers needed to unseat Michael before 1988, by which time so many had left.
The other problem was that everyone was so young in the early days, including Michael. He was 18 in the treehouse and everybody else was not much older through the first years. What do people that age really know?
JM: What lessons - positive and negative - do you take away from the community’s story?
BG: Positive: People working together with commitment and energy can accomplish practically anything, including incredible personal and spiritual growth.
Negative: Ceding one’s own authority unconditionally to another or suspending one’s own judgment in favor of another’s is a sure path to being abused. I don’t know the source of this quote, but it applies: “He who deifies a man is the first to be abused by the deified man.” Seeing Michael as godlike, rather than as a fallible young man, was a recipe for disaster.
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Tags: 1960s, Berkshires, Brotherhood of the Spirit, communes, documentaries, Michael Metelica Rapunzel, Mike Metelica, Renaissance Community, Western Massachusetts
