Professor Goes on Tour for 20th Anniversary of Acclaimed Film

Professor Goes on Tour for 20th Anniversary of Acclaimed Film

By Brian Hiro

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When Jonathan Berman came to Cal State San Marcos as a film professor in 2004, he was close to finishing a documentary about a Northern California commune during the counterculture era.

The documentary was released the following year. Now, 20 years later, Berman is marking the anniversary of the film with a new digital restoration and a national tour of screenings and interviews.

"Commune" is about an intentional community called Black Bear Ranch formed in 1968 in remote Siskiyou County just south of the Oregon border. A dozen people were expected to live there, but the number eventually swelled to 100 in what was a utopian experiment that attracted anarchists, hippies and activists seeking to get away from America. The documentary is narrated by actor Peter Coyote, who once lived at Black Bear.

At the time of its release, "Commune" received positive reviews from such outlets as the New York Times, Variety, the Village Voice and the San Francisco Chronicle. It boasts a rating of 96%on Rotten Tomatoes.

Berman says he decided to restore the film so that it would be suitable to appear on streaming services and that he chose to embark on a nationwide tour to give fans "the communal experience of theatrical." The tour began in May in upstate New York and will end this month back in New York. In September, it made four stops in California, including Los Angeles and the Bay Area town of San Rafael, where some former Black Bear denizens reside.

"Twenty years later, it is a warm feeling to reunite with those folks," Berman said. "They have almost all gone on to do work that helps people; some of this can be gleaned in the film. It was almost like reuniting with relatives after a long time. I felt a little guilty for not really being in touch more, but then happy to see them again."

In addition to the 16 theaters that have screened "Commune," Berman has been interviewed on nearly 20 podcasts. He's hoping to add a few more showings in Southern California, including at least one in the San Diego area.

After making "Commune," Berman took more than a decade off before the release in 2018of "Calling All Earthlings," which examines California's UFO counterculture cult and the Integratron, a mysterious structure in the desert north of Joshua Tree National Park. He's now working on the third documentary in what he calls his California trilogy; titled "Gondola," it's about the controversial plan to build an aerial tram from Union Station to Dodger Stadium in L.A.

Berman says his film work over the years has benefited greatly from the contributions of CSUSM students and fellow faculty members, from serving internships to watching and giving feedback on test edits.

"That's part of our mission as a university, for students to work intimately with teachers who are active in their field," he said.

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