There Must Be Some Kind of Way Outta Here

Michael Herr described Tim Page as the most extravagant of the wigged out crazies running around Vietnam, due in most to the amounts of drugs that he enjoyed taking. Inspiring the character high on acid descending into madness, played by Dennis Hopper in the classic film by Francis Ford Coppola, 'Apocalypse Now'. Tim Page, one of the most iconic war photographers of his generation. Responsible for many of the harrowing images we've come to associate with the Vietnam conflict. Yet it was his lifestyle that Tim became famous for in Vietnam. Tim Page was struck by shrapnel multiple times, on multiple occasions, forced to abandon ship in shark infested waters to avoid both friendly and Vietcong fire. Regardless, Tim went on to take some of the most memorable photographs of the Vietnam conflict .He covered the 6-day war in 67, spent six weeks doing acid, before heading off to photograph the anti-war movement for LIFE in New York and then got busted with Jim Morrison in New Haven, before heading back to Vietnam and taking more shrapnel, this time taking a chunk of his brain. He has been pronounced D.O.A. three times but is still here, still talking and still tripping. For Tim, 'There Must Be some Kind of Way Outta Here'. In 1970, Bill Cardozo coined the phrase 'Gonzo' when referring to the exaggerated journalistic writing style of Hunter S. Thompson. By 1970, Tim had been living the Gonzo life since the late 50's and as we look back into the past picture of his world, we discover it was not just a life lived less ordinary, but an actual insane balls to the wall acid trip. The film paints an energetic and moving portrait of a life well lived and riddled with turmoil, from the glamour of war to the religion of music, to the lies, fears and regrets of a generation, as we hold up this mirror image of history, and take stock of where we find ourselves today through accidental yet enduring friendships, a panoply of characters that include Daniel Ellsberg, Ron Kovik, Michael Herr, Roger Steffens, Sean Flynn, Harlan K. Ullman, Martin Stuart Fox and George Hamilton, just to name a few. Some are gone and some remain, much like the effects of the 60's. 'There Must Be Some Kind of Way Outta Here' takes you on a journey with Tim through history, his photographs and the stories behind them, intercut with interviews and animated recreations of pivotal moments that Tim shared with each of the film's colourful and illustrious cast of characters; like the time Tim and his buddy Sean Flynn crashed George Hamilton's date with LBJ's daughter at The Savoy, London dressed in black VC pyjamas and a Tiger Suit. Surrounded by Secret Service agents no less. Sean was politely asked to leave his pistol at the door - Or when fellow photographer Steve Northup took a snapshot of Tim and Martin Stuart Fox, caught in the intense crossfire of a hot landing zone, they sat behind a fallen log taking a smoke and uncapping their flasks, while a G.I put out covering fire. But these sequences won't just be limited to the confines of realism but will also take the audience through spiraling free fall of psychedelia. Tim once said - 'Acid confuses the sequences of time and memory'. Using the framework of Tim's many acid trips, the film tears through the veil of this bizarre, existential and politically laden life, connecting one trip after another from the 6 week orgy of sex and fantasy with The Soft Machine at St Tropez to dropping acid with Roger Steffens and the William Burroughs to the terrifying flashbacks of Tim's memories of the airstrike while being aboard the Point Welcome to the present day horrors of the legacy of Agent Orange. Like a cinematic embodiment of Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire and smashing it to pieces on the live stage, the film aims to question, provoke, enlighten and ultimately reintroduce a new generation to a decade that embodies everything that is great and horrible about the human spirit. It's gonna be one hell of a trip.