The Savage Eye is fixed on the seamy side of Los Angeles as experienced by a young divorcee (Barbara Baxley) as she struggles to accept and finally affirm her life. There is no dialogue in the film, but rather a stream-of-consciousness repartee between the woman and the voice of a poet (Gary Merrill)--her conscience. Mixing documentary with fantasy, brazen social realism with cold expressionism, The Savage Eye is a major precursor to the direct cinema (cinéma verité) movement, whose exponent, Jonas Mekas, has called the film “a tour-de-force lesson in camera-eye technique.” It received wide critical acclaim on its release, and is an important early work by cinematographer Haskell Wexler and the three independent filmmakers--Ben Maddow, Sidney Meyers and Joseph Strick--who produced the film over a period of five years. Ironically, contemporary reviews looked to the future impact of this film which has fallen into virtual obscurity today: “A film that will be seen for many a year no matter who rejects it now” (New York Post); “One can readily see it as a rich vein of source material for any future historian of our times.” (New York Herald Tribune)