Casey in Dope the movie ('68)

"...the film (Dope) both avoids the dubious , ambiguous ‘intimacy’ of much cinema-verite, and .... it has a well-developed visual style. The Rochlins’method is basically expressionist; but surprisingly, this in no way contradicts their decision to be recorders rather than commentators, but rather proves that neo-realism and its offspring movements are limited and limiting ways of handling documentary in the cinema. Their refusal to interpret their subjects has made the film an unusually valuable testament to the spirit of its time and place (pirate radio, the early days of the London Film-makers Coop in the Better Books basement, interstellar rock at the UFO club), and their subjects in turn have provided a number of complex situations (most notably, a conversation between a girl from the group and an old man at a hunt meeting). A death in the group is assimilated into the film without any deviation from the overall tone. Ultimately, the best analogy for the Rochlins’ achievement is the old blues song which runs through it like a refrain: ‘Hey, baby, won’t you come here quick/ This old cocaine’s making me sick/Cocaine all around my brain.’
Dope shares the same tone of subdued pain and troubled acquiescence; and it is perhaps this, above all, which makes the film so distinctive.

--Tony Rayns, London, Monthly Film Bulletin- June, 1971


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