1. Hair

The most romantic view of the park can be found in the movie adaptation of the musical "Hair", 1980, directed by Milos Forman. The film opens with an extended version of the song "Aquarius" that has Twyla Tharp choreographed dancers writhing about the lush autumn landscape, along with police horses that prance in step to the music. It is a wild and joyful place filled with hippies and hope. It is their home, a place filled with promise and life; counter culture experimentation throwing down an exuberant challenge to the concrete canyon dwellers that surround it. It is, of course, wildly simplistic and naive, but still it seduces you into thinking that even if it wasn't exactly like that it should have been. For that matter it convinces you that that is the way it should still be. There are long shots that include the leafy vistas of the fall in New York and upwardly angled cameras that frame each character against the skyline. This is place you wanted to come to when you first heard about New York. It's a place where people dance and sing and experience life vividly and viscerally. The place you never quite found. The one you still dream about.