We Were There to Be There
2021 · 27m · USA
Directed by Mike Plante, Jason Willis
Genres: biography, documentary, historical
Tones: contemplative, provocative
The legendary 1978 Cramps/Mutants concert at Napa State Hospital, revisited — a landmark punk show and a window into Reagan-era mental-health politics, told through Target Video's surviving footage.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone wants to canonize this as punk history, but the real subversion is that it's *not* a rebel anthem—it's a formal interrogation of archival fragments and institutional contradiction that refuses easy mythology.
A quietly masterful exercise in documentary restraint: the decision to let Target Video's deteriorating footage speak for itself, rather than overlay contemporary talking heads, positions this firmly in the lineage of essay films that trust their materials to do interpretive work.
The choice to hold on silent, degraded video stills while the sound design builds underneath—letting decay become texture rather than liability—is what transforms archival salvage into something that feels essential rather than nostalgic.
Reviews
The film explores the events that led to CBGB mainstays the Cramps driving over 3,000 miles to perform, remembering the show as both a landmark moment for punk rock and for the perception of mental health care within U.S. popular culture.