Chappaqua (film)

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This article is about the film; for the hamlet, see Chappaqua, New York.

Chappaqua is a trippy cult film of 1966, directed by and starring Conrad Rooks. The film is based on Rooks' experiences with drug addiction. It includes cameo appearances by a host of famous names of the 1960s: author William S. Burroughs, guru Swami Satchidananda, beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Moondog, and Ravi Shankar, who co-wrote the score with Philip Glass. Rooks had commissioned jazz artist Ornette Coleman to compose music for the film, but Coleman's Chappaqua Suite was ultimately not used. He too makes a cameo appearance in the film.

The film briefly depicts its namesake, Chappaqua, New York, a sleepy hamlet in Westchester County, in a few minutes of wintry panoramas. The hamlet is an overt symbol of drug-free, suburban childhood innocence, and is also one of the film's many nods to Native American culture. The northern Westchester area had been heavily inhabited by Native Americans; the word chappaqua itself derives from the Algonquin word for 'running water'.