Berkeley in the Sixties
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Movie Reviews of Berkeley in the Sixties
Movie Review: California Dreamin'
Summary: 5 Stars
For those us of the Generation of '68 the political actions of the 1960's were essentially a youth-led effort. To the extent that anyone though about the situation as a separate political matter young students, mainly from the traditionally elite campuses, were the vanguard of those youth. And the vanguard of the vanguard? At least until 1969 a very strong case could be made, and is made in this documentary under review, that the University of California at Berkeley held that role. The whys and wherefores of that role are what makes this above-average documentary, complete with the inevitable `talking heads' that populate this kind of film, a very good source for what actually happened in the 1960's there for those who were around at the time and a primer on radical politics at the base of society for those who were not.
The disruption of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) meetings in San Francisco in 1960, various antiracial discrimination actions in support of the growing national civil right movement in the early 1960's, the historic and well-known Mario Salvo-led Free Speech Movement of 1964 along with its trials an tribulations, the early anti-Vietnam War and anti-draft actions of 1965 and 1966, the drift toward an apolitical counter-cultural experience in 1967, the romance with the next door neighbor Black Panthers and the Free Huey Movement in Oakland and ending with the militarily defeated People's Park efforts in 1969. They are all resurrected here. All these events are, moreover, discussed from various later viewpoints by participants, adversaries and flat out ill-wishers. If you want a two hour capsule commentary of the highs and lows of the political and counter-cultural struggles as they occurred at Berkeley and spread east this is a very good documentary to bring you up to speed.
Some of the rhetoric may seem odd to today's cyberspace-driven youth. Some of the costumes, especially during the height of the Haight -Ashbury era and the Summer of Love in 1967 may be perplexing to today's fashion conscious youth. Most of the politics may seem obscure. But know this- it may have not lasted long, we may have made every mistake in the political book, we certainly went off on more tangents that one could shake stick at but there was a fight going on then to change that nature of the way we do business in this society. Call us utopian, if you will, but we fought. A little of that spirit would come in very handy right about now. Many of the lessons of that time may be lost now. However, I sense a little of that same 1960's breeze starting to blow again in 2008 so look here.
I would not be a proper leftist politico if I did not mention that of all the scenes presented, all the discussions taped, all the `talking heads' giving their, seemingly sincere, takes on meaning of those times there was virtually no commentary on one very fundamental problem. Students, from elite universities or otherwise, cannot independently without joining up with some other social agency create the kind of just society that students were fighting for then. In no instant that I can recall during the course of this documentary did anyone attempt to draw the lesson that the working class, whatever its then current organization (or more correctly lack of it) and political consciousness came into play as a factor in history.
The closest anything came to understanding the need for an additional agency was the unequal, uncritical `alliance' with the Black Panthers. That is why, in the end, after the military defeat of the People's Park experiment Berkeley fell off the political map. But, my friends, the story did not end there for the 1960's. Some youth, although not nearly enough, drew that lesson about the lack of political power of students if left to their own devises and got serious about political theory and the working class. Some of us are still at that fight. From the later careers of the Berkeley interviewees described at the end of this film that did not include most of them. That tells the tale.
Movie Review: The 1960s live on in this gripping documentary...
Summary: 5 Stars
Berkeley in the Sixties does an excellent job of documenting the social movements of the 1960s; and it focuses on the actions of the students at The University of California at Berkeley to tell this story. Using excellent restored newsreel footage and candid footage shot during that era, we learn about the birth of the free speech movements and the civil rights movements as they started in California. The documentary then leads us through the rest of the student movements of the 1960s including the attempts by students and other young people to stop the war in Vietnam, the hippie counterculture, the women's rights movement and even the Black Panther movement. Excellent!
Amazon correctly notes that this is "no valentine" to these times. They are right. The footage you will see is rather graphic and the police brutality is disturbing at times, to say the least. On the other hand, however, we get great insight into how students and other young people tricked themselves into thinking that they could stop the Vietnam War simply by protesting and temporarily closing a draft center in their area. At one point the students simply take over a parking lot owned by Berkeley and make a park of their own there. While I like the concept; I can't agree with their simply seizing school property.
The documentary is enhanced even more by some wonderful, candid interviews with people who participated in the protests of the day. The stories they tell provide us with first hand accounts of the successes and setbacks for the social movements of the time. Of particular interest is the comment one lady makes to the effect that by the end of the 1960s everything about their lives was changing so fast she herself could scarcely keep up with it all.
The DVD also comes with terrific extras including deleted scenes and other raw, unedited footage that did not fit well into the film but nevertheless has important historical significance. I enjoyed the young girls singing a version of the song "High Hopes" to push for the JFK presidential campaign; and some footage of the Hell's Angels disdain for the protestors intrigued me as well.
The 1960s were a time of remarkably fast social change--mostly for the better, even if I don't personally agree with every last action or protest the students and other young people made during this era. The documentary does a superlative job of taking us down the road through the 1960s in a methodical fashion with terrific interviews with adults who participated in the protests and large amounts of footage of the establishment's disdain for their actions.
Overall, if you wish to get a broad brushstrokes introduction of the seemingly countless social movements of the 1960s, this documentary serves the purpose well. History buffs will also enjoy this DVD--even if they aren't liberal they will appreciate the parts of the film that explore the establishment reactions to the student protests.
I personally admire the courage of these students to stand up for their beliefs regardless of whether I agree with them all or not. Get this DVD and rejoice that we live in a land where we enjoy freedom of speech--both from the left and from the right!
Movie Review: "do not go gentle..."
Summary: 5 Stars
Your review ("The Revolution Will be Dramatized") is replete with glaring errors and untruths. Where to begin. Yes--paragraph by paragraph quotes: 1. "after their periods of action subsided." In fact, not only did the action not subside, but in many ways it has abided or even increased. For example, the legacy of their courageous dissent and activism informs the Iraq war protest ethic today (which actually began before the fact, just as dissent and activism for the [pending] Iran debacle is a reality--albeit a nascent one). They--the activists of the sixties---were the vanguard of current (and future) protests. 2. "narcissistic... babyboomers." Protesting the war--a war, let us remember, that advocated the strategic use of, e.g., napalm on the South Vietnamese (q.v., thank Jack Kennedy for that one)--often entailed police beatings, prosecution, jail terms, disrupted lives, aborted careers, death (q.v., Kent State), etc. Buy a dictionary--that was not "narcissistic" behaviour. It comes closer to selfless caring, or, at 'worst', enlightened self-interest (and even at that, it's still not narcissism).
Second Paragraph. 1. "The sixties began the slow rise of emotion over reason which has corrupted America and eroded our core American values." You are referring, no doubt, to those "core values" which sanctioned the crucifixion of blacks in the Southland, the brutal, virtual eradication of the indigenous culture, the capitalist 'ethic' which countenanced five year old mill workers in New England, the slaughter of mineworkers, their wives and their children (Rockefeller-owned mines), in their tent colony in Ludlow, Colorado (company agents used an improvised armored car, mounted with a M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun for 'control'. Wilson was obliged to send in Federal troops to halt the carnage). Or, latterly, "core values" might refer to the support of East Timorese genocide (begun on Carter's watch--via UN Ambassador Moynihan, continued by Clinton...), or American arms supplied to Turkey for their 'approved' ethnic 'cleansing'...Need more "Core Value"?
You mention "The most hilarious moment in the film." A similar honor goes to your comment about Reagan, i.e., "when he was young, energetic, and full of fire" (I read this statement several times in the interest of locating latent irony--no such luck). I screened the film during the semester I taught a politicized writing course (four sections of students, at USF, Tampa)--i.e., I know it fairly well. And, if any metaphors apply to Reagan--particularly in the scene when he met with Berkeley faculty over the treatment of students--they are more like "dim bulb" or "B-movie hoodlum," (while listening to his enfeebled diatribe I came to doubt that he actually finished High School).
And, regarding which "rabble" the US is "cursed" by today, I am inclined to regard those who vote war in order to line their coffers with blood money (q.v., the CEO and major stockholders of EXXON-MOBIL, for example) as irresponsible "cursed rabble," and not the socially-aware students unwilling to be served up by the morally bankrupt State to the financiers and industrialists who 'coordinate' D.C. policy terms.
Movie Review: Fabric of 60s Counterculture Politics: Weaving the Threads
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a superb, valuable documentary.
Berkeley was at the epicenter as the counterculture politics of the '60s emerged. And revisiting the political ferment of '60s Berkeley can offer an unusually helpful overview of these interwoven political currents. This film does that very, very well. It rises far,far above films which simply recount the intense experimentation with sex, drugs & rock 'n' roll that eventually characterized the counterculture. This film focuses on the often-less-understood, and fascinating, politics of the time.
The fascinating footage (including early glimpses at Reagan as a
relatively new "pol"), the deft editing, the years-later retrospective reflections of "now-grown-up" participants in the Berkeley "FSM" (Free Speech Movement) -- these are all very engaging, and beautifully assembled. But what makes the film great for me is its clarity in reflecting the interplay of counterculture themes: the movements for free speech and for civil rights, the movement against the Vietnam War, and assertion of the new feminism. Along with the energetic pursuit of "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll," these elements - blended into one 'tsunami' of a movement -- were experienced by us all coming of age during that time, throughout the US and throughout much of the world. But as a young person during that era, who became very swept up in the self-proclaimed "dawning of the Age of Aquarius," I recall also feeling unclear on how these ideological components -- which otherwise seemed to me distinct and substantively unrelated - became intertwined in the social politics of that era.
Whether the film is slanted, and whether "The Movement" was positive or negative, seem to me besides the point. The Movement was; like it or not, that reality is indisputable. From varying perspectives, our entire culture experienced it, and was affected by it. Most of the many millions of us on college campuses during that time were forever changed -- for good, for ill, or both. This film presents the most coherent depiction I've seen of how this happened, what it's "logic" was - and manages to do so engagingly, without becoming pedantic. That's a whole lot for one film to do, even for someone who respects and loves film as our culture's greatest current art form.
Movie Review: What America Is Really Like
Summary: 5 Stars
Berkely in the Sixties explores one of the worst catastrophes in American History. When the student movement began in the fall of 1964, students wanted the freedom of political protest on campus at the University of California. The administration forbade any student groups related to non-campus activities. The students all banded together and staged a sit-in which captured national attention and brought the university to a standstill.
When it ended in the summer of 1969, police gassed and shot American citizens as if, as one lady said, "we were the Viet Cong." In between was MLK, The Black Panthers, and Vietnam. This film is a must-see for all Americans. The deleted scenes are lengthy and a bit dry, but are worth viewing.
Ironically, the University of California describes itself as "a lively place of student activism," a whitewash of the administration's brutality against its students and faculty members who sympathized with the student's cause.