Berkeley in the Sixties
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Movie Reviews of Berkeley in the Sixties
Movie Review: Nice Summary Of A Wild Time
Summary: 4 Stars
Okay, I grew up in Berkeley in the 60s and 70s and do agree with the one reviewer that the movement of the time has been destructive to many of the values it proposed to cherish (I was a big supporter for years, so I speak from experience) but I still judge the film on it's merit as a film. I may (or may not) agree with the more conservative on politics, but I am reviewing the film and not their politics. It is entertainjing and full of great archival footage. I do not have the DVD yet, but will get it. You do feel you were there and get an insightful look at the mind set of the time. It may be a bit more subjective than I would have liked, but still worth the ticket.Movie Review: no closed captioning option
Summary: 4 Stars
Great, balanced documentary... but no closed captioning available. Not very progressive, folks, to omit such a basic feature from a dvd.Movie Review: The 60s embalmed
Summary: 2 Stars
This movie is so imbued with nostalgia for the heyday of the new left that it seems to consign any notion of a radical politics to an unreclaimable past. To be watched by anyone who wants to know how NOT to make a political film. News flash to old hippes: the struggles against injustice were not a product of your youthful exuberance, and have not gone away because you (OK, we, I 'fess up) have gotten older and gone on to more staid pursuits. They existed before, and they continue today. To see Berkeley in the 60s as this film does, as 1) in isolation 2) as a moment gone, is to miss the point, that's it all one great big struggle that runs through the Haymarket Martyrs and Joe Hill, up to the WTO protests of today.
I agree with Roger that 'The War at Home' is a much better film on the antiwar movement (not to be confused with the fiction film of the same name, or the TV sitcom). Although I found 'Berkeley...' lame, I believe viewers who appreciate this film would also like 'The War at Home' and I encourage them to seek it out. Another good film on the movement is Helen Garvey's 'Rebels with a Cause' -- like this, an oral history composed mainly of talking heads, but more the interviewees have more of a continuing rebellious spirit, I think.
Movie Review: Boring
Summary: 2 Stars
I am very sympathetic to the"movement" of the Sixties, and took an active part in it, but I find this type of "talking heads" documentary boring as hell, even though it is interspersed with news footage.
An example of a truly great documenary of the time is the film "The War at Home", available on video (1979, director Glenn Silber).
Movie Review: The Revolution Will Be Dramatized.
Summary: 1 Stars
This documentary is comprised of a series of interviews with a number of radicals over twenty years after their periods of action subsided. We see how that a movement which began legitimately--in the pursuit of civil rights and free speech--ended with a group of shallow, narcissistic, and self-righteous babyboomers on a crusade to acquire power, attention, and status by any means necessary.
The sixties began the slow rise of emotion over reason which has corrupted America and eroded our core American values. These students wanted to fight the power but it was not long before they became the power and brought socialism, conformity, and political correctness with them to our businesses, academies, and government. They railed against the establishment and now...they are the establishment. How great it would be if today's college students would "question authority" and stand up to the radicals of the sixties who attempt to indoctrinate them in the classrooms of our politicized universities.
The most hilarious moment in the film was when the students campaigning for free speech destroyed a sign that said that Mario Savio was a communist. They had no sense of irony because what they were advocating was free speech for me but not for thee. This act portended much of what would happen once the radicals took over our universities in the eighties.
The interviews conducted here are wholly confined to the drama queens that made up the counterculture with no contrary views being seen as fit to share the stage with them. These former campus storm troopers are self-laudatory and self-worshipful which is to be expected as their movement was so shallow that it actually took seriously the lyrics and presumed message of "Yellow Submarine."
The best parts of the film were the clips of Governor Reagan when he was young, energetic, and full of fire. His depiction of the activists as being spoiled children was right on the money. They used politics as a way to feel good about themselves and stood for absolutely nothing except their own need for the spotlight. They "wanted the Black Panthers to like them" so they bought into the idea that those gun-totting criminals were oppressed and therefore innocent of all crimes.
Alas, we remain cursed with this rabble today. Plenty of people had second thoughts about their contribution to the decline of America which began in the sixties but you will not hear any of their voices in this politically imbalanced film.