BEFORE: Wow, this was a close one. I meant to quick-scan through this one in advance, to make sure that my plan was solid and the chain wouldn't be broken. But this film wasn't streaming anywhere for "free" so I couldn't do that. I'd have to pay $1.99 to watch this on YouTube, that was really the only way to see it, even the one pirate site I trust let me down. (The film was there, it just wouldn't play...). I couldn't drop this film, I need one particular film director who was interviewed in it to carry over to the next film. But I was concerned that there might be no link from "You've Been Trumped" to make the connection, and if not, then I'd really be sunk here.
But I've been doing this for a long while now, I don't mean to brag but my instincts are usually good, and so my programming choice turned out to be solid, since this film was made shortly after the 2016 election there was archive footage (OK, sound) of Donald Trump, and that's what I was counting on. So thankfully (and I never thought I'd say this) Donald Trump carries over from "You've Been Trumped Too" with a back-up as well.
Before I get to the film, here are the links that will get me to the end of the documentary chain: Peter Bogdanovich, Johnny Carson, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Kanye West, John Lennon, Elton John, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Little Richard, David Bowie, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Tom Brokaw, Elizabeth Taylor, Charlie Chaplin, Bill & Hillary Clinton, Martin Luther King, Morley Safer, Dick Cavett, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnell and Angela Lansbury. Note this is a rough list of confirmed carry-overs, there will be tons of other people connecting the films because there's really a lot of overlap.
THE PLOT: How did America change from "Easy Rider" into Donald Trump? What became of the dreams and utopias of the 1960's and 1970's? What do the people who lived in that golden age think about it today? Did they really blow it?
AFTER: I've found that it's best to not think TOO much about the calendar when I'm putting my chains together, but still, there's something that takes over, whether it's subconscious or just random chance, I still don't know. I picked a specific film for July 4, sure, but then I didn't really think at all about the week leading up to July 4. Still, look what happened, I included (again, without really thinking about it) one film about American corporations making musicals, two films about a former American President, and now a film about the zeitgeist of America, from the 1960's to today. Really, if I'd TRIED to program a very American week of films, I don't think I would have done as well as this, just trusting that the chain knows what it's doing and will find a way to make some sense. (Tomorrow's film is about a VERY American actor, and the film after that is about baseball, the national pastime.)
The idea here was to interview some very prominent people in American culture, mainly filmmakers, about the culture of America now, and contrast that with the culture of the 1960's and 1970's, and try to examine what has changed since then. Sure, sounds like a great idea, I mean we can pretty much guess that times have changed, but how? And why? They start off with a clip from the movie "Easy Rider", in which bikers Wyatt and Billy take the proceeds from a cocaine deal and decide to travel to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras - and after a number of wild adventures, during which the square hitchhiker they picked up along the way is killed, they're out in the desert and they take LSD and Wyatt sadly proclaims, "We blew it..." even though they DID make it to Mardi Gras on time. Perhaps the film never explains what Wyatt meant, perhaps it was just the drugs talking or perhaps he felt guilty over George's death, or perhaps life is a journey and not a destination and any fulfillment that can expect to find has to come from within, I don't know. Anyway the movie doesn't end well for our anti-heroes, so it's really kind of a bummer.
What I doubt, however, is that Wyatt was somehow expressing the belief that the two men had failed to uphold the values of the 1960's decade in their quest, and that he was pining over the fact that the 1960's were coming to an end and the decade of peace and love was also the decade of protests and war and greed and government eroding our freedoms. But OK, it's possible. That would have required Wyatt to step outside himself and see the big picture, put things in perspective, hey, maybe that's what LSD can do for you, allow you to see things from a distance or in a new light, and then you might realize you haven't lived up to your potential, if the biggest goal you can think of is to drive to New Orleans and party, instead of using your voice and your talents to make the world a better place. But whatever, you can see in that movie's ending whatever you choose to see.
But this documentary all seems rather thrown together - some people were interviewed and there's no subtitles to tell us who they are - I mean, I KNOW that's Michael Lang, one of the organizers of the Woodstock Festival, but it would be nice if everyone else could know it, too. They also misspelled Ronee Blakley's name as "Ronnee Blackley", or something like that. Not cool. Also, it was directed by a French person, and what could he possibly know about the spirit of America, then or now? Well, I guess maybe he started from a clean slate and then decided to come to America and ask a bunch of Americans about it.
Also, many of the interviewed people don't seem to make much sense, I guess it's a tricky thing to try to remember what things were like 45-50 years ago and maybe even tricker to define what, exactly has changed since then. The one thing they can agree on is that things HAVE changed, but damn, it's just so difficult to put it into words, right? Maybe it's a feeling, not a set of words, but then how do you describe that feeling? You can try and timeline it - we had the decade of peace & love, then we had the "me" decade, then we had the millennials screwing things up, then we had the internet - but that really doesn't tell us WHY, does it?
People have theories, sure. Watergate, Vietnam, protestors got in the way. Reaganomics changed everything, the Berlin wall came down, Bill Clinton screwed an intern. But these are just the headlines, they don't get into the WHY either. Maybe it's got something to do with the hippies finding out that at some point they had to grow up and get jobs, and people who roamed the country going to music festivals at some point figured out that buying a house might be a good idea, but that takes money and hard work and cleaning yourself up a bit. Ideals are great, but they don't pay the bills or put food on your table.
Also, I think we're dealing with a phenomenon in which everyone believes that the times of their youth were the "good old days". It's a method of dealing with the present that involved romanticizing the past. Hey, remember when we just drove around the country and we lived out of a van and we shared food with strangers and had free love? Yeah, those were good times. Well, the people who grew up during the Great Depression would have called that "being a hobo". Hey, remember when we rode for free on boxcars and slept in shanty towns and we stood in bread lines and didn't have to work because there were no jobs? Yeah, those were good times, I guess? Look, I was born in 1968 and I was a teenager during the 1980's so my inclination is to say, "Hey, remember when we hung out at the arcade and played Pac-Man all day and didn't have to work yet but just listened to great music while we did our homework and we stood in line for "Star Wars" movies"? Yeah, those were good times.
No matter what generation you come from, the good times just can't last forever, because everybody has to grow up and get a job, buy a house and settle in for the next few decades, preferably with somebody you love who is also willing to put up with you. Have kids if you want to be short on money the rest of your life, I don't quite get that but some people do it. I say have cats, they eat less and they're replaceable. Try and put some money aside for retirement, because if you're lucky and live long enough, you're going to need it, but if you die young, well you probably won't care. But if you're lucky and you live long, you get to watch your parents and then your friends pass away, while your health goes downhill. It's a NO-WIN situation a zero-sum game, and that's another reason why everyone tends to romanticize the past, especially the times before you were young enough to not realize that someday you're going to die.
Honestly, I thought this film might have been a brutal examination of the Trump years, and that the title referred to America collectively electing the worst President ever. No, there are some sound bites from Trump and Hillary and Bernie to try to focus attention on how divisive politics are now, and the vast difference economically between the classes in the U.S., but that's not the main focus of the fillm, which is the fact that film directors all seem to agree that we've lost something along the way, the ideals of the 1960's for one. But were they ever really attainable in the first place? I mean, you can say you're going to base the new society on peace and love once we all enter the Age of Aquarius, but how can that possibly result in a society where things, you know, work? Somebody will still need to run things and enforce laws and empty trash cans and make movies and TV shows and work at hospitals and libraries, we can't all just pack up into vans with mattresses in them and ride around the country depending on the kindness of strangers for food.
The people who had those dreams in the 1960's of a better society were, perhaps, setting their sights a bit too high. Sure, things are different now, because at some point, reality set in. We have a divisive two-party system that can't get anything done, we have an convicted felon running for President and he may win and replace the one with dementia, and there's still racism and sexism and ageism and homophobia and transphobia and xenophobia. Not to mention climate change, plastics in the ocean and forest fires raging out of control. So maybe instead of pausing to reflect on what we might have lost since the 1960's, how about taking some steps to improve things now? Just a thought.
I'll admit that it doesn't make much sense, but people can believe different things at different points in life, like some of the people who stood up for peace and love in the 1960's might be Republicans now, that's a possible side effect of getting a job and a house and saving up some money, suddenly those same people are voting for people who want to take freedoms away, like abortions and gay rights and the right to practice any religion. By the same token, I read that some people who are immigrants themselves support Trump because he's strong on border control, this doesn't really track, unless they're afraid that the new immigrants will come in and take the jobs that they currently have. Or they realize that America can only support so many people, and they don't want MORE immigrants here using up all the social services and benefits. I can't really fathom why people support Trump, so it's a real head-scratcher for me.
But yeah, I wish this film had a few more answers for the questions it raised, sure. It's also a bit weird that the film used archive sound from the movie "The Company You Keep", and I recently watched that film on June 10. What are the odds?
Also starring Ronee Blakley (last seen in "Rolling Thunder Revue"), Peter Bogdanovich (last seen in "Dean Martin: King of Cool"), Charles Burnett, Tobe Hooper, Peter Hyams (last seen in "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind"), Stanton Kaye, Michael Lang (last seen in "Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation"), Jeff Lieberman, Bob Mankoff (last seen in "Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg"), Michael Mann, Bob Rafelson, Stephanie Rothman, Jerry Schatzberg, Paul Schrader (last seen in "De Palma"), James Toback (last seen in "An Imperfect Murder"), Fred Williamson (last seen in "Starsky & Hutch"),
with archive footage of Joan Baez (also last seen in "Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation"), Peter Fonda (last seen in "Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time"), Wavy Gravy (last seen in "Tiny Tim: King for a Day"), Dennis Hopper (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Rustin"), Charles Manson (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James"), Richard Nixon (last seen in "I Could Never Be Your Woman"),
and the voices of Julie Christie (last seen in "The Company You Keep"), Robert Redford (ditto), Hillary Clinton (also carrying over from "You've Been Trumped Too"), Bernie Sanders (ditto). Walter Cronkite (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"),
RATING: 4 out of 10 unaffordable apartments in Watts
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