1960 & 1970: Decades of Change – Part One
Preface
In 1967 two very different American films would cause a change in the way we looked at movies. The French New Wave had splashed the shores of the US and there were film-makers and wannabes that paid attention. The story of how they came to be and what happened next, opened the doors for a new way of story telling and a freedom of expression on film that still informs us today. Before looking at these two films and the films that followed, a preface is necessary.
ABOVE LEFT: Patrick Auffay and Jean-Pierre Léaud in Les quatre cents coups (1959) ABOVE RIGHT: Jean-Pierre Léaud in Les quatre cents coups (1959) AKA: The 400 Blows
Truffaut’s 400 Blows (1959) a film about growing up and disillusion and change, Godard’s Breathless (1960) about an anti-hero and senseless waste, Polanski’s Repulsion (1960) about a young woman’s decent into madness, all had an indelible impact on American film-makers. It was truly a case of what comes around, goes around as the Europeans had been heavily influence by old Hollywood and then they, in turn, influenced young US film-makers and indirectly, the entire film industry.
Jean Seberg & Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless (1960)
It is impossible to over estimate the influence of the New Wave and European films when you look closely at what happened in American film in the late 60’s and early 70’s. By the late 1950’s, Television had already impacted the film industry and given rise to the success of producers Roger Corman and gimmick master William Castle. Both film-makers achieved success by offering audiences what couldn’t be seen on television. Hollywood was in trouble, but they were also in denial.
Add to this the cultural changes that had been broiling since the 1950’s, and were about to explode through the nation via the expansion of Television. For the first time news events could be broadcast anywhere in the country in flashing moving pictures. All of the fury, passion, or horror of an event could be played and re-played until it became much more than just news. The news was now a living thing; it could cry or laugh or bleed. The assassination of JFK became a recurring nightmare on screens across the country on November 22nd, 1963.
Gone was objective reporting; such images could not be controlled. They elicited feelings: love, happiness, despair, hope, hatred, grief. It was a Pandora’s box that had been opened with the best of intentions.
Concurrently, the Beatles had formed in 1960 and the little Liverpool band went on to become a world wide phenomenon unlike anything that came before them. Not only would they revolutionize rock and roll, but they would be the precursors to an unprecedented youth revolution that would soon further influence everything from race relations, to fashion, to politics, to television, to cinema.
The Beatles with Ed Sullivan, February 1964 (Photo courtesy CBS Television)
The fledgling pop band toured England and Germany as their popularity rose with every record sale. By 1963 a writer at the New York Times wrote a series of articles praising their music compositions. After overcoming record company shenanigans in the US, the Beatles were finally on their way to the Ed Sullivan Theater in February of 1964. The show was seen by more than 70 million viewers (over 30% of the US population). The critical reviews were dismal, but America’s youth had been awoken and Beatlemania went what would be considered viral today.
In the same year, A Hard Day’s Night was released. The film documented their meteoric ascension as it displayed their personalities to an eager audience. The film, directed by Richard Lester, was not only what Beatles’ fans dreamed of and a box office hit, but a critical success as well.
A Hard Days Night 
A Hard Days Night
The film was both fantastic fiction and a spot-on day and night in the life of the true four riders of a renaissance that no one expected but many welcomed with open arms.
At the very same time Black America was rising. Their cries for freedom, long muffled, were now booming. The Civil Rights movement was making much overdue traction as unrest exploded across the country. The voices of many were still not being heard; Dr. Martin Luther King was lighting the way to peace, but the majority of Americans were still not listening.
Civil Right March on Washington D.C. 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Race riots raged throughout the 60’s: Birmingham, Alabama (1963), Harlem, NY (1964), Philadelphia, PA (1964), Watts/LA, CA (1965), Newark , Plainfield, and New Brunswick, NJ (1967), and Detroit, Michigan (1967). The 60’s were such a frantic ride in so many directions that there was bound to be a backlash. Far too many white Americans were on the wrong side of History.
On Thursday, April 4th, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King was shot on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. This horrid act precipitated the Holy Week Uprising that flared up in racial violence that took 40 lives across the country. In more that 100 cities the shot that killed Dr. King exploded.
RIGHT ABOVE: The aftermath of the Holy Week Uprising
Only two months later Robert Kennedy, who was running for president, was shot and killed at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He had just won the South Dakota and California 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries.
All of these events were compounded by the ever expanding Viet Nam War and the resistance against it. The demonstrations against the war were causing yet more division and unrest. Again, the large segment of White America (referred to sometimes as the ‘silent majority’) was not getting it. Something was going terribly wrong.
Anti War demonstration 1963 
Anti War demonstration 1970
Less people were going to the movies as the real-life drama was readily seen on the TV home screen. It was not only Hollywood that was floundering, it was the entire country. A fracture had begun that would haunt the nation for the next fifty years.
On television between 1967 & 1969, the Smother’s Brothers were making many laugh and even more angry on The Smother’s Brothers Comedy Hour. Their social and political satire was irreverent and calculated. Worse, it was well written, funny, and struck bone. It was infuriating the network and the White House, eventually leading to their firing in 1969.
It was within this boiling cauldron that Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate were conceived and produced and then projected on screens. Nothing would ever be the same again.
NEXT Part 2: Bonnie & Clyde and The Graduate
Gene Hackman, Warren Beatty, and Faye Dunaway in Bonnie & Clyde; Anne Bancroft in The Graduate both released in 1967