Dystopia, Apocalypse, Culture War: 2018 or 1968?

Dargis / Scott --- American cinema for the last two years can be seen in "Baywatch". Absolutely nothing there... no writing no wit no intelligence no narrative no point...

It is 2018 and these writers still speak of male domination of Hollywood in 1968 even though any males who were not white were barricaded from the Hollywood rooms and sets. It was not "males" running the studios. It was, and is, white males wielding the levers of power in Hollywood. Own it. Why are the writers unable to make this distinction? Oversight? Deliberate whitening of history? The editors? It is unforgivable.

YES AND WE SHOULD BE THANKFUL Look at today's front page of the Daily News. Is this the Republican Party you voted for?

1968. I remember the APCs rolling around the streets of WashDC during the curfews that started at 10pm. Law students sat cross legged in the front yard of my family's duplex and shouted "fingers!" at their hands(LSD does that to ya). Cousin Bobby quit college and joined the Marines...frustrated with the attitude of his peers....after returning from a tour in 'Nam, he became a vet(ernarian). While everything seemed to be fine in America, youth seemed h3!!-bent to imitate what was happening in Paris and Prague..............

Ms. Dargis and Mr. Scott overlook the insights "The Green Berets" gave us. When the Pentagon was asked why it gave technical assistance to that movie but would not to "M*A*S*H" its reply was that it only aided movies that were factual. At the end of the "Green Berets" John Wayne watches the sun set over the South China Sea, i.e., in the east. I always thought that the Pentagon seemed to believe this was true helps to explain why our military adventure in Vietnam turned into such a mess. As to that end of "Planet of the Apes" if you think about it, they must have been on Manhattan the whole time and you have to admit it has never looked in any of our lifetimes as verdant as it does in the movie. Those apes were far better environmentalists than we are.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes....." ......maybe Samuel Clemens, the attribution is debated, but it's too good to not give the Master credit....

'Member in the Matrix Movies how all the humans are mind controlled to think its still 1974??

One big difference - Marxism has been thoroughly discredited and its millions of dead have been buried. At least that's one positive...

I think this is what the journalists and observers are failing to notice.....its NOT 1968. But the journalists and observers only have 1968 as a reference point and cannot break free of that irrelevant frame of reference. Thus, we continue to live in a self-imposed time warp. I'd say, blame it on the Baby Boomers who still control all the leadership positions. In 1968.....it was USA, USSR, and the Third World. 2018....its Multiple Trade Networks, Internet, China as a World Power, Islam replaces Communism as world revolution....abundance, overpopulation. Its a completely different world.

This Is Us! My world and welcome to it. As a 28 year old who had just received his final separation papers from the USN, this really was the first day of the rest of my life. This and Prague Spring. I could write and draw volumes, some of which has been and continues to be in process. How touching that David Brooks wants to wear a new Whig. I will settle for my freak flag and wear it proudly. What a great story. For those curious enough, find Chris Marker’s Grin Without a Cat. A brilliant education and introduction to the horrible mess we find ourselves in today.

Keep in mind that there were no Baywatch remakes in the sixties or Avengers. Film today is utterly remarkable. You know what I'm saying -?

What were the French protesting? No article ever says. It seems like they were protesting for the sake of protesting. One thing is for sure: the baby boomers will be remembered as the jerk generation. Not cool at all. Look at the leaders from that generation. Look at what they did to jobs in this country with their absolutist, unyielding views on "free" trade. That's just the most horrible example of the damage done.

Major difference....1968, we actually were putting a man on the moon, Hollywood made movies about the future. 2018......we think the moon landing was faked and Hollywood makes movies based on WW2 comic books from 70 years ago.

Remember well - Dad dropping off my friends and me age 12 at the cinema for Saturday afternoon showing of PotA along with a couple hundred other unchaperoned kids - panic ensued until that jaw dropping final scene when we collectively filed out of the theatre in stone cold silence.

Like Marilyn Monroe the sixties is a gift that keeps giving. To those those who own them. Sixties protesters take credit for ending the war. They showed the man. ANTIFA probably did more to get Trump in office than the sixties protesters did to get Nixon re elected. Who owns them? Soros, Koch brothers, the Russians, the iluminati? Why did they dissappear? What were they protesting As long as we keep dancing like trained monkeys the media will sell us what we want. You can blame it on the sixties if you want.

European Film is a process of interrogation. Visual Art is a means of jostling our sensations, thereby provoking questions. Oth, Hollywood is all about entertainment. Therefore, Cinema versus Moovie. Yet it's obvious that European Cinema can also entertain. As in literature, the interjection of humor and irony serves to drive dialogue-- as writer to reader, image to viewer. But how true is the converse: can a fundamental entertainment provoke thought? My response--in disagreement with the author--is not. What you derive by producing " thinking person's entertainment" is didacticism. Therefore, Spielberg, therefore, Kubrick. It's the Message Syndrome which has haunted the studios since their inception; "if you want to send a Message, use Western Union". I agree. The crisis in 1968 America was about Vietnam. That amerikans turned to moovies to obtain answers indicates a fundamental flaw in character. That's because amerikans are who they are because they buy into messaging. They don't like questions. So the article confuses 'message, or expression, with interrogation. For the author, it's all one, big transcontinental glopity-glop that was provoked by some sort of worldwide Zeitgeist. That's because the article completely ignores that The Art of European Cinema has been a means of interrogation since its beginning. Moreover, the Events of 68 easily fit into French History as yet another instance in which going to the street initiated social change...

When we talk about movies in 1968 we talk about a time very similar to our own, because movies just like today were pretty bad, the movie moguls were coming to the end of the line and they and the movies they produced were used up, and out of ideas. Like gamblers on a losing streak they played out their only winning hand: take popular stars the public wanted to see and throw them into as much junk as they could, quantity over quality. AND THEN it happened, the movie that changed everything, the movie that didn’t just set the bar high it set it in the stratosphere. Stanley Kubrick made “2001 a space odyssey”, the Sistine chapel of movies , it had every young director in film school looking up, inspiring them to see if they could make movies that could touch that perfection. The Europeans were already there, the Europeans probably inspired Kubrick, and that’s the way you get great art , somebody comes along with such talent that the talent just breaks down the doors of ,what is’ and creates “ what can be” the great ones inspire other artists , and the need to create overtakes them, it inspires and from the spark of inspiration comes a renaissance ,Kubrick started a fillm renaissance in motion pictures that golden age lasted till 1975 when Spielberg’s big Shark destroyed it forever, as big corporations came in driven by greed over art and snuffed out the flame. But the movies between 1970- 1975 were glorious. Thank you Mr. Kubrick.

For those of us of a certain age, 1968 was certainly a momentous year. I'm not sure I fully understood at the time, how unusual the tumultuousness of that year was, just as I am sure my parents didn't either; having endured the Depression and a world war, they could only scratch their heads and try to make sense of the assassinations ("We interrupt this program, to bring you a special bulletin...") the demonstrations, the encroaching drug use, a daughter who ran away from home. But as important as this year was in so many ways and as interesting as this article is, I can't help feeling its self-indulgence. It's the baby boomers who still think their coming of age was unique and the article seems to reinforce that ideology. Every generation had rites of passage, but the absence of ubiquitous media and the understandable lack of time to constantly reflect on the "meaning of life," as the boomers seem still obsessed with gives undeserved importance to the experiences of my generation. My parents and grandparents were too busy working and scraping together an existence to celebrate how important they were. Times have changed, but until my generation completely disappears, we'll still think that we changed the world like no one else before us or after could ever do.

Great article and 1968 was an important year in world cinema. I would also say that 1967 might be also a watershed year for Hollywood because it included groundbreaking films such as 'The Graduate,' 'Bonnie & Clyde,' 'Point Blank,' 'Cool Hand Luke,' 'The Dirty Dozen,' and 'In Cold Blood.'

1968.....when Baby Boomers were just approaching adulthood and responsibilities, obligations...........raised for the most part in a land of abundance, knowing little about deprivation, hunger, poor health, misery, oppression. They sought it out through TV exposure, contrived conflict with authority, rebels without a cause, drugs. there was still some mild interest in participating in the Civil Rights struggle, but it was a lot more the Baby Boomers style to imitate oppressed Delta Bluesmen with electric guitars and have fun. Throwing rocks at Cops was a lot safer than dodging bullets in Vietnam.....though many Boomers did volunteer to serve their country. College attendance swelled, as a convenient way to avoid the draft. No. 1968 was nothing like 2018...in 1968 there was no deprivation or oppression...things were actually getting better during our Golden Age..........it was boredom and guilt for having a way of life that truly was wonderful while others out there in the "third world" were suffering.

All you have to do is ignore the 11 million plus workers who went on strike in France in May, 1968; the unending State-sponsored violence that initially sparked the events; the incredible, stultifying day-to-day repressiveness of life, and the explanation is simple: kids acting out. Sorry, it won't wash. I should know, I was there. Paul Werner, PhD, DSFS (Danger to the Security of the French State), formerly of the CGT (Confédération générale du travail), author, A Memoir of May.

One of the biggest differences between 1968 and 2018 is that in 1968 despite the chaos there was a hope things could get better, and a desire to fight for that hope., to man the barricade because the enemy was clearly defined.. In 2018 everything about the American dream has been upended from the middle managers trying to squeeze every drop of profit from every business, mostly by skimping on wages, as well as the economic pie of the USA being redrawn to one big piece of pie representing the one percent, and slivers for the rest. A real feeling among those under 30 that they have no chance of having the same level of financial success as their parents. Most people under 30 can't afford to even move out of their parents house...a belief that the future will be worse than the past infiltrates all levels of society, and belief that one day Social Security will run out of money is a very real possibility. No matter the horrors confronting America from their television screens in 1968, the War, the Assassinations, the chaos, even through all that there was hope that we could pull out of the dive and right the Plane. today we live with school massacres as the new normal, we are all so jaded that in a way we are ready for anything. 2018 is 1968 without an exit, a ground hogs day of bad things, not so much fearing the worst but waiting for it.

Many of the problems since 1968--including current ones--are directly attributable to the social pathologies unleashed by 1968 and the generation of soixante-huitiemes, in Europe and America, that still cling to making that corrosive social revolution permanent.

There is a difference. In 1968, rightly or wrongly, many young people cared. Today in 2018, almost no young people care. Most want to be soul-less robots...just like their parents.

One of the pinnacles of movie making was made in 1968 and turns the most iconic American genre into an operatic ballet of announced slow death: Once upon a Time in the West.

Most of the "major" movie releases of '68 were typical, run of the mill movies. Timeless classics like 2001 are always anomalies that are unpredictable and do not reflect popular, mainstream culture. I would say the same is true today. Making movies is still mostly a media corporate venture with little interest in art or making waves. Independent movies today would be considered sell outs to early John Waters, Warhol, etc. Film is not changing minds or attitudes or influencing the culture.

1968 was really the start of the rise of the "extreme violence" films of the 70s. In the 70s (when I was in my 30s) and later I often said that it would have been great to have died in one's sleep at the end of 1967 at the age of 80. What came later was so devastating to our country and I have never felt that we recovered the moral compass that was guiding us to a better world. Today I am almost 80. While I do not yet wish to die in my sleep or any other way, I am pessimistic about a movement arising to move us to a moral high road--and I worry a lot about the quality of the world that is my grandchildren's future.

There's really not much by way of comparison. Comparing things to the 60's is a frequent canard of a certain age-set, and prevents us from actually determining not only what is going on in our own world, but devising solutions to get past present problems. You don't move forward by constantly referencing a mythical past of youthful glory.

In 1968 the movie industry came out with 2001, Bullitt , and talk of the filming of Easy Rider to be released the following year. Exciting times in Cinema. As a child I noticed this shift, and I thought Funny Girl was the studio's attempt to pull things back to 1958. And I think " The Mirror has Two Faces" (1997) pretty much explains Streisand . And it was nominated by the Academy.

I think 'Back to the 60's' is a great way to view the present political situation in the United States. Certainly we have not seen things as confusing as they were then. The subject of civil protests has changed, but they're still there in things like 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Me Too'. The 60's produced lots of very good art, especially media art: music, film and television. Today it's the explosion of digital art made possible by the internet. The controls controls on civil society are are different too. The surveillance state has taken root, and as a result people are less willing to disagree with authority, lest they loose their jobs, or worse.

I hope we're not living in a sequel because, as historians like Ton Judt have argued, the long-term impacts of 1968 were limited. Culturally it may have pre-saged long term shifts, even if there was conservative retrenchment in the 70's. But politically and economically, the protests were followed by long-term shifts towards intensely conservative governments that created the dire economic conditions the working and middle class face today. What we need is not a new push for sexual liberation and cultural informality, honestly the biggest long-term impact of the 60's protests (living the pivotal and distinct US civil rights movement aside) ; we need something more akin to the progressive movements of the late 19th century for workers' rights and against the power of capital.

Wonderful article and worth the price of my digital subscription to the NYT all by itself. America went up in flames because of the Vietnam war, and 1968 began with the Tet offensive which turned Vietnam into a human meat grinder. Teenagers looking on aghast from America and fearing what might happen if their draft number came up rebelled, the very unfairness of fighting a war that most Americans then as now could not understand neither the purpose or the reason for, particularly brutal, fought in an almost perfectly apt hellish environment against an intractable enemy . The rebellion spread as the feeling that the old men in the capital refused to relent and end the war no matter how criminal it seemed, this youthful revolution fed into a youthful counterculture, the music, the clothing, the vibe, and the need to aggravate and tic-off the older generations, to get under their skin as a form of resistance. the older generation controlled the armies, the treasury and all the levers of power so the only thing the younger generation had to fight back with was all the assets of youth including free love and sex, as well as long hair. the only sameness between 1968 and 2018 is the feeling that the powerful control every bit of our lives and there is no real way to fight back against them and win, the difference is the lack of a Vietnam or a similar outrage, the powerful learned from Vietnam and stopped the draft. they now control a sheepish people with little stomach for protest