1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
In a fascinating column for the Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout notes that 1962--not the oft cited annus horribilis of 1968--was when popular culture decisively pivoted into new and uncharted territory:
But it was in 1962, not 1968, that the curtain first started inching up on our age of full-color anxiety. Turn the clock back exactly a half-century and you'll find yourself in a different America—but one fraught with subtle signs and portents of what was to come....
Yet the caldron of change was already bubbling away. Take a second glance at the guest list for Carson's "Tonight Show" debut and you'll note the unexpected presence of Mel Brooks, whose raucously, unabashedly vulgar movies would soon help to undermine Hollywood's long-established sense of the appropriate. Nor was Mr. Brooks the only portent of things to come. Nineteen sixty-two was also the year when Bob Dylan cut his first album. Andy Warhol's first solo show, an exhibition of Campbell's Soup cans, opened in Los Angeles in 1962, and Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opened on Broadway. As dissimilar as these now-venerable objets d'art may seem to us now, they all had in common the iron determination of their creators to break decisively with the earnest, self-confident tone of postwar culture.
Referring to Albee's haunting and disturbing play, Teachout notes that its debut marked the first time in American culture that a popular playwright captured the public's imagination by "declaring that the values by which it lived were false."
In the second act of the play, George, a bitter college professor, rants drunkenly about the meaninglessness of life:
You endeavor to make communicable sense out of natural order, morality out of the unnatural disorder of man's mind…you make government and art, and realize that they are, must be, both the same…you bring things to the saddest of all points…to the point where there is something to lose…then all at once, through all the music, through all the sensible sounds of men building, attempting, comes the 'Dies Irae.' And what is it? What does the trumpet sound? Up yours.
This monologue just goes to show how far we've come since 1962: George's rant seems almost milquetoast compared to the cultural indiscretions that today entertain the popular public. The question is, are today's improprieties a direct legacy of 1962, the year our culture abandoned "the long-established sense of the appropriate," in Teachout's words--or is their cause found elsewhere?
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Feb '12
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Terry is right. Catholic life began to change dramatically with the events of the Second Vatican Council, convoked in 1962. The "Spirit of Vatican II" was set loose. It was now time for what George Weigel correctly identifies as the "cowboys and indians" narrative of the mainstream press all over the Western world that brought unprecedented moral breakdown among Catholics. The next 10 years witnessed a huge exodus of the faithful from Sunday Mass, a "new agenda" for sexual morality, exodus from religious life, and a new liberal approach to Catholic education that separated parish life from the new consolidated Catholic secondary schools that grew up across the nation.
Aug '10
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Thanks Ed, I remember an anecdote about how Kubrick complained after Barry Lyndon did so poorly , and in so many words said "to hell with it, the next one with a bestseller and it will be scarier than you can imagine !".
The result: The Shining.
The whole concept of the anithero is destructive to the social fabric, isn't it ? Counterculture is countersociety is countercommunity.
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
flownover
Thanks Ed, I remember an anecdote about how Kubrick complained after Barry Lyndon did so poorly , and in so many words said "to hell with it, the next one with a bestseller and it will be scarier than you can imagine !".
The result: The Shining.
The whole concept of the anithero is destructive to the social fabric, isn't it ? Counterculture is countersociety is countercommunity. · 4 minutes ago
Yes, after Barry Lyndon, Kubrick made nothing but genre deconstruction films -- the horror movie, the war movie, the sex movie. There are great moments in all of them, but also a sense of bludgeoning his audience to help assure each film's profitability.
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Hi James,
Could you say something about the nihilism of the best film noir? I think of the best film noir as being very moralistic (e.g. Double Indemnity).
James Lileks: A direct legacy. But it had been building before '62. There's the nihilism of the best film noir, the rise of trashy expose-mag pop culture in the 50s and the juvenile-delinquency panic - a slowly coalescing sense of moral corruption and societal fallibility that coincided with the elevation of the adolescent sensibility as an ethical barometer, and the increased population of boomers keen to throw off all that old square stuff.
The exact moment it went off the rails can be tied to the introduction of wood-grained plastic, but that's just my theory. · 1 hour ago
Aug '10
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Ed Driscoll: Our local multiplex has been running a series of classic movies each week. A week ago, we attended Stanley Kubrick's 1971 production of Anthony Burgess's novel,A Clockwork Orange. This week, it was Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant's 1959North By Northwest. These films are only a decade apart, but the gap between them seems bottomless. The culture confidence inherent inNorth By Northwesthad been replaced with the dank nihilism of the late '60s and 1970s ...
... By the way, according to Wikipedia, Burgess wrote the originalClockwork Orange novel...in 1962.
It is theorized that Kubrick's intention with that movie was, at least in part, to argue that much of what Burgess had predicted in the novel had already come to pass.
The most telling piece of evidence is the setting. The dystopian residential neighbourhood scenes were shot in the BRAND NEW residential development of Thamesmead South in Southeast London. Thamesmead was promoted as a model, utopian community, and here was Stanley Kubrick using it as the setting for a dystopian movie!
Incidentally, the same location was used years later in the British sci-fi show Misfits, about juvenile delinquents who obtain superpowers.
Aug '10
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Ed Driscoll
a sense of bludgeoning his audience to help assure each film's profitability.
So, in a sick play off another saying: in the old days it was "Everybody wants to be a director."
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
I think Teachout is confusing culture and politics.
The political order began to change dramatically after 1965. The Progressive consensus which had guided the American ruling class since the late-19th century began to crack in the mid to late 60's--it was fully on display in 1968 (think of the race riots and the Democratic convention debacle). RFK was the first prominent post-WW II era Democrat to suggest that communism might just be ok.
It is also interesting to contrast the traditional Western Ride the High Country (1962) with The Wild Bunch (1969). Sam Peckinpah went from traditional moralism to militant nihilism in that brief time. (Also look at The Rifleman episodes made by Peckinpah earlier--very traditional with a lot of confidence that America and American political principles were the way to go.)
Edited on July 20, 2012 at 9:35pmAug '10
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
I dunno 'bout that.
I think one could easily argue that the decline in art and beauty in the latter half of the 20th Century was fostered by people who never participated in the war, either because they were exempt from serving for some reason, or because they had no yet been born.
Generally, IMHO, the artists and creators who did serve in war generated strong work. Jimmy Stewart, Frank Capra, George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway, etc.
It was the generation that only ever saw war on the television or in the movie theatre that started the downward slide.
Aug '10
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
flownover
Thanks Ed, I remember an anecdote about how Kubrick complained after Barry Lyndon did so poorly , and in so many words said "to hell with it, the next one with a bestseller and it will be scarier than you can imagine !".
Keep in mind that Barry Lyndon was also a technical nightmare to shoot. Kubrick insisted on using no artificial light that wasn't available in the 18th century.
That meant interior scenes were lit by freakin' candlelight. Film stock in 1975 was nowhere near sensitive enough for such dim lighting, so Kubrick had special lenses INVENTED to let enough light into the camera.
After such a nightmarish production, technically-speaking, I can fully understand why he would want to take on "easier" topics afterwards. The Shining would be a piece of cake to shoot, by comparison, especially since the Steadicam had been invented by then.
Edited on July 20, 2012 at 9:54pmRe: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Misthiocracy
It is theorized that Kubrick's intention with that movie was, at least in part, to argue that much of what Burgess had predicted in the novel had already come to pass.
The most telling piece of evidence is the setting. The dystopian residential neighbourhood scenes were shot in the BRAND NEW residential development of Thamesmead South in Southeast London. Thamesmead was promoted as a model, utopian community, and here was Stanley Kubrick using it as the setting for a dystopian movie!
Ricochet's own James Lileks made a great observation a few months ago after viewing Truffaut's adaptation of Fahrenheit 451:
Corbusier-style urban renewal projects were yet another staple of 1950s-era liberalism that All The Right People assumed would be much better than the pre-modern buildings they replaced. As Jane Jacobs warned in the early 1960s, it didn't quite work out that way for their residents.
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Misthiocracy
flownover
Thanks Ed, I remember an anecdote about how Kubrick complained after Barry Lyndon did so poorly , and in so many words said "to hell with it, the next one with a bestseller and it will be scarier than you can imagine !".
Keep in mind that Barry Lyndon was also a technical nightmare to shoot. Kubrick insisted on using no artificial light that wasn't available in the 18th century.
That meant interior scenes were litby freakin' candlelight. Film stock in 1975 was nowhere near sensitive enough for such dim lighting, so Kubrick had special lenses INVENTED to let enough light into the camera.
After such a nightmarish production, technically-speaking, I can fully understand why he would want to take on "easier" topics afterwards. The Shining would be a piece of cake to shoot, by comparison. · 2 minutes ago
Only the nighttime interior scenes. The daylight interior scenes used lots of artificial lighting, as Kubrick's cinematographer John Alcott explained in interviews.
Part of me thinks that Kubrick shot the nighttime scenes in candlelight in part because he knew the urban myth that the entire film had been shot in that fashion would quickly begin to spread.
Aug '10
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Ed Driscoll
Only the nighttime interior scenes. The daylight interior scenes used lots of artificial lighting, as Kubrick's cinematographer John Alcott explained in interviews.
Fair enough. Still, it was a technically difficult shoot. Technically-speaking, The Shining was much easier for the crew. Hard on the actors, but easier for the crew.
Aug '10
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Ed Driscoll
Ricochet's own James Lileks made a great observation a few months ago after viewing Truffaut's adaptation ofFahrenheit 451:
Not completely true. THX-1138 was shot in the BART subway system, the Marin County Civic Center, the San Fransisco International Airport, and the Lawrence Hall of Science at Berkeley. ;-)
Maybe that's why Johnny Mnemonic didn't really work, despite the stellar source material. Instead of trying to build sets on a soundstage, they shoulda simply shot it on a post-1960 university campus. ;-)
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Misthiocracy
Ed Driscoll
Only the nighttime interior scenes. The daylight interior scenes used lots of artificial lighting, as Kubrick's cinematographer John Alcott explained in interviews.
Fair enough. Still, it was a technically difficult shoot. Technically-speaking, The Shining was much easier for the crew. Hard on the actors, but easier for the crew. · 12 minutes ago
Well, until the shooting stage caught on fire. ;)
Aug '10
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Stage sets are easier to rebuilt than 18th century mansions. ;-)
Apr '12
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
I was born in 1946, so I got to witness these changes close up and personally.
I agree you can trace the roots of some of the changes to the nihilism of the 1950s. (Noir was more cynical than nihilistic, I would say.)
As pure shock to social confidence, November 11, 1963 was huge. But it was a single event.
1968 was a series of body blows that made what was left of post-war confidence crumble fast: two assassinations, urban riots, street protests against a by-then hugely unpopular war ... too much to take in one year. By the end of 1968, you couldn't possibly be confident about what we were or had accomplished.
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
John Grant: I'll get back to you on those nihilistic noirs, but you're right about "Double Indemnity" having a moral center. Maybe there are two genres of noir - the type that reasserts a moral order, or at least suggests that such a thing exists, and the type where it's just mute implacable fate slapping around amoral characters.
Anything with venetian blinds and cigarette smoke gets called Noir these days, alas.
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Ed: Burgess wrote a novel about Napoleon - and dedicated it to Kubrick.
"Clockwork" would be a different movie if they hadn't lopped off the last chapter. It was originally intended as three sections of seven chapters each, adding up to 21, the age at which a man is a man, or ought to be. (Alex was only 15 in the book, I think.) The chapter was removed for the American release, and hence the book - and movie - ends with unrepentant amoral Alex. The real ending the book finds Alex grown, tired of his life, and realizing that hearth & home, wife & child, might just be the true calling of life, and the real measure of a man.
Bill Walsh: " In the ’80s, post-modernism let some traditional proportions and designs through an ironic back door, but I still don't think we've seen an optimistic, forward-looking, original culture in a long time (the ’80s was in certain ways, but it was undercut by an apocalyptic trend—dancing at the end of the world)."
Smack-on bingo, that. Well put.
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
Hi James,
Maybe The Third Man would fit the bill as an example of nihilistic film noir? (It is British and not American though.)
Film noir is definitely gloomy, but the examples that come to mind are basically moralistic. The universe is a tough place, but it is moral--our choices have consequences.
James Lileks: John Grant: I'll get back to you on those nihilistic noirs, but you're right about "Double Indemnity" having a moral center. Maybe there are two genres of noir - the type that reasserts a moral order, or at least suggests that such a thing exists, and the type where it's just mute implacable fate slapping around amoral characters.
Anything with venetian blinds and cigarette smoke gets called Noir these days, alas. · 10 minutes ago
Aug '10
Re: 1962, Not 1968, Was When Everything Changed
James Lileks:
Bill Walsh: "... I still don't think we've seen an optimistic, forward-looking, original culture in a long time ..."
What about Geek Culture? While some dismiss Geek Culture as a childish retreat into fictional fantasy worlds, and therefore see it as a cynical or nihilistic repudiation of "the real world", I say that it's mostly all about creativity (albeit mediated) and a D.I.Y. mentality.
Start with teenagers playing Dungeons & Dragons. Not content to simply consume stories created by others, they latch on to a system of rules with allows them to create their own stories.
Next you have the computer gamers. The early ones started with Commodore 64s, and rather than simply buy games they used the computer to create their own. Skip to modern gamers who spend many hours creating "mods" for commercially published games, or create new software through the open source tradition.
Next you have the poor nerdy members of the high school AV Club. Rather than simply consuming television, they learned to create their own. They evolved into the YouTube generation, creating their own special effects, animation, and indeed entire YouTube channels (Geek & Sundry).