Tag Archives: 1968
Ginsberg, 1968
Photo: Elsa Dorfman I haven’t got around to posting a lot about 1968, but we’re celebrating the anniversary of one of the craziest years ever, and it’s been helpful for me to look back on that yesteryear chaos to remind myself that these times are comparatively calm. Seriously. While everybody is uneasy about the Supreme [...]
Hey Jude 50
Sunday, August 26, marked the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ biggest hit, “Hey Jude.” Here’s what Rolling Stone has to say about the song and it’s role as a high-water marker in The Beatles song catalog as well as their partnership as friends and as a band… “Hey Jude” sums up the [...]
Devil’s Night
I don’t remember how old I was when I learned that Detroit was the only place with a Devil’s Night. I’m posting this on Thursday evening, but I won’t share it with anyone until Friday morning, just in time for the night before Halloween — Devil’s Night. The film Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages was [...]
Medium Cool at 45
“Beyond the age of innocence…into the age of awareness,” read the caption at the top of Medium Cool‘s stylized poster when the film was released 45 years ago in 1969. The line is telling in that it speaks to the real-life events at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago that are captured in the film. [...]
Apocalypse Again: Coppola & Milius
Several posts back I mentioned that this year is the 45 anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s production house American Zoetrope. It also happens to be the 35th anniversary of the 1979 film Apocalypse Now which was written by Zoetrope man of letters, John Milius and directed — of course — by Coppola himself. Fellow Zoetroper [...]
Good Morning, Zombies
While George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was originally panned by critics in 1968, the film has gone on to wide acclaim — it jump-started modern zombie cinema, and also mixed-in dark social commentary about the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960′s. Romero’s 1978 follow-up, Dawn of the Dead, didn’t suffer a sophomore [...]
Back in Black: Agnes Varda’s Panthers
The French filmmaker Agnes Varda’s candid camera work, and the natural performances and settings in her narrative films and documentaries influenced no less than Jean-Luc Godard. As a result, Varda is considered to be one of the key influences in the development of the French New Wave. In 1968, Varda traveled to America to shoot [...]
