The apotheosis of discontent : representations of the counterculture in 1960's film and television /

Abstract

Cinema, during the 1960's indirectly reflected the social and political conflagrations ofthe era through changes in production and style. These changes shadowed a larger transformation in sensibility that was most visible in the development of a youth subculture that questioned the hegemony ofa pre-existing set of cultural preconceptions, creating a canon ofits own. While the emergence of a counterculture, did not alter American politics, it exerted an indirect effect over all ofthe arts, including Cinema, where new ideas about effacing boundaries between audiences and performers, directors and critics and old notions regarding high and low culture came together to form a new cinema. This new style in film-making reflected the growing cynicism of a generation that felt ill-at-ease with the geo-politics ofthe cold-war, and that questioned the basic tenets upon which the foundations of post-industrial society were erected. I have chosen several films that reflected this transformation of sensibilities, and which reveal the dialectical relationship between art and cultural experience. Although, most ofwhat came to be associated with the counterculture was quickly merchandized and absorbed into mainstream cultural discourses, including film, much ofit remained too radical to digest, existing just beyond the purview ofwhat was considered culturally acceptable. These more radical discourses, were slowly transformed into a pervasive atmosphere of disaffection which is a salient characteristic ofthe films analyzed here. I have attempted to capture the "feeling" ofthe times by deconstructing these films as if they were artifacts, or texts. By re-reading them in this way, I hope to shed light on the dynamics that made the 60's an era of such dramatic change, and which make these films important illustrations ofthe period's more marginal sensibilities.