Product Description

TAKE A LEGAL TRIP BACK TO THE SIXTIES! It was a time when a generation rebelled and lost its innocence. From the Vietnam War to the struggle for racial equality to the birth of a counter-culture explosion, the 1960s was a decade of change, experimentation and hope that transformed an entire nation and whose actions echoed around the world. THE SIXTIES: THE YEARS THAT SHAPED A GENERATION traces the events of one of the most turbulent and influential periods of political and cultural change in the 20th century and the powerful impact forced on an entire generation. This detailed and captivating documentary features revealing interviews with many of the prominent figures of the era including: Barbara Ehrenreich, Daniel Ellsberg, Jesse Jackson, Tom Hayden, Arlo Guthrie, Henry Kissinger, Norman Mailer, Robert McNamara, Ed Meese III and Bobby Seale. It was the age of selfishness. It was the age of self-indulgence. It was the age of anti-authority. It was an age in which people did all kinds of wrong things. - Ed Meese III, U.S. Attorney General, Reagan Administration It was absolutely exhilarating. It was the greatest time to be alive ever, for sure. - Charles Kaiser, Author/Historian 1. Part One: Opening Montage 2. The Beginning 3. The Summer of Love 4. Black America Rising 5. Vietnam 6. 1968:The Pivotal Year 7. I Am A Man 8. Student Revolt 9. End of Part One 10. Part Two: Opening Montage 11. Death of a Dream 12. A Collision of Crisis 13. Prague Spring 14. The Night of Sorrow 15. Women's Liberation Movement 16. Politics 17. 1969: The Rage 18. Woodstock 19. A Country Polarised 20. Self-Destruction 21. Veterans Against The War 22. The Pentagon Papers 23. Closing Credits

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41625 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-05-19
• Rating: Exempt
• Formats: Black & White, Colour, PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 117 minutes

Synopsis
A look at the cultural and political events that occurred in the tumultuous 1960s.

Customer Reviews

I was there!
This is a great piece of work, very detailed and gets right to the hub of the period. It's centered on the Vietnam War, with the Civil Rights Movement given ample coverage too. It shows how America at that time was a neo-fascist state, with police brutality equal to any communist regime of the time. American presidents had no qualms about shooting down their young people who dared to question the status quo, and Ronald Reagan was not averse to a bloodbath either if it gave him the tough guy image. Nixon predictably comes over as the lying crook that he was, equally despotic in dealing with his country's unruly youth.

My only gripe about this DVD is that it's concentrated mainly on America and its politics, with only a passing reference to the revolutionary events in Europe at the time. I'd have liked a bit more about the music and the opening up of "alien" philosophies from the East that so gripped the hippies (having been one myself!), as well as the fashions and the changing attitudes towards sexual freedom and the cutting loose of the old moral order that held our parents in check. It's dealt with of course, but to me not sufficiently compared to the amount of time given over to Vietnam.

The caption says it was the best of times to be alive, and I agree, but predictabley it all went sour after Woodstock and Altemont. It can't fail to invoke the mood of the time to those who lived through it.