Générations 68

Simon Brook's raucous exploration of the pivotal year of the 1960s is a tale of many cities––London, Paris, New York and Prague––and a record of revolution.

The music was fabulous, fashion was fun, sex was safe, and flower power blossomed. Meanwhile, American cities burned with race riots, Martin Luther King was assassinated two months before Robert F. Kennedy was killed, the flowers of a Prague spring were trampled by Soviet tanks, and a war raged on in Vietnam.

Brook is most interested in the youthful exuberance that bubbled to the top of the seemingly placid social status quo, revealing the roiling conflicts of racial injustice, sexual politics and generational change beneath the surface. Actor, director and art collector Dennis Hopper describes the moment as a time when "Youth found its own voice… it was a great tribute to youth and to times changing for the positive not the negative." The film blends interviews of artists, directors, DJs and fashion designers with archival footage that's always emotionally resonant. Milos Forman wonders aloud why some are raising the red flag when "others of us are working so hard to bring it down." (He directed the movie HAIR not to comment on the war, but to celebrate our freedom to talk about it.) Future Czech President Vaclav Havel wrote revolutionary plays. In the American South, Dennis Hopper made EASY RIDER; in London, Mary Quant invented the mini-skirt and hot pants. The film captures what artist Ed Ruscha calls "a cacophony of spirit" that permeated the time.

GENERATION 68 explores the cultural moment from a slightly European perspective, adding to our understanding of what Newsweek called "the year that made us who we are."