Aaron,
I just sent your request to Helen Garvy and Bob Pardun, who just completed the
documentary on SDS, "Rebels with a Cause." Also, there are "The Sixties,"
"Berkeley in the Sixties" and "The War at Home," which cover a lot of territory
but all, I believe, show some signs of "mainstreaming" the lessons. An earlier
film, by Emil deAntonio, "Underground," which was about the Weather
Underground, is a very direct documentary from the WU while it existed. Also,
the 4-part series "Chicano!" devotes one part (an hour) to the Chicano/a
student movement of the sixties, and does so quite well. The Collision Course
video, "Viva la Causa, 500 Years of Chicano History," includes that history,
though much more quickly. The old Newsreel film "Columbia," details in a short
video the student strike of 1968, and their "On Strike!" covers the nearly
year-long strike at San Francisco State. One section of "Eyes on the Prize"
is devoted to the Black student movement that was focussed on the sit-in
movement in Greensboro, North Carolina, that led to the shaping of the civil
rights movement. There were more than one film on Kent State but I'm not
familiar with those. Finally, and still showing on PBS (tonight in San
Francisco) is
"1968: The Year That Shaped a Generation" (the PBS blurb on
this follows):
It is often described as "the year that changed the world" -
the year of the Tet
Offensive in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther
King Jr. and Robert
Kennedy, the "police riot" at the Democratic National
Convention in Chicago, a
near-revolution in France and the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia. The year
was 1968, a period when events happened so quickly and with
such intensity
that people were left almost breathless, alternating between
euphoria and
despair. Governments fell. Societies changed. An earthquake
of protest and
rebellion rocked the established order - and the world is
still living with the
aftershocks.
1968: The Year That Shaped a Generation revisits the major
events of that
critical year. It examines the turbulent political and social
landscapes of 1968
by combining dramatic archival footage with interviews of
many key
witnesses of the year's most pivotal events. The interviews
include
perspectives from Walter Cronkite, Reverend Jesse Jackson,
Senator Tom
Hayden, Nixon speech writer Pat Buchanan, Memphis civil
rights activist
Reverend Samuel Kyles, novelist/diplomat Carlos Fuentes,
feminist/essayist
Barbara Ehrenreich, Robert Kennedy's press secretary Frank
Mankiewicz,
1968 Olympics boycott leader Harry Edwards, reporter Jules
Witcover, Judge
Robert Bork and many others.
1968 marked the crest of student protest with the riots at
San Francisco State
University and the Columbia University strike. It was the
year when the
youthful hope and optimism of the '60s began to turn toward
rage and
violence. The riots that followed the murder of Martin Luther
King Jr. also
seemed to extinguish the last best hope for improved race
relations in America.
While segregationist George Wallace campaigned for president,
the Black
Panthers began arming themselves in California and defiant
black athletes
raised clenched fists at the Olympics in Mexico City.
President Lyndon
Johnson decided not to run for re-election; in the White
House, Richard Nixon
oversaw the escalation of the bombing of Vietnam. Police
crushed a student
insurrection in Paris and massacred students in Mexico City.
The Soviet Union
smashed the peaceful reform movement known as Prague Spring.
Still,
success followed some of these calamities. The antiwar
movement continued
to grow and eventually compelled Congress to cut funding for
the war.
France's antiquated educational system was transformed.
Dissident playwright
Vaclav Havel endured to see the end of the Cold War and
become president of
an independent, democratic Czech Republic.
Now 30 years later, on the eve of a new century, viewers have
a chance to
look back at a phenomenal, incandescent year and reflect on
what it meant for
the United States and the world. How did the sixties youth
rebellion and
counterculture transform society, for better and for worse?
What are the
legacies of the century's largest antiwar movement, the civil
rights movement
and the women's movement, which began to emerge in 1968? By
focusing on
this watershed year, 1968: The Year That Shaped a Generation
evokes the high
spirits and profound shocks that fundamentally altered
American society and
its political system. The program also offers a variety of
perspectives and
provides the critical distance necessary to assess the damage
and the triumphs.
1968: The Year That Shaped a Generation represents the PBS
tradition of
presenting in-depth documentaries that elucidate America's
history.
Underwriters: Public Television Viewers and PBS. Producer:
Oregon Public
Broadcasting. Executive producer: David Davis. Executive in
charge of
production: John Lindsay. Producer/director/writer: Steve
Talbot.
Editor/photographer: Wendy Revak. Associate producer: Mark
Dorgan. Music:
Cal Scott. Sound: Lori Gmez.
Format: CC Stereo
Best wishes, and good luck!
Doug Norberg
Aaron Kreider wrote:
> I'm helping to organize a progressive film-festival at Notre Dame, and
> would like to show a film or documentary portraying student activism in the
> sixties (or more recently - though I suspect most of the films would be
> from the sixties). Did anyone ever do a good documentary of SDS? Or of
> Kent State? Any other suggestions?
>
> Peace,
>
> Aaron
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