Swinging London - 1963-1967

Résumé du document

The sixties were usually referred to as a period of joy and optimism, especially in England, as it was a span of time between two tougher periods in British history. Socially and economically speaking, the fifties was characterized as a period of severe struggle in the United Kingdom. The seventies was laden with several problems that were often linked with the economic crisis of these years and the decline of the British power. Therefore, the cultural movements of this period were often very pessimistic and violent, such as the punk movement. On the contrary, the cultural movements of the sixties appeared to have been a lot more joyful. In this context, Christopher Brooker, a historian, says that "one of the most obvious things that have built our vision of the 1960's is the fact that these years have been idealized as a kind of golden age that has been lost." However some protagonists of this fascinating era have adopted a more pessimistic view and think of all this as nothing but a huge illusion: the illusion of prosperity, freedom and happiness. According to Ray Davies, the leader of the Kinks (one of the major bands of that time) said in 1981: "The sixties was a lie, a total lie". It can therefore be concluded that the sixties was quite an ambiguous period. In order to understand it better, I will first try to present them objectively and then use the famous movie Blow-Up, by Michaelo Antonioni, in order to support and adopt a more critical point of view.

Extraits

[...] This vision could of course be extended to the whole swinging London phenomenon. And maybe also to our actual society, where people tend to put in fashionable clothes, objects and activities a sacred value, that they would never have had in another place or another time of our history. Perhaps the whole point is therefore to try to keep one's mind free from the modern idolatries, to take some distance with the society's rules, and never to stop thinking. Fashion is just a game, and it's much nicer to play it with ease and detachment Bibliography L'Angleterre des Beatles, by B. [...]

[...] This was quite new. So the adults often remained perplex and were sometimes even frightened by all this mad energy. Some of them didn't like it at all. The conservative newspaper The Daily Telegraph even compared the Beatles' concerts with the mass movements of the 3rd Reich, which was of course ridiculous. The fan phenomenon was called Beatlemania. The Beatlemania was not only about music. It was also about the Beatle's image, about their style and their behaviour. They appeared in various movies, such as A Hard Day's Night or Help, which helped them become famous. [...]

[...] The story takes place in swinging London. The main character is a photographer, an ambiguous artist, who thinks he has accidentally witnessed the preparation of a murder. And the whole movie is centred on the theme of illusion, and raises several questions: what's real and what's not? Is what we see the reality? Let's focus on a specific scene of the film, nearly at the end. The hero, looking for a woman, finally enters an underground club, where the Yardbirds (and among them Jimmy Page) are giving a concert. [...]

[...] Swinging London - 1963-1967 The Sixties are usually seen as a period of joy and optimism, especially in England, where they take place between two tougher periods of British history. The Fifties had indeed been quite difficult in the United Kingdom, socially and economically speaking. And during the Seventies, many problems occurred, that were often linked with the economic crisis of these years and the decline of the British power. So the cultural movements of this period were often more pessimistic and violent, such as the punk movement. [...]

[...] The most important of these new bands are the Rolling Stones, who were vaulted to fame in 1964, the Kinks, and the Who. But there were many other bands, such as the Yardbirds, the Animals, the Pretty Things . The song Generation”, by the Who, became the symbol of the mod movement, a movement that rejected the adults boring daily life and wanted to have fun : “people try to put us down (talkin' ‘bout my generation) Just because we get around (talkin' ‘bout my generation) Things they do look awful (talkin' ‘bout my generation) I hope I die before I get old (talkin' ‘bout my generation) This is my generation This is my generation, baby.” After 1967, however, this kind of music tended to evolve. [...]