MY GENERATION
UK, 2017, 85 minutes, Colour.
Michael Caine.
Directed by David Batty.
The Generation of the title is that of those born in the 1930s and early 1940s. Some of them had early years in the aftermath of the depression. All of them experienced a childhood during the years of World War II. But, they came into their own in the late 1950s and the early part of the 1960s.
For audiences who lived through some of those years, this will be a fascinating documentary. For audiences, born later, but who remember some of the main characters of the period, especially the Beatles and The Rolling Stones, fashion personalities like designer Mary Quant, Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy, and film stars like Michael Caine. 21st-century audiences, perhaps this is something of an exercise in ancient history!
The film is hosted by Michael Caine in his 80s. He is a genial host, talking to camera, giving his own background, Maurice Micklewhite, a Cockney, life in the 1930s in London and during the war, his beginning his acting career, in theatre, advertising, films, and commentary on the mid-60s through clips from two of his films, Alfie and The Ipcrss File. As a portrait of Michae Caine, with his history, reminiscences, personalised comments, comparisons between those times and the present, My Generation is very welcome.
Michael Caine is certainly very good and enjoyable company.
There is a great deal of film unusual footage available for insertion into the documentary. In many ways, it is offering something of a treasure trove for those wanting to see the images of the period.
Then there are the interviews with so many of the characters, visuals of their times, the public appearances, controversies, a focus on The Beatles, Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones, music, the world of fashion…
One of the main theses of the film is that this is the first young generation in British history to change the traditions of the past. There are glimpses of movies from the 1930s and 40s, uppercrust characters, clipped British accents, and drawing-room world which the young generation did not identify with, rebelled against. Here is the value of Caine’s own observations and clips from Alfie.
But, not only, is it a younger generation reshaping, the challenge to class distinctions, but also the movement towards greater freedoms, symbolised by fashion, miniskirts into the 1960s, for instance, the energies of dancing and twisting, the young crowds and their adulation of the music groups, issues of drugs, a completely different perspective – and, inserted all through, clips of upper-class people, members of parliament, social commentators, presented as pontificating on how bad these changes were.
At only 85 minutes, this is a brief but quite engrossing reliving of the times.