Introduction
The 1960s were a decade of metamorphosis in American society, politics, and culture. The era of the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam-induced anti-militarism, and the paranoia of the Cold War appears to have matured the American layperson. The popular culture seems to have grown alongside the society, presenting more mature themes and visuals, and opening up to a multicultural influence of European auteurs. This research project will attempt to draw parallels between the elements of popular cinema and the outside factors that shaped the culture of the time. The cinematic developments in the 1960s were a response to a changing cultural landscape, and the popular movies, administrative changes, and trends have left a mark on the next decade’s culture, creating a sort of a feedback loop.
The foreign movies that were shown to the American audiences were challenging, and felt distinctly personal, creating the trend of “authorship” that Hollywood would embrace to some extent (Worland, 2018). The political and military tensions played a role in the mainstream cinema of the time, with the government trying to portray the war as heroic through cinema, which was met with public displeasure (Abramson et al., 2008). Crucially, by the end of the decade, the Hays Code was abandoned, which shaped much of the cinematic trends of the previous decades (Fillol, 2019). The decade left an impression on the cinema, and the cinema perpetuated some of the social trends that resonated with the public.
Annotated Bibliography
Abramson, L., Everett, A., Morrison, J., Pomerance, M., Benshoff, H., Desser, D., … Schaefer, E. (2008). American Cinema of the 1960s: Themes and Variations. B. K. Grant (Ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
This is an excellent source on the significant social and political trends of each year in the decade that ties it to the movies and TV. This book, edited by a Communication, Popular Culture, and Film professor, is an essential source for the research project.
Fillol, S. (2019). Off-screen space and the fold: ways of representing the unrepresentable, shaped by the Hays Code in classical cinema. Atalante-Revista De Estudios Cinematograficos, (28), 49-62.
This article on the Hays Code describes some of the artistic practices and moral guidelines that earlier cinema was essentially forced to conform to. It is essential to understand what limitations the 1960s cinema shed after the 1968 adopted a different content rating system.
Worland, R. (2018). Searching for New Frontiers: Hollywood Films in the 1960s. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
This is another excellent book on the topic that ties the cultural trends of the decade to particular films, and even to the scenes taken from them. Unlike the previous entry, this book focuses more on the cultural influences, rather than sociopolitical ones, creating a more well-rounded bibliography.
References
Abramson, L., Everett, A., Morrison, J., Pomerance, M., Benshoff, H., Desser, D., … Schaefer, E. (2008). American Cinema of the 1960s: Themes and Variations. B. K. Grant (Ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Fillol, S. (2019). Off-screen space and the fold: ways of representing the unrepresentable, shaped by the Hays Code in classical cinema. Atalante-Revista De Estudios Cinematograficos, (28), 49-62.
Worland, R. (2018). Searching for New Frontiers: Hollywood Films in the 1960s. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.