David Batty
My generation

"People try to put us down, I'm talking about my generation!"

How many times have we listened to the refrain of a manifesto song like "My generation" by The Who, which, along with "Satisfaction (I can't get no!)" by the Rolling Stones, perfectly captured the anger and desire to emerge felt by young British generations and beyond in the 1960s. It's hard to forget such a fitting soundtrack for such an intense historical period.

Well, just to remind those who are so young today that they think they are living in an incredible historical phase like the current one, so pervaded by the hyper-speed of hyper-connection via handheld devices (smartphones and whatnot), I highly recommend watching the documentary "My generation" directed by David Batty that came out in 2018. It is a useful and accessible portrait of a golden era that, over the course of 82 minutes, transports us into a frenzied decade rich with deep transformations in the mentality and customs of modern society.

Guided by a brilliant chaperone like the English actor Michael Caine (who himself witnessed those events firsthand), one is transported by a sort of time machine to understand the historical preconditions of the winds of change in the 1960s. Specifically in London (Caine's birthplace) and Britain, one must bear in mind the prevailing day-to-day grey post-war period. In a world where global superpowers were the USA and USSR, Britain and France no longer held such a decisive role in the fate of the globe. The British Empire was even being dismantled and replaced by the Commonwealth, a kind of federation of independent English-speaking states. Therefore, it was necessary to modernize British society, and indeed the new youthful trends in music, art, clothing, gender relations, and lifestyles in general acted as a providential remedy.

However, beyond the superficial phenomena recorded at that time, there were profound reasons that Batty's documentary rightly highlights. The liveliness of those young generations was stimulated by an underlying international condition that was labeled as the "balance of terror," as the USA and USSR possessed powerful nuclear weapons capable of destroying the planet Earth. In this situation of tension and mutual threat, how can one be surprised by the unconscious tendency to quickly develop something new and astonishing as a way to exorcise the nightmare of an impending global apocalypse? It was an implicit invitation to seize the moment, to live now without the certainty there would be a tomorrow (after all, Jim Morrison sang "We want the world and we want it now!").

Then, and this may have been somewhat overlooked but the documentary emphasizes it, English society was notoriously very classist, and social barriers between the upper class, middle class, and working class (the latter implicitly invited to stay in their place) were very perceptible. In short, that proverbial British aristocratic arrogance, seasoned with a lot of air of superiority, polluted interpersonal and social relationships, and meant that the English spoken and considered should be "posh" and Oxonian, never with a cockney accent (Michael Caine reminds us of this).

Fortunately, in the 60s decade, the protagonists of the artistic and social renewal were the children of the working class trained in the "school of arts" (British art colleges), which were a breeding ground for many artistic talents. Therefore, those characters who emerged at that time (and of whom the film presents archival footage and statements interspersed with Caine's comments) were the standard-bearers of a necessary renewal for a dusty and sclerotic society like England's. Thus, accompanied by the best tracks of those days, the memories of artists such as Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Roger Daltrey, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Mary Quant, Twiggy, David Bailey, just to name a few, unfold in a rapid succession that holds the viewer captivated by the effervescence reigning in those times.

Of course, not everything was so spectacular, and in the last chapters, the film also specifies the tendency, in those permissive times, to experiment with the use of drugs. So much so that, to the eyes of many conventional thinkers, those young people, already so bizarre for their musical tastes, colorful clothing, long hair, sexual promiscuity, progressive political ideas, now became a source of scandal and a threat to social stability. It's known that prosecuting some members of the Rolling Stones in 1967 for drug use and trafficking was a logical consequence.

But even admitting, as reiterated in the documentary, that in such an impetuous historical season there were no shortages of excesses, some basic concepts remain valid even decades later. Firstly, youth is not an age condition but rather a mental state that remains even in the subsequent phases of life (if one knows how to cultivate it). And lastly, as Michael Caine himself advises, it is a good thing to never stop nourishing dreams and aspirations by trying to put them into practice. Therefore, let us not limit ourselves to remembering the past; let's be projected into the future and live it intensely.