Review of Leaves of Grass (2009) by Erich R — 24 Dec 2011

There are still very few treatments of the 60s...as Scott Turow recently pointed out with reference to his excellent novel The Laws of Our Fathers.

I get A O Scott...I nearly stopped watching this movie when it took its sudden violent turn. But I stayed with it, and it had its moments.

I rather think I'd like to see it as a stage play - and certainly we are more used to this kind of storytelling in the contemporary theater.

As for the 60s...I say they were worth it. There is a wonderful diatribe of exasperation, in Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia, as Karim lists the world-changing social movements that more or less originated in America during that decade - the monologue is even more developed in the BBC film.

But I have felt for some time that there was some throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and that idea is summed up in Edward Norton's 'straight' Kincaid brother's exasperation with his mother - he accuses her generation of spending so much energy and focus on tearing society down, that they neglect to create anything sea-worthy in its place (I paraphrase) - no wonder so many of that generation appeared to completely leave behind their revolutionary youths, no wonder the few that didn't have so little to show for their communes and such.

And yet...so much was accomplished in that time, the legacies that did result are so engrained into our societal mores now - no wonder a proper accounting has yet to be taken.

The great question of the moment, I believe, is whether the rare and phenomenally worldwide protests and awakenings that are happening now, can improve upon past experience.