The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972)
May
17
1968
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Director Gordon Davidson and the defense attorney (David Spielberg) on set. DP: Haskell Wexler.
“One must confront vague ideas with clear images”
La Chinoise, ou plutôt à la Chinoise: un film en train de se faire [La chinoise] (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967)
Mar
19
Howard University Protest
Yvonne (Juliet Berto) holed up behind piles of Mao's Little Red Book, wielding a machine gun. DP: Raoul Coutard.
Student activism to commemorate the March 19 1968 Howard University Protest
– slogan on a wall
Five Maoist students theorise, then practice a radical overthrow via terrorism.
Loosely based on Dostoyevsky's Бѣсы [The Possessed] (1871–72).
Hanoi, martes 13 [Hanoi, Tuesday 13th] (Santiago Álvarez, 1968)
Dec
13
Tue
A collage image of President Lyndon B. Johnson. His face is a hole and footage of a military burial service can be seen. DP: Iván Nápoles.
“I've been consulted by Franklin D.,
Gretta Garbo has had me to tea,
Still I'm broken hearted,
Cause I can't get it started,
With you”
The Big Shave [The Big Shave… or, Viet '67] (Martin Scorsese, 1967)
Dec
2
Safety Razor Day
A young man (Peter Bernuth) shaving in front of a mirror. The bathroom is clean, white, with chrome fixtures. DP: Ares Demertzis.
Someone shaves on Safety Razor Day (USA)
Accompanied by the sweet tunes of Bunny Berigan and Ira Gershwin's I Can't Get Started, a young man shaves his face. The Big Shave is a short commissioned film which contains many of the hallmarks of Martin Scorsese's later, more accessible work.
–Ira Gershwin, I Can't Get Started (1936)
There's also the obvious influence of #KennethAnger to be found, in nostalgic show tunes, the fetishisation of chrome and clean lines, followed by lustful, by ways erotic, violence. #Scorsese theme here is not homoeroticism, not on the surface at least, but the carnage laid upon so many young men sent off to the smouldering battlefields of #Vietnam. There'd be another six years of that. And meanwhile, some young men came back. And some picked up a job, driving a cab.
“Thus, I do not see what use there is in those mills of the gods said to grind so late as to render punishment hard to be recognized, and to make wickedness fearless”
The Mills of the Gods: Viet Nam (Beryl Fox, 1965)
Sep
18
Air Force Birthday
Drafted soldiers in a military chopper. One of them is reading Richard Wormser's Operation Crosbow (Dell Comics Movie Classics #590), another has his head slumped in his hands. DP: Erik Durschmied.
– Plutarch, Moralia (1 A.D.)