YOU MANIACS!
What was cool in the 60’s will always be cool.
This was a decade where global cinema, music and art exploded. You had to go the movies to keep up with the fast-changing world. There were no VHS tapes, home theatres or internet streams. If you weren’t actively engaged in the events of the times – when they were happening – you were a square. (someone “dull and out of touch with current trends” in case you didn’t hit the link.)
In my little corner of the world, the last thing anyone wanted to be was a square.
YOU BLEW IT UP!
I saw the original Planet of the Apes before I was a teenager. It was something you had to see. Everyone raved. If you didn’t show up early, you didn’t get in. There were lineups around the block.
It was unforgettable. I saw it several times. And now, some 50 years later, I’m excited to attend a preview screening ahead of the theatrical release of War for the Planet of the Apes.
That is cool.
Ah… Damn you!
This week, I screened the original Planet of the Apes for a film studies class of mostly international students, average age 21. Only a handful had seen it. Some, but not all, were familiar with the new series: Dawn and Rise with the incredible performance capture technology.
Everyone’s a critic. And this group was no different. Some of these hopeful young filmmakers of tomorrow didn’t like it: the effects weren’t very good, the avant garde score wasn’t to their taste, the ending could have been better.
I have to bite my tongue sometimes.
GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!
My takeaway, and what’s important to realize, is that many seats in schools are filled with students who are not that interested in history. Neither the history of film, the history of art, nor the history of the world.
But they are aware of the history on their smart phones and the need to erase it when they’ve been watching edgy content. (Funny how that works.)
They didn’t get the references from the 60’s, like the ironic line, “Remember, never trust anybody over 30.” They didn’t notice the ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil’ imagery. And when Charlton Heston lights up a cigarette on the ship, it took them out of the story because that just doesn’t happen (not aware that people smoked on airplanes up till the 90’s.)
But they did marvel at the final image. It’s an amazing reveal that still stands as one of the great endings in modern cinema, even though it’s nearly 50 years old.
For me, the message from this 1968 classic still resonates. Now more than ever.
POZERVISION 
