Wednesday, June 06, 2007

PBS Haight/Ashbury Documentary

I just finished watching the PBS documentary about Haight/Ashbury and the Summer of Love.
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It was a so-so documentary. Good video footage from that time period and interviews. However I would have liked to have learned more about the people who were interviewed and their personal experiences. (Who were they? What was it really like? What are they doing today?). On the website under "Special Features and "Looking back" there is a brief write up about some of the people, but even that is lacking (like the documentary).
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After having watched this documentary I'm left feeling like I only tasted the appetizer and missed the main entree. Unsatisfied is how I would describe my experience. It's disappointing because the documentary had the potential to be really great.
The Year of the Hippie
In the mid-1960s, young people who embraced a non-traditional lifestyle began moving into the Haight neighborhood of San Francisco. As had earlier groups like Beatniks and Hipsters, they rejected mainstream society, but their taste for rock music and wild colors was new. Some tagged this group as junior-grade Hipsters -- "hippies" for short. An underground newspaper, The San Francisco Oracle, chronicled the movement, often with psychedelic flair.

In October 1966, a group of San Francisco hippies staged a Love Pageant. As stories and images of hippies spread, thousands of young Americans flooded the city, wanting to witness or be part of the action. A year later -- after the 1967 "summer of love" -- San Francisco hippies performed a rite they called "The Death of the Hippie."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I actually watched the same documentary just a few weeks ago. Really, the history of the neighborhood is so fascinating that I did enough research to take a visit and write a little bit about it on my on blog. What a revolutionary spot in San Francisco!

http://californiabeat.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/haight-ashburys-legacy-a-revolutionary-spot-in-a-revolutionary-city/