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Article: Imaging the sixties.(Off the Shelf)(The Dream Life)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Film Comment
- Article date:
- November 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Film Society of Lincoln Center. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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J. Hoberman's new book on American politics and Sixties cinema, The Dream Life (The New Press, 461 pages. $29.95), appears at all especially fitting moment, in keeping with Walter Benjamin's idea that an historian's contemporary concerns not only inflect his account hat indeed determine his choice of subject--an historical period that "flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized," at "a moment of danger."
Of course, the defining event of the era Hoberman writes about was the Vietnam War--a time of nuclear anxieties, U.S. involvement in an escalating "intervention" overseas, credibility gaps, and a hardening of the right-left divide. Sound familiar? (There ...