The 60's part II

The second part of the film starts with the march against the war in the train. In this part it is clearly seen how Kenny doesn’t really care for people’s safety but for the cause he is fighting for. He tells people to stay on the tracks because the train was going to stop but the train never did. Sarah develops certain admiration towards Kenny because of his bravery since he stayed on the tracks till the last minute. The next scene presents the reverend William with his son Emmet painting. Here Emmet establishes how he does not agree with his father’s method of making a statement having to endure the outrageousness of white people against colored people. Emmet asks his father “What do we ever get from turning the other cheek?” because he didn’t understand how would having to endure all of that torture would help. Later on a more important situation happens, the film presents two white police officers about to arrest a colored man because he was drunk. The mother of the drunken man pushes him and accidentally hits the police officer. Commotion starts to develop as the people watching what was happening see how the other officer pushed the woman away. Next thing you know people start breaking windows and robbings stores. Emmet got involved in all of this chaos and was a victim of pure pressure. When his father finds him he takes the gun that Emmet had and a cop sees him with the gun and shoots him. This resembles many situations that usually happen Puerto Rico where the police acts and then ask and where many innocent people have to pay the price of ignorant police officers who act by impulse and not by righteousness. Specially here where the officer probably acted this way because the man that had a gun was colored. Here in Puerto Rico this could happen with a police man and an armed man that comes from a residential. The cop would be prejudiced because the person comes from a place like that and would assume that his next action would be to shoot him. I remember something that happened in PuerTO Rico once where a police officer shot various time a man that was on the floor defenseless. It is true that the man was running away from the police but once the police officers had him there was no need to shoot him. In this case the police man acted on impulse and fear. And this can resemble what happened in the movie with Emmet’s father, the officer that shot him was scared and acted on impulse. After the incident Emmet forms part of the hippie revolution and this is how he meets Katie. Emmet probably forms part of this revolution not because he is specifically against the war but because he needed an escape from all the things that he had been through.

Next it is shown how Michael had developed an opinion of his own about the war and it went against what his father believed, his father tells him that if he keeps it up he can no longer live on the same house, something very close to what happened to Kate. Her father’s impulsive way of thinking pushed her away until she decided to run away. Michael then attends to a march against the war in The Pentagon where he impresses Sarah by preventing turmoil between the military and the protestants, where people could have been hurt. This is where the phrase “we are not against the soldiers, we are against the war” takes place. After the manifestation Michael tries to tell Sarah how Kenny doesn’t care about the security of people but only of the cause and how he really acts carelessly. This concern that Michael has about Kenny’s behavior is because Kenny is a character that has strong ideals but as the plot develops his ideals grow even greater than himself and slowly start to consume him. Later on in the story, the film presents how this consumption puts an end to him. After all the commotion in the march at The Pentagon Michael starts making campaign for G. Mc Carthy and goes people to people encouraging them to sign petitions against the war. Michael even encourages his own mother to sign one. But when Bill, the father, comes home she is hesitant to do so, until he starts to read the letter that came from Brian and starts to brag about how Brian is doing well in war. Here Mary gets the courage to speak her mind and signs the petition and tells her husband that as she respects his opinions she expected that he respected hers as well. Mean while Kate’s child, Rainbow, gets sick and Kate doesn’t have money to get medicine, so she decides to dace for money but she gets robed and all hope is taken away from her, which leaves her with the desperate decision to call home for help. Here the second part ends.

The 60's directed by Mark Piznarski (part 1)

The 60’s directed by Mark Piznarski is a film that portrays important events that marked the 60’s as an important period on American history. These events are presented through the lives of two fictional families that are affected by most of the things happening in that period of time. The first part of the film presents the Herlihys, who represent a “common stereotypical” American family and that throughout the film have to face different situations that will bring them together at the end of the story. The father, Bill Herlihy is the “support” of the family and he presents an indirect sexist character towards his daughter and wife. The wife, Mrs. Herlihy, is submissive to her husband and resigns to the social opinion of women not having a voice of their own. The youngest daughter, Kate, also has to deal with the sexist society and discrimination towards women. This is shown when she gets in trouble for dancing with a colored man on a school dance which also presents the discrimination towards colored people. Later on, at the end of part one, Kate gets pregnant and due to it his father is ashamed of her and her mother suggests that she could go away until she give birth and give the baby for adoption and then everything would go back ton normal. What other people thought had a lot of importance to their family it even defined who they where, this is also why the mother wouldnt dare to speak up her opinions. The youngest son, Michael, is the ideal son, all A’s kind of student and his father expects great things from him just because of it. He is exposed to the idea of fighting for a cause or fighting for what one believes in. The film even shows when Michael takes a course in Loyola University with a certain father Dennis who makes clear to his students that he is against the war and that he believed in social protest. Michael gets involved in protest and learns more about the war when his brother Brian decides to join the military. Last but not least there’s The oldest song, Brian, who’s not as smart as Michael and doesn’t care much about grades. Even though he’s not that good in school his father expects him to get in to Notre dame. Brian decides to get into the military to make his father proud. This shows how Brian has not defined well his identity and needs the aproval of his father by joining the war. A mentality that the goverment has put in its citizens, "fighting for a greater cause", a cause that is not even defined because young men joining the military usually didnt know the purpose of the war. The second family that the film presents, are the Taylors. This family has to deal with racism in the United States. Mr. Taylor is a reverend and is usually trying to make statements against racism with fellow friends who share his same ideal. Because of his manifestations he gets beaten up and his church gets burned down. This first part of the film ends with a national teach-in against the war that Michael assists to. Here is where the characters of Kenny and Sarah are first presented. Kenny is a revolutionary young man who has many ideals against the war and seems to be focused in only one thing, make an impact that would stop it. Also on this meeting is when the character of Sarah is presented she is shown as a strong character, she wasn’t afraid to raise her voice and to speak her mind in the teach-in meeting. She's also brave because cosidering that at that time women's opinions wheren't even looked upon she still spoke up. This carelessnes upon womens opinions is also shown when Kenny tries to ridicule Sarah's opinion by asking her what organization did she speak for. Lastly something very important that Kenny starts to show with his behavior is that he doesn’t really care for the safety of people, he just cares for the cause that he's fighting for.