70 Years of Youth Revolt

In post-war Paris, jazz clubs became the landmark of a freedom-loving youth; the discomfort of middle-class youth is embodied for the first time in the cinema with James Dean. In the mid-1960s, the Brit pop wave exorcised the frustrations of youth. In France, independent cinema reinvented roles for young women; in the Netherlands the Provos collective invented the happening. From the hippie movement to the emergence of black pride and the rise of anti-capitalist revolutionary cinema, counter-culture accompanied the global rebellion against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Throughout the 1970s, the irrigation of revolt nourished creativity, David Bowie raised the question of multiple identities, the women’s movement challenged male domination, disco freed bodies and launched an LGBT culture. The appearance of mass unemployment seems to sound the death knell of hopes. The punks blow it all up: no future!