Berkeley in the Sixties

Berkeley in the Sixties is a 1990 documentary film by Mark Kitchell.^[1][2]

Berkeley in the Sixties
Original film poster
Directed by	Mark Kitchell
Written by	Susan Griffin Mark Kitchell Stephen Most
Produced by	Mark Kitchell
Starring	Frank Bardacke Jentri Anders John Gage Jack Weinberg Jackie Goldberg Michael Rossman Bobby Seale David Hilliard Ruth Rosen Suzy Nelson Barry Melton John Searle Mike Miller Hardy Frye Susan Griffin Anne Weills
Narrated by	Susan Griffin
Cinematography	Stephen Lighthill
Edited by	Veronica Selver
Music by	Various artists
Distributed by	California Newsreel
Release date	September 26, 1990 (1990-09-26) (New York City)
Running time	118 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Summary

The film highlights the origins of the Free Speech Movement beginning with the May 1960 House Un-American Activities Committee hearings at San Francisco City Hall,^[3] the development of the counterculture of the 1960s in Berkeley, California, and ending with People's Park in 1969.^[4] The film features 15 student activists and archival footage of Mario Savio, Todd Gitlin, Joan Baez, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Huey Newton, Allen Ginsberg, Gov. Ronald Reagan and the Grateful Dead.^[5] The film is dedicated to Fred Cody, founder of Cody's Books. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.^[6] It also aired on the PBS series POV.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes assigned the film an approval rating of 100%, based on 7 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10.^[7] Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of "A−", writing "The film doesn’t shrink from saying that many of the ’60s social-protest movements went too far. It demonstrates that by the end of the decade, protest had become a narcotic in itself. But only a movie that understands the ’60s as profoundly as this one has truly earned the right to say that."^[8]

Awards

Wins

• 1990 Sundance Film Festival, Audience Award, 1990 ^[9]
• National Society of Film Critics Awards 1990, Best Documentary, 1991.

Nominations

• 63rd Academy Awards, Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, 1990.^[10]
• 1990 Sundance Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize, 1990.

See also

• 1990 in film
• Baby Boomers
• Generation Gap