Forty years after the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, protesters are looking to repeat history in Denver this week. In fact there’s even a group calling itself “Recreate ‘68″, and if you’re a true internerd, you’ve already seen the popular YouTube clip of the crowd chanting “**** Fox News” at a Fox News correspondent (check out the other side here).
After so many attempts at making parallels between ‘68 and ‘08, I’m a little bored of the nostalgia, and I think the retro attitude is past the point of showing its ineffectiveness. Earlier this year, I groaned at the use of a modern (though really, mostly decade-old) soundtrack in the ‘68 DNC-set animated documentary Chicago 10. Yet two years prior to that film’s 2007 premiere at Sundance, I had already seen a failed attempt to callback ‘68 with the Medium Cool homage This Revolution, the trailer for which is today’s clip of the day.
Apparently there was another even less successful try at recreating Haskell Wexler’s film in ‘04, titled Medium Hot (see its trailer here). So, seemingly more appropriate, there’s sure to be some amateur filmmaking going on in Denver this week in hopes of making yet another Medium Cool Redux. But as disappointing as the end product would be in terms of redundancy and retrogress, it’s also unnecessary since we’re already getting footage from all sides of the streets immediately thanks to YouTube.
Plus, while it was interesting to see actual protesting and rioting going on amidst Wexler’s film, it was about more than capturing those specific real-life events. If you’ve never seen the original film, you can check it out in parts on YouTube, beginning with part 1/11. If you have seen it, or you’re only intrigued about the most significant segment, skip to part 10.
Originally posted on:
SpoutBlog