"A Complete Unknown" Viewed by a Boomer

Watching a biopic of Bob Dylan turned into experiencing a biopic of me. Not “me” specifically, but “me” as one of zillions who lived those years of Bob Dylan’s rise to prominence.  The film covers four years of his life, 1961-1965, but the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times that emerged in that first half of the ‘60’s, set the stage for the sweeping cultural changes that would follow.

 

The turbulence of the 1960’s did not come out of nowhere. Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled racial segregation in public education as unconstitutional, set the stage for remaking racial relations and igniting the next decade of civil rights struggles and victories. Women’s entry into the workforce during World War II and the Korean War began shifts in gender roles and the eventual renewal of women’s rights movements. Rock ’n’ Roll pushed aside the big band era and brought a rebellious spirit that shook up a staid society. With the specter of war using atomic and hydrogen bombs and people knowing that everything could vanish in an instant, time-tested traditions and values suddenly seemed less permanent and much more questionable. The 1960’s easily flowed from the 1950’s.

 

By the end of 1963 when Dylan first performed The Times They Are a-Changin’ a day after President Kennedy was assassinated, times really were a-changing. The decade that began with optimism and a sense of new directions for the country ended with a divisive war, riots in the cities, and a society that had lost its cultural moorings.

 

In my mind, Kennedy’s “New Frontier” optimism found a home in the protest and anti-establishment songs of Bob Dylan and others. For those growing up with Dylan’s music, wrongs could be righted, evils defeated, inequalities erased, and a new, more just world created. Looking back, it seems like a naïve time highlighted by the innocence of hippies adorned with peace signs and the altruism of flower children. Maybe the Boomers who were Dylan’s audience had been raised in post-war prosperity and so were shielded from and ignorant of the harsh realities of life. Or, maybe it was a chance for the country to dream after the horrors of the World War and the years of rebuilding. Whatever the case, the ‘60’s struggle for a better world did not immediately yield that envisioned nirvana; the struggle continues to the present day. Even so, I, as one of the zillions, am glad to have been convinced that we could change the world.

 

Victories have been won. Some wrongs have been righted in the years since. Some justice has been restored. What I was reminded of when watching A Complete Unknown and what remains with me after leaving the theater is that we do not have to accept the way things are, that change is possible, reform is within reach, ideals are worth clinging to. Let’s hope that today’s young people will have that same spirit and that my generation will remain Forever Young.