My Generation review
– Michael Caine on what the 1960s were all about
3 / 5 stars 3 out of 5 stars.
Twiggy, Joan Collins and Paul McCartney reminisce with the
Alfie actor about a decade of smiley hippies and grumpy people in bowler hats
Peter Bradshaw
@PeterBradshaw1
Fri 16 Mar 2018 06.00 GMT Last modified on Fri 16 Mar 2018
09.15 GMT
The enduring mystery of what Michael Caine is thinking and
feeling remains intact during his watchable, if somewhat exasperating
docu-reminiscence of 1960s swinging London. It certainly doesn’t say anything
revealing or new about the man itself. With many images of smiley hippies and
apoplectic people in bowler hats, the film is narrated by Caine in his
inimitably measured and inscrutably deadpan style: the script is evidently the
work of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais whose 60s TV classic The Likely Lads
sadly goes unmentioned.
David Bailey, Joan Collins, Sandie Shaw, Twiggy and Paul
McCartney are interviewed here by Caine, though oddly and disappointingly off
camera, their voices the accompaniment to old footage. Caine has said that he
didn’t want the audience distracted by these faces all looking shockingly
older. Well, it is a shame to diminish these people’s actual presence in the
film, though there are some extraordinary archive moments here, and the film is
all but stolen by the young and breathtakingly beautiful Joanna Lumley talking
about how hilarious it is to work with the photographer Duffy.
The welfare state, a growing economy, free education and the
pill created the conditions for postwar freedom and anti-establishment
irreverence, a cultural aftershock to the Attlee victory of 1945. And these pop
singers, hairdressers, photographers and movie stars had ideas above their
station, promoted to a dizzyingly exciting central position in popular culture.
It was a working-class, or at any rate middle-classless movement. Caine does
not, however, mention that he and these other fortunate celebrities were
unrepresentative. For most people outside London and indeed inside London, 60s
life actually trudged on as it had done in the 50s and 40s.
Anyway, they were Caine’s “generation”, although they were
mostly a bit younger than Caine, who was in his early 30s when he found stardom
in Zulu and Alfie. Caine had come up from the East End though hard graft; he’d
consolidated a strong work ethic in rep and avoided the drug experiments and
live-fast-die-young affectations of many pop stars and associated media
celebrities, who had perhaps covertly modified a posh person’s dilettante
attitude, having money and contacts to fall back on.
My Generation is mostly about rock stars: Jagger, Lennon,
McCartney, Daltrey, Burdon. (Sadly, Cliff Richard is evidently not considered
weighty enough to be interviewed.) There is also some entertaining material
about pop art and what they did to help drearily monochrome, pea-soupy London
get to be more colourful. There is oddly little about cinema in Caine’s
documentary. The posh voices of Brief Encounter are teased; there are some
clips of Alfie, Zulu and The Italian Job and bits of Albert Finney and Tom
Courtenay – but nothing from Antonioni’s Blow Up. Similarly, nothing much about
TV and theatre, and nothing about that quintessential standard-bearer of the
irreverent 60s: David Frost.
Interestingly, literature had gone through what passed for
its own revolution the decade before with Colin Wilson, Kingsley Amis and the
angry young men. A dismayingly pompous Anthony Burgess blathers on about how
“youth considers itself wise like a drunk man thinking himself sober”. Stuart
Hall gets a tiny cameo talking about what the new currents in youth culture
meant, but there’s nothing here about the whiteness of swinging London. Caine
talks cheerfully about “birds”, an expression for which he apologises to the
“ladies”.
Without entirely intending it, the film shows that the one
institution in British life that remained stuffy and staid was the press.
There’s a glimpse of a newspaper hoarding, advertising a warning about hippies
by Billy Graham, written by that hungry young journalist Jonathan Aitken.
My Generation valuably reminds us that many people of
the older generation really were very, very cross about the upstart
counter-jumpers of the 60s revolution. There were grumpy gents and tetchy
twinset ladies who were interviewed on TV and they didn’t realise or mind how
absurd they sounded. It wasn’t just cultural or political. It was the age-old
envy and hate of the old for the young. Nowadays people conceal it more
carefully and make satirical jibes about “millennials”. Replace that phrase
with “young people” and today’s droll commentators sound an awful lot like the
purple-faced types who demanded that Mick Jagger got his hair cut and did some
national service
Michael Caine: ‘What ruined the 60s was drugs’
By Michael Hogan
Michael Caine
The New Review Q&A
As his documentary about the 1960s opens, the veteran actor
talks working-class culture, Woody Allen and why he never liked drugs
Sat 10 Mar 2018 17.00 GMT Last modified on Wed 21 Mar 2018
23.48 GMT
Now 84, Michael Caine has appeared in 127 films, including
Zulu, Alfie and The Italian Job, and been Oscar-nominated six times, winning
twice. Caine is the narrator, co-producer and star of new documentary film My
Generation, about his journey through 1960s London.
What inspired you to make My Generation?
Simon Fuller [Spice Girls/Pop Idol svengali] and I are
friends, and over dinner, conversation kept coming round to the 60s. He was too
young, so was always asking about it. One evening he said, “Let’s make a
documentary. You can tell the stories and I’ll find the music.” It’s taken a
few years, but that’s what we did. I have a very good memory, which is
fortunate at my age, so there’s a lot of material left over. We’re turning that
into a six-part TV series.
The film is studded with star names, but they don’t appear
in traditional “talking heads” style. Why?
I interviewed loads of people – McCartney, Twiggy, Roger
Daltrey, Joan Collins – but we ended up taking the footage out of the film. It
screwed it up, because you’re no longer immersed in the 60s, you’re too busy
going “Oh look, he’s gone bald,” or “Ain’t she got fat?” So you only hear their
voices; we’ll use the footage in the TV series instead.
I thought the saying went “If you remember the 60s, you
weren’t really there”?
That’s more the late 60s/early 70s. In the 60s, we were
drinkers. What ruined the 60s, towards the end of the decade, were drugs. If
people were taking cocaine, they’d start talking bollocks and not stop for
hours. If they were on other drugs, they’d just sit around, going “Wow, man.”
So it was either people talking too fast to understand, or people not saying
anything at all. It brought to an end the 60s as we knew it – which was a load
of drunks getting up to all sorts and dancing like mad.
Is it true you smoked marijuana just the once?
Yes, and I laughed for five hours. I nearly got a hernia. I
must have been very tense beforehand! When I left the party at 1am in Grosvenor
Square, I was standing alone on a corner, roaring with laughter, and no cab
would stop for me. I had to walk to my flat in Notting Hill, and when I got
back, I vowed I’d never take bloody drugs again. And I never did. I’m not
anti-drugs: I’m sympathetic to people who take them, because they’ve got
themselves in a situation that I really do not envy. Most drugs are terrible…
at least marijuana’s good for medicinal purposes.
You permanently had a fag in your mouth during the 60s,
though…
I smoked a lot, but Tony Curtis saved my life. I was at a
party, chain-smoking by the fireplace, when a hand came round from behind me,
took the cigarettes out of my pocket and threw them in the fire. I turned round
and it was Tony Curtis. We’d never met, but he said: “I’ve been watching you,
Michael. You’re going to die if you keep doing that, you idiot.” So I quit.
I later took up cigars, but gave them up because of
Hurricane Higgins, the snooker player. I knew Alex quite well, and one night I
was smoking a cigar while watching TV. Alex came on the screen with a voice-box
and I could see he was dying. I stubbed the cigar out in the ashtray and never
smoked again.
In the documentary you sometimes seem like the more senior,
sensible one…
Well, I was a serious actor. I’d spent nine years on stage
and worked my way up to leading roles in movies. I’d be up at 6.30am for a
day’s worth of dialogue, so I couldn’t stay up all night, dancing and getting
laid. Don’t worry, though… between films I’d go a bit mad.
My Generation has a 50/50 gender split of contributors. Did
you insist on that?
Absolutely. I’m a feminist to the core. An interviewer once
asked my wife, “What first attracted you to Michael?” and she said, “The way he
treated his mother.” I respected women tremendously, right from the start. I
just didn’t know I was a feminist until they invented it.
The first night I
went to the Ad Lib club every single Beatle and every single Rolling Stone was
in there dancing
Michael Caine
Social change is a big theme in My Generation…
That’s the serious point of the film, really. Society was
transformed by the 60s. I was born during the Depression, then came the Blitz.
I was evacuated and spent six years waiting for a telegram telling me my dad
was dead. A tough start. Six years after the war, I was in the army myself –
first in the occupation force in Berlin, then the Korean war, fighting the
Chinese. When I got home, London was all smog and rationing. The last straw was
[Soviet leader] Khrushchev’s speech saying they now had the atom bomb and could
send it here in a rocket to annihilate us within four minutes. So the attitude
became: “We’re miserable as sin, we’ve got four minutes to live, let’s have
some fun.” And boy, did we have fun.
Was there a working-class takeover of culture?
Yeah, slowly but surely. Small things happened: Radio
Caroline launched, before the BBC finally gave in and started playing pop
music. Coffee bars started putting on live groups, like the Beatles.
Discotheques arrived from Paris. The first night I went to the Ad Lib club –
run by my friend Johnny Gold, who later opened Tramp and called me “Disco Mike”
– every single Beatle and every single Rolling Stone was in there dancing. Pop
culture went bang, exploded, and just kept going. Working-class kids everywhere
David Bailey and Terry O’Neill became almost as famous as
the people they were photographing. I shared a flat with Vidal Sassoon and got
free haircuts. Terence Stamp was another flatmate. It seemed like everyone I
knew became famous.
You were good friends with Roger Moore. Did his death last
year hit you hard?
Yeah, we were close. But at my age, you get used to your
friends dying.
You’ve been buddies with two Bonds, Moore and Connery. Who
would you like to play 007 next?
Tom Hardy. And make him do a posh accent.
You won an Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters. What do you
make of the accusations against Woody Allen?
I am so stunned. I’m a patron of the NSPCC and have very
strong views about paedophilia. I can’t come to terms with it, because I loved
Woody and had a wonderful time with him. I even introduced him to Mia [Farrow].
I don’t regret working with him, which I did in complete innocence; but I
wouldn’t work with him again, no.
Last year, you were in yet another Oscar-nominated film,
Dunkirk…
Only a cheeky little cameo. Christopher [Nolan, director]
and I have done six very successful films together. I’m his good-luck charm. Or
is he mine? Anyway, I had to be in Dunkirk, but there was no proper part for me
because of my age. Instead I did the voice of the Spitfire squadron leader over
the radio. I looked at the gross yesterday: half a billion. The lucky charm
worked again.
You seem almost as busy as ever…
What’s come into fashion, fortunately for me, is films for
older people. Ever since The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel took $150m, they’ve
realised there’s a generation who still go to the cinema. So last year I made
Going in Style with Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin, all of us in our 80s. I’ve
just done Night in Hatton Garden, about the oldest robbers in history. It’s
like the audience have grown up with me.
Tess Daly says you’d be her dream celebrity contestant on
Strictly Come Dancing. Fancy it?
Oh, really? I’m afraid I’m beyond that. She should be mighty
relieved. I watch Strictly every weekend with my three grandchildren. We all
shout out the scores together.
Was the 60s the best decade of your life?
At the time it was. Since then, my life has improved from
decade to decade. My joy nowadays is not movies, money or women – I’ve been
happily married for 45 years to the most wonderful woman I ever met – it’s my
grandchildren. I’m devoted to them.
You’re 85 next week. How are you celebrating?
My wife’s organising something but won’t tell me what. My
80th was in Las Vegas with Quincy Jones. We call ourselves “the celestial
twins”. He composed the music for The Italian Job and when he came on set, we
worked out we were born at exactly the same hour. We’re not identical twins,
clearly, we’re celestial ones. One thing I love about Quince is he’s always
late for everything. He invited me around for lunch recently and he was an hour
late. In his own house.
Will you ever retire?
No. The movie business retires you. I’ve just turned down a
film, actually; but if I get a script I really want to do, I will. I’m busy
enough. I’ve got the TV series and a book I’m writing. I did a guide to acting,
which went very well, so now I’m writing one on stardom. It’s full of funny
stories and I name-drop like fury, obviously. You might have noticed.
My Generation is released 16 March. On 14 March a preview
screening in cinemas will be followed by a live Q&A with Michael Caine,
broadcast from BFI Southbank
Michael Caine rails against the establishment in exclusive
clip from My Generation documentary
'I never understood who my betters were supposed to be. I've
never seen any of my betters'
Clarisse Loughrey
@clarisselou
Monday 12 March 2018 12:29
Michael Caine invites you into the world of his youth in the
new documentary My Generation: London in the Swinging Sixties.
It's an opportunity to see a revolutionary time in British
history through the eyes of one of its famous participators, documenting the
birth of London's pop culture scene.
The film combines Caine's own personal accounts, alongside
archive footage and interviews with The Beatles, Twiggy, David Bailey, Mary
Quant, The Rolling Stones, and David Hockney.
An exclusive new clip sees Caine and compatriots discuss how
his generation clashed ideologically with the established powers, of the older
generation still clinging on to the legacy of the British Empire.
Though the young have always been taught to respect
"their betters", Caine notes: "I never understood who my betters
were supposed to be. I've never seen any of my betters. I've seen a lot of my
equals, but I've still never seen any of my betters."
My Generation has been a six-year-long passion project of
Caine's, working alongside producer Simon Fuller, writers Dick Clement and Ian
La Frenais, and director David Batty.
An exclusive Q&A with Michael Caine will be broadcast
live March 14th when My Generation arrives in movie theatres. For more
information visit: https://www.mygenerationmovie.co.uk/
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