SThere are two films that inaugurate the entry of the Boomer Generation into cinema, those young people born after the war who, radically breaking with the values of those who preceded themintroduce new themes into society.
The first is Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967, by Stanley Kramer) where the clash between children and parents (she, white, wants to marry a black doctor) consumes the rift between Baby Boomers and Greatest Generation starting from the topic of interracial marriage.
The other is The bachelor (1967, by Mike Nichols) where the seduction of the mature Mrs. Robinson brings to the surface the dissatisfaction and the desire for rebellion of a generation that rejects bourgeois values and is open to contestation.
Dustin Hoffmann in “The Graduate” (photo Getty Images).
All in one night the farewell to youth is consumed American Graffiti (1973, by George Lucas) when the young people of 1962 have to face the theme of the painful initiation into adult life.
The fate that awaits the protagonists of is not very different Saturday night fever (1977, by John Badham), samples of one youth more than ever “rebel without a cause” who want to stun on the dance floors to seek some redemption from the squalor of everyday life.
John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”
The next two films are more closed to the private sphere: A woman all alone (1978, by Paul Mazursky) about a gallery owner who must learn to live alone after her husband abandons her, and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979, by Robert Benton), about an advertiser who has to look after his son after his mother leaves them: two different ways to tell the story drama of a generation that is learning to rely only on its own strengths.
Jeff Goldblum, JoBeth Williams, Tom Berenger, William Hurt, Kevin Kline and Glenn Close during the filming of the film “The Big Chill” by Lawrence Kasdan (photo Ansa).
The years pass, other generations appear in America, and when cinema returns to tell the destinies of the Boomers it does so with a bit of nostalgia and regret, like The great cold (1983, by Lawrence Kasdan) about a group of friends from the 1960s who reunite twenty years later following the death of one of their own.
AND Fandango (1985, by Kevin Reynolds) where the re-enactment of a trip between friends to Mexico is the occasion for a melancholy hymn to the loss of innocence.
Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford in the film “Working Girl”
At least two more films remain to conclude the portrait of Boomers at the cinema: A career woman (1988 by Mike Nichols), for the determination with which a woman is able to overcome male prejudices in the field of work.
Then there is Life is a Dream (1993 by Richard Linklater), a perfect seal, with no more nostalgia or romanticism, on a “dazed and confused” generation as the original title of the film says, Dazed and Confusedand how Led Zeppelin sing.
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