A deep dive into the year 1965 (in 27 parts) by Robert Nagle.
(This page contains only Parts 1-4. See also: The full list of essays or read Parts 5-8).
4. Unsettling Japanese Movies
1965 was a dynamite year for Japanese movies. In fact, the decade before that was a thrilling year for Japanese cinema in general. Yasujirō Ozu (1903-1963) had directed 9 movies between 1953 and 1962, including the highly regarded 1953 Tokyo Stories. Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) had directed 13 movies between 1950-1965 which were destined to become classics (including Rashomon in (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai in (1954), Throne of Blood (1957) and Hidden Fortress (1958). Masaki Kobayashi had released the Human Condition trilogy between (1959-1961).
It’s hard to summarize the humanity of these films and the mastery of narrative and cinematic technique that all of these directors had demonstrated. Kurosawa had not only made movies about wars and fighting and history, but several of his movies Ikiru and Rashomon raise all kinds of existential questions about ordinary people. (And really the best was yet to come. Kurosawa would continue making great movies for three more decades.)
I’ve seen many a bleak movie in my life, and I have to say Kobayashi’s Human Condition Trilogy (1959-1961) was the bleakest I had ever seen. It’s also a great story and a riveting, harrowing account of how war changes people. The trilogy is 570 minutes (that’s 9 1/2 hours), and I confess I did not look at the clock once.
As it happens, 1965 brought some amazing movies: First, the horror movie Onibaba by Kaneto Shindo. Second, Red Beard by Akira Kurosawa and Kwaidan by Kobayashi.
(By the way, no spoilers in this post, I promise!)
Onibaba (1965)
I admit that I had never heard of director Kaneto Shindo (W)(1912-2012), but apparently he directed 48 movies and wrote 230 scripts (which is kind of mind-blowing). Onibaba (which he wrote and directed) is a horror and psychological drama about an older woman and younger woman in a deserted grassfield during a time of poverty and war. They are living in quiet isolation.
As the movie starts, we don’t quite know about the relationship between the two woman or why they are conspiring to kill. The two women hardly talk except when they try to trade the bounty they have acquired from the murdered man.
Things change dramatically when a man stumbles in their fields who seems to have some connection with them. Then we learn the truth, and suddenly there is tension and conflict.
Leaving aside that this horror story seems grounded in the hazy reality of folklore, the characters are expertly drawn, and the actors are all sympathetic and full of passions. It’s a shocking story taking place in the backdrop of war and desperation.
It’s visually amazing in black and white, and we see how the tall grasses envelope the people in almost every scene. Although a few scenes feature the dramatic sounds of drums, for the most part the only thing we hear is the rustling of the wind and the sound of footsteps along the grass.
Red Beard (1965)
Red Beard appeared in the middle of Kurosawa’s directing career. Unlike some of his movies (which took historical subjects of high drama), this one (like the 1963 High and Low) deals with ordinary people and ordinary situations.
Red Beard is a three hour drama about a new doctor at a hospital for the indigent in 19th century Japan. (A warning: It is 3 hours long and feels somewhat long.) “Red Beard” refers to the chief doctor at the place — a gruff man who commands immense respect from the people there. But this new doctor never intended to work there; instead he sought employment at a place offering more prestige and money.
Most of the movie involves the viewer in the day-to-day struggles of patients and medical staff at the hospital. This new doctor ends up learning the unpleasant backstories of his patients. Red Beard not only has to treat their illnesses, but also help them resolve their family and personal issues.
Over time the young doctor learns to respect Red Beard’s way of doing things and starts getting involved in the dramas of his own patients and staff. Overall, this movie extols compassion and generosity even though such a path promises little material reward.
Kwaidan (1965)
I have seen Kwaidan three times. Once when I rented the video in college, once when I showed the film as a film projectionist in graduate school and again this year when I saw it was on HBO. (By the way, HBO has a really strong collection of Japanese cinema).
This is amazing because this movie is 3 hours long! It consists of 4 Halloween stories involving ghosts and such.
Before I talk about the stories themselves, let me mention some amazing things I learned decades after having first seen the movie.
First, as I mentioned before, Kobayashi had also directed the Human Condition trilogy 5-7 years before. (It seems unimaginable that a director could have produced these films with such contrasting aesthetics).
Second, in about 2010 I learned that the source material for these quintessentially Japanese stories came from Lafcadio Hearn (W), a Greek/Irish journalist who wrote all his stuff in English and worked in Ohio and New Orleans for over 20 years. In 1890 he moved to Japan and stayed there until his death in Tokyo in 1904. The source material for the movie came from his 1904 book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. All this time I had been admiring the “Japanese”-ness of the movie, but who could have guessed that the source material came from someone who was practically American.
The third amazing fact (which I just learned last week) is that the eerie music was composed by Toru Takemitsu (W), who also composed the amazing score for Kurosawa’s 1985 Ran (one of my alltime favorite films). According to Wikipedia, Takemitsu first caught the attention and admiration of Stravinsky in the 1950s and in fact was influenced by the aleatoric experimental music of John Cage. I can definitely see this because the score is sound punctuated by long periods of silence. When first watching the film, I remember thinking about the score was so foreign and different. Little did I know that the music had a dose of good old American avante-garde.
Kwaidan has one of the slowest paces of any movie I’ve seen, and yet I never particularly minded. Visually, the movie combines lots of outdoor shots with stylized interiors. The camera floats throughout the empty space of the interiors, and in the most famous story (Hoichi’s Ears — the 3rd tale), the main character is blind, and so the camera floats almost aimlessly through the shadowy interiors, as if moving ahead tentatively without being sure where the walls are. The viewer (like the character) must navigate silently through everything, paying attention to the auditory clues.
The first two stories are not as dramatically interesting as the last two, but they are visually astonishing. “The Woman of the Snow” features a snowstorm with an otherworldly sky, and the howling of the wind never seems to end.
Movie Stills from “Kwaidan”
All four stories are deeply subjective, and the long pauses and close ups give the viewer time to wonder about the character’s motives. The slow pace means that the viewer is always on edge while waiting for something significant to happen.
As I suggested, the third and fourth story are the most interesting. When the blind man in Hoichi’s ears is communicating with ghosts, the viewer has no idea that these people are actually ghosts. At several times during Kwaidan, it’s unclear which people are the ghosts and which are the real people.
The fourth story is the least scary (and for me at least) the most fun. A man sees a human figure in a cup of tea, or does he? There is a fight scene, and it’s hard to know whether there is actual fighting or whether the people are just imagined. “A Cup of Tea” seems like a minor story, but the fight add more drama, and the final image of the movie is both arresting and memorable.
Kwaidan is a beautiful film to watch. The color palettes are bright and unusual, and a lot of money went into creating these stylized sets.
4. Miscellaneous Song of the Day: Queen of the House
This Jody Miller (W) song was a tongue-in-cheek response to the Roger Miller’s pop hit “King of the Road.” This dance number with the wacky mop-wielding housewives for the song is even MORE tongue-in-cheek.
Update: A slight Reprieve
I had several personal matters to attend to over the last two days. I’m still committed to this project. Perhaps it’s more realistic to say that this month will have 27 different posts throughout the 30 day period. And if I miss it by a day or two, I won’t sweat it.
Day 3: Kiddie Animation: Norton Juster, Jim Henson, Charles Schulz
Today’s post is about animated cartoons and short movies.
It started when I was looking over the Oscar nominations for 1965 and 1966. Two items caught my eye in the short film category.
The “Dot and the Line” (which won an Oscar in 1965 and Cannes in 1966) is a 10 minute version of the kids book with the same name by Norton Juster (W). As I mentioned in my essay about childhood reading, Juster’s Phantom Tollbooth was easily my favorite book in childhood, and I first learned about the illustrated book Dot in the Line when my high school geometry teacher read it aloud to us in class.
It’s a great tale, with beautiful drawings. (You can read it in 5 minutes). A line falls in love with a dot who hardly gives him the time of day. Instead the dot is impressed by a “wild and unkempt squibble.” The line tries to come up with a way to impress the Dot without success. Then he stumbles upon a new talent that helps him realize his goal. “Freedom is not a license for chaos,” he triumphantly declares.
The book illustrations were already incredible, but the film short brings these illustrations to life in a way that will impress any viewer (and not just pretty dots). It’s a simple story, and the accompanying music is as jazzy as you can get!
Pre-Sesame Jim Henson
I grew up under the magic of Jim Henson. My mom made sure that I saw the first episode of Sesame Street (which I watched for several years, even when I was too old for it). In the mid-1970s I never missed an episode of the Muppet Show, and I generally saw every Muppet movie made during that time period (even as I let myself believe that this time I would finally experience disappointment).
That is why I was so surprised to learn that before doing Sesame Street, Jim Henson made a 9 minute experimental movie which received an Oscar nomination. The short is called “Time Piece,” (W) and it’s so surreal to be indescribable.
While digging around YouTube and Wikipedia, I discovered that Henson has a lot of great stuff online before Sesame Street debuted in 1969. In fact, his Muppets appeared in numerous commercials (Here’s a 30 minute compilation). One commenter boiled down the theme of all of Henson’s commercials to this one message: “Buy our products or we’ll murder you.”
Even more amazing, Henson’s Muppets appeared on the “Ed Sullivan Show” numerous times between 1966 and 1970. Although some of the routines might be familiar to people who watched Sesame Street, there’s also a lot of great stuff I’ve never seen before. (here’s a YouTube playlist) If you must watch only one comedy sketch, I recommend the delightful A Change of Face.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
On December 9, 1965, a “Charlie Brown Christmas” TV special appeared on TV for the first time. A whopping 45% of the TV sets in USA were watching that show, and it later won an Emmy award. From that point on, the show was rerun in December as a holiday tradition for the next 35 years.
(Alas, nowadays, the main way to watch the whole show is by subscribing to Apple+ even though you can watch slices of the entire show on this YouTube playlist).
The show’s popularity surprised everyone. The Peanuts cartoons had been running in the newspaper since 1950, so many kids already were familiar with the characters and the overall Peanuts vibe. In fact, some of the show’s dialogue were recycled from previous strips. According to the show’s Wikipedia article, Schulz was adamant about inserting a Gospel reading by the Linus character despite the concern that it might alienate some viewers.
In fact, the show touches on several themes were daring by standards of 1965 and perhaps by today’s standards as well. There’s a great scene (see below) where Charlie Brown admits to feeling depressed about Christmas to Lucy at her psychiatric booth. As Lucy says, “The mere fact that you realize you need help indicates that you are not too far gone.”
After Lucy suggests that Charlie Brown can cure his depression by getting involved in a Christmas play, she admits that she too gets depressed at Christmas because she never gets what she wants. (“What is it you want?” Charlie Brown asks. “Real estate.”)
The show takes a dig at the commercialism of Christmas festivities when Charlie Brown walks through the tree lot to buy a tree for the Christmas play, noticing all the gaudy and artificial trees (including a pink aluminum one). Eventually he picks one of the real trees, a small one that is close to falling over. The other kids in the play laugh at Charlie Brown for picking such a puny and unimpressive tree. Charlie Brown tries to decorate the tree with an ornament, but it immediately tips over. Later the kids stumble upon Charlie Brown’s abandoned tree and decorate it adequately enough to give the show a happy ending.
Rewatching it, I was struck first by the show’s silences. When Linus says, “Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about,” he walks onstage in complete silence …for 10 whole seconds! After he finishes reading from the Bible, he picks up his blanket and walks silently offstage to return to Charlie Brown …for 10 whole seconds! Even at the end when Charlie Brown returns to the tree only to find his friends crowded around it, “What’s going on here?” he asks. Again, there is 10 seconds of silence while the camera pans to the tree and back again. They shout “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!” and sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” These silences not only make the viewer uncomfortable, but they add solemnity to the moment. This is not just a fun cartoon.
On the other hand, the show does have moments of joy and silliness (tasting the snowflakes, throwing snowballs at a tin can, skating on the frozen pond). The light jazz piano pieces by Vince Guaraldi (W) skate effortlessly beneath the story. While original pieces like “Linus and Lucy” and “Skating” are joyful and scintillating, in fact Guaraldi’s jazz reworking of classics like “What Child is This,” “O Tannenbaum,” and “Greensleeves” are just as spectacular. The lavish Wikipedia article on the show’s soundtrack notes that it was the second best selling jazz album in history and influenced dozens of young musicians by introducing contemporary jazz to a younger generation. Who has not fallen under the beautiful spell of the meandering melancholy of Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time is here” whenever the holiday season rolls around. (Honestly, it’s one of the few Christmas songs that I can stomach no matter the time or place!).
TV Funhouse Charlie Brown Christmas Parody
Finally, I have to mention the irreverent comic parody of “Charlie Brown Christmas” which Robert Smigel and Louis CK made for Saturday Night Live in 2002. It was voiced by Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Chris Parnell and Brad Pitt (!) No commentary here; I’ll let you experience it for yourself.
Goodbye, lesbians!
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Miscellaneous Song of the Day: “You’re Driving Me Insane” by the Missing Links
If Jim Morrison lived in Sydney, Australia, he would make a song like this. This classic tune by the Missing Links (BC) just out-Doors anything Morrison can dream of. It is driving me insane!
2: Pawking Metaws
Up until this year, Bob Dylan has mostly been in the peripheries of my consciousness. But at some point his music will hit you like a sledgehammer.
1965 was already crowded with pop stars doing their best stuff; you had the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Supremes (to name just a few). But no doubt about it: this was Bob Dylan’s year to shine.
The 22 year old Dylan had already released “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” a 1963 album of folk songs with political resonances. His songs, “Blowin’ in the Wind” (YT) and “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” (YT) were simple earnest songs which pled for peace and understanding. “Masters of War (YT) was a song about the infernal war machine, a relevant song for a country which had just experienced the terror of nuclear brinkmanship (the 1962 Cuban missile crisis) and was diving into a new exotic adventure (Vietnam).
From 1964 to 1966, Bob Dylan was busy performing, writing songs, making money (and attracting publicity wherever he went). For his England tour (April 30 to May 10 in 1965), the filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker tagged along, filming Dylan in concert, backstage and dealing with the press, fans and a flurry of musician friends. This movie (titled “Don’t Look Now”) would not be released until 1967, but it provides an interesting snapshot of Dylan in 1965, right before releasing two albums which would change music history.
Those two 1965 albums were “Bringing it All Back Home” (March 1965) and “Highway 61 Revisited” (August 1965). In fact, Dylan had also been struggling to work on more songs which would eventually become the 1966 Blonde on Blonde double album. But it was a struggle. He had 10 recording sessions between October 1965 and January 1966 without producing even one song that would make it in Blonde on Blonde. (Life events had an annoying habit of getting in the way; Dylan married his girlfriend Sara Lownds on November 22, 1965 and they had their first child on January 6, 1966). Eventually in February 1966 all the pieces fell together, resulting in the “Blonde on Blonde” album which was released in June 1966.
This trio of albums (all written by a single person) was a singular achievement. For today’s post I wish to call special attention to “Bringing It All Back Home,” which is witty, surreal, searing, uplifting, perplexing, plaintive, allegorical, mundane — a gigantic and fiery verbal sandwich. And oh yes, guitars and voices and melodies are also in it (if I recall).
First, I wish to call attention to “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” and the top of Day 2’s post shows the accompanying video (which was shot in 1965 for the “Don’t Look Now” documentary). The music video has been imitated and parodied countless times (I recommend Weird Al Yankovich‘s palindromic version (YT)). But it is still a delight to watch, especially when you know that beat poet Allen Ginsberg (W) is the bearded man talking in the background who actually helped to write the nonsensical cue cards. I just love the insouciant way Dylan tosses off the cards with a straight face, making no attempt to mouth the words or synchronize the cue words with what is being sung.
The song doesn’t really make sense, but we just enjoy the wordplay and unexpected rhymes. It’s a two minute powerhouse of a song, and also great fun.
Equally hilarious is a song with the cryptic title “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.” (lyrics) The song’s lyrics are a surreal mishmash which tell the story of a “Captain Arab” (!) who is sailing on the Mayflower(?!). I won’t quote any of the lyrics here (except “His foot came through the line”), but the song is great fun and makes absolutely no sense. I feel sorry for future scholars who will try to explain the references; earlier today I followed a long online academic discussion of the meaning of the “Pope of Eruke” reference in the song. (The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind…) These light-hearted songs are a good counterweight to some of the more serious and even downbeat songs (“It’s Alright, Ma,” “Gates of Eden,” “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”).
I have neglected to mention one fact about Bob Dylan during the release of this album which many critics regard as important: Dylan’s decision to play songs with an electric guitar instead of acoustic guitar. (To give you an idea about how riled critics got about it, the Wikipedia entry on the “Electric Dylan controversy” is more than 3000 words!)
In fact, only the first half of the album uses electric guitars; the second half have the usual acoustic guitar which Dylan used whenever he played at the Newport Folk Festival. To be honest, I barely noticed these things except whether the song also included a harmonica. Sure, the electrically-powered songs could be rowdier and fiercer, but the song’s subject and tone determined the instrument (not the other way around).
Hey, Enjoy the Poetry
A few weeks ago I listened to Bob Dylan’s 27 minute pre-recorded Nobel speech (YT). I didn’t know what to expect, but I was treated to a very listenable personal story about how books have changed Dylan’s life and his music. The language was simple and precise and even colloquial. He talked about perhaps the three most famous works of literature for Americans: Moby Dick, The Odyssey and All Quiet on the Western Front. For someone who’s not a critic or rarely writes prose, Dylan’s prose was succinct and full of insights. To be honest, I had initially been ambivalent about the Nobel’s decision to give Bob Dylan the literature prize. Sure, Dylan’s verses were interesting (at least that is what I had heard). Of all the overlooked authors in the world, the Nobel committee decided to give the prize to …. an aging rock star?! At the time of the award, giving it to Dylan seemed like a wasted opportunity to help the world learn about another overlooked author.
Over the past two months I’ve had time to appreciate Bob Dylan’s songs — both as music and poetry. Sure, Dylan’s music had drama and careful focus and all lots of epiphanies and joy. But the language also was beautiful and profound — especially in “Bringing It All Back Home”.
Let me share the astonishing beauty and truth in Dylan’s language.
His song “It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding” (lyrics) is an acoustic song which Dylan sings very quickly. Structurally, the poem follows a pattern — 2 stanzas of complaint and criticism, followed by a three line reassurance to his “Ma.” Here’s one section to illustrate:
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked
An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it
This structure continues, and each time that tercet becomes less reassuring, more uncertain. By the end of the song, this final tercet which is supposed to be reassuring, is now despairing.
Another song “Gates of Eden” (Lyrics) portrays a nightmarish series of images, with the last line of each stanza ending with the phrase of “Gates of Eden.” Here are the two last stanzas — out of 10:
The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden
At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what’s true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden
We don’t really know what the Gates of Eden is supposed to be — heaven? The afterlife? Humanity before the Fall? Divine Justice? Or maybe just a sea of nothingness?
In “Love Minus Zero No Limit”, (lyrics) each stanza offers a vivid contrast between outside society and his lover (who is mentioned in the final couplet of each verse). For the first four verses, the singer is full of admiration: (My love she laughs like the flowers/Valentines can’t buy her), (She knows there’s no success like failure/ And that failure’s no success at all), (My love winks, she does not bother/She knows too much to argue or to judge).
But the final verse (which I reproduce here in full) has a startling finish:
The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers’ nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows cold and rainy
My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing
First, I just love that line about the banker’s nieces’ sense of entitlement. But the final couplet reveals a vulnerability and tenderness towards his lover. It’s such a simple image to convey that someone can be both wise and vulnerable.
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Miscellaneous Song of the Day: “Demolición by Los Saicos
This short-lived Peruvian punk garage band became an overnight sensation in 1965 with their “Demolición” song (YT). It’s just a bunch of screaming and howling. Even though the band didn’t seem particularly tapped into world music — and they lacked real musical training; one of them even built his guitar from scratch. Yet there’s a lot of rebellious energy that you’d also find in garage bands like the Standells and the Sonics. According to a great background piece by Punk N’Coffee: “While others sought harmonies and clean guitars, they seemed to enjoy noise as a disruptive language.”
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1: It was a Very Good Year…
While my 60th birthday was approaching, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to visit the year of my birth and write about it as a kind of cultural tourist?” 60 years is a long time in human years (and alas, an unlucky few never make it that far). Maybe in my teens or twenties, 1965 didn’t seem like such a big deal. I still find it hard to believe that World War 2 — which seemed like something you’d read about only in a history book — was only 30-40 years away for my younger self. The sixties hardly seemed far away to me; I ran into people all the time who talked glowingly of the 1960s. Now though in the year 2025, 1965 seems fun and tragic and yes, really, really peculiar.
Until a few months ago, I really couldn’t name a single thing about the year 1965 except the amazing fact that I had been born. In my cultural memory (as taught in school and via TV and newspapers), the 1960s blended together into one gooey glob that couldn’t be separated. Since that time, I have taken a journey to do just that. Along the way I have uncovered many cultural touchstones that had a huge impact upon my life (and perhaps the rest of the world as well).
Sixty years is a round and bouncy number. Can you imagine what it would be like to be 70 or 80 and remember something 60 years ago? Even I have to remind myself that I grew up in the last century, and that I am quickly becoming a vestige of a bygone age — much as elderly Civil War veterans were trotted out on national holidays in the early 20th century to remind youngsters that there still were people around who had to live through those quaint historical times.
A warning: I’m going to plaster my 1965 posts all over my social media for the next month. Each day I will add my latest post to the top. Each day will feature a single topic — and an unrelated (or maybe semi-related) song on YouTube. Pop songs are great at capturing the cultural Zeitgeist. Frankly, even if you follow pop music closely for various decades, it’s easy for 95% of the year’s music to be totally forgotten after about five years.
A second warning: I may ignore a lot of well-known cultural works in favor of things which intrigued or appealed to me personally. I mean, the Beatles were really big in 1965. They had released the Help! album and Rubber Soul and even the immortal single “Yesterday.” I was a Beatles fan from the age of 10 onward; I don’t really have anything special to say about that culture phenomenon. So don’t expect the Beatles to be mentioned except maybe in passing.
Today’s 1965 Song is “It was a very good year,” a slow and wonderful (and wonderfully relevant) song by the 50 year old Frank Sinatra. Although the studio version is unsurpassed, this video clip compiles several live performances from that period into a single video. Frank Sinatra had already become a cultural icon in the 1940s; by 1965 his music and singing style was probably regarded as old-fashioned. In fact, though, Sinatra knocked this song out of the park, and a year later in 1966, he released the equally famous, “Strangers in the Night” (YT).
I just love the song’s slow nostalgic tone and the lush orchestral arrangements. This song takes it bloody time! The song even ends abruptly — where is the next verse? (That was done on purpose — ha! ha!) But I love the lyrics that end the song:
But now the days are short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
It poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year