Review for My Generation

The 1960s is generally regarded as one of the greatest decades for British culture. Whether it was fashion, music or film, there were so many examples of Britain leading and triumphing. Surrounding the ten years of the decade saw many changes and Sir Michael Caine takes us on a journey through it all, as he experienced it.

We get to see how music exploded with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones leading the way. What was surprising was the actual use of The Beatles music. Usually, they are not included due to the cost of the rights, but they include Strawberry Fields Forever and Tomorrow Never Knows which are great examples of their music. To be honest, they could have just focused on the music of the decade and it would have been enough to show how great this decade was.

Michael Caine obviously discusses the movie business and how he got into it with his star turns in films like Zulu and Alfie. It was surprising to hear about how the only reason he was hired was because the American Producers liked his cockney accent. Once again, this could have easily been its own documentary too.
 
Other aspects of the time are looked at such as the Fashions with the emergence of icons like Twiggy and photographers such as David Bailey. Once again, the great thing about this was the fact that these people are interviewed and we can hear from them how they saw it, felt it and reflect on what happened during that time.

The use of archive footage is fantastic and no doubt having Sir Michael Caine meant that Director David Batty had easy access to celebrities to interview. The list of people who are featured is like a Who's Who of the 1960s: Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey, Marianne Faithful, Twiggy amongst a host of other famous faces. Music is also fantastic and it is surprising they did not release a soundtrack album to go along with it.

The lack of special features is a disappointment and I think they could have included some of the Q&A Live events that Michael Caine took part in when the film was show in the theatre.

My Generation is a fantastic documentary and they could easily use this as the format for every decade and do one on the 1970s, 1980s etc. This one was a great look at the decade and if you are interesting in why the Sixties were so Swinging then I would recommend this to everyone.