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Courtesy Greenwich Village Film
Greenwich Village: Music that Defined a Generation
So I asked Celia, does ‘nostalgia’ mean you long for a previous time and place in your own life, or can you be nostalgic for a time and place you did not inhabit. After our discussion I did the obvious:
Nostalgia: a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: 'a nostalgia for his college days.'
The emphasis in this definition is on our experienced lives. However, Greenwich Village: Music that Defined a Generation, Laura Archibald’s exploration of New York’s Greenwich Village in the late fifties and early sixties, gave me a serious case of nostalgia for that time of nascent political activism and a closely-related resurgence of folk music which quickly saturated our national conscience and birthed legendary singer/songwriters.
Narration is provided by Susan Sarandon reading selections from Suze Rotolo’s A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties. In the film’s too-short 90 minutes we are treated to stories and interviews of a cornucopia of figures behind the scenes and on stage.
Archibald’s film evoked a deep longing to go back to that time and place of exploding passions and creativity, births of superstars, and a strong sense of community. You’ll recognize most of the names, and be introduced to a few new ones.
The most astounding performance I saw was an antiwar song performed by the duet of Buffy Sainte-Marie and Andy Williams—the very definition of ‘unlikely friends.’
If only I could have been 22, and living in the Village, instead of being 12, living in Fort Lauderdale, and listening to songs about very small yellow bikinis and purple people eaters.
Don Schwartz