The Global Sixties in Sound and Vision : Media, Counterculture, Revolt

postwar American society's one-dimensionality with an aesthetic practice based on the depth of private space, Guilford highlights the political overtones of this film culture's private orientation over and against readings that see it as privileging the personal to the exclusion of all other concerns. Chelsea Behle Fralick's "'Musical & Magical Counterpoint': Language, Sound, and Image in Wallace Berman 's Aleph, 1956-1966," meanwhile, considers technological and conceptual issues of the era, similar to those raised by Guilford's examination of the New American Cinema, by way of American artist and filmmaker Wallace Berman. Examining his only film, Aleph, which he would screen privately in his own home over the course of the 1960s, as a bridge between the artistic and the domestic as well as between the visual and the sonic (screenings were often accompanied by Berman's musical selections on his home stereo), she identifies it as a key work connecting California's 1950s Beat culture and its 1960s counterculture. This silent film, she argues, is nevertheless best understood through a consideration of sound in four different registers: the relation between sound and silence in the film and Berman's larger oeuvre; the visual expressions of music and sound in the film itself; the rhythmic structure of the film; and, finally, the interplay between Berman's musical accompaniment and the film during his private screenings. These "musical" aspects of the film, especially when considered alongside Berman's involvement in the Southern California jazz scene of the 1940s and 1950s, highlight the growing significance of sound in artistic productions, regardless of medium, over the postwar period, a significance that would, arguably, culminate in the late-1960s popularization of the musical counterculture. The vibrant counterculture, alongside New Left political formations in the United States, provided fertile territory for European art cinema auteurs. David Fresko's "Magical Mystery Tours: Godard and Antonioni in America" examines such encounters in Jean-Luc Godard's 1 A.M./One American Movie (1968) and One Plus One/Sympathy for the Devil (1968), which intercuts footage of the Rolling Stones with shots of the Black Panthers, and Michelangelo Antonioni's countercultural classic, Zabriskie Point (1970), which captures the dénouement of the California counterculture with its impressionistic treatment of sex, drugs, and real estate development in the Mojave desert. Godard and Antonioni's European left-wing sensibilities left them at once sympathetic to and estranged from the American counterculture, and their visits to the United States drew criticism from both the right and the left. Instead of claiming to represent the countercultural left's place in American culture, Fresko argues, the auteurs used their time in the United States to explore their own work's relationship to questions of ideology and aesthetics. Key to this was the disjuncture between sound and image achieved through the ongoing experimentation with montage. While the nearly six-minute-long explosion sequence set to Pink Floyd's "Come in Number 51, Your Time Is Up" in Antonioni's film is perhaps the most memorable example of this technique, Fresko argues that Godard's films both partake in and expand upon this logic as well, in a sense responding critically to the spectacular nature of Antonioni's own attempts. Film also mirrored the changing Zeitgeist in other ways, as Kathrin Fahlenbrach demonstrates via cognitivelinguistic analysis in her chapter "Utopia and Dystopia in Science Fiction Films around 1968." Concerned as it was with the possibilities and perils of technology, \* The editors would like to thank the Brown University Graduate School for its assistance in covering the publication costs associated with this volume and Allison Funk for compiling the index. "Introduction: The global sixties in sound and vision: media counterculture, revolt /Timothy Scott and Andrew Lison --1.A Red noise : pop and politics in post-1968 France /Jonathyne Briggs --2.Mapping tropicália /Christopher Dunn --3.Magical mystery tours : Godard and Antonioni in America /David Fresko --4.Turning inwards: the politics of privacy in the new American cinema /Josh Guilford --5.Utopia and dystopia in the science fiction film circa 1968 /Kathrin Fahlenbrach --6."Musical & magical counterpoint": language, sound, and image in Wallace Berman's Aleph, 1956-1966 /Chelsea Behle Fralick --7.Guitar smashing: Gustav Metzger, the idea of auto-destructive works of art, and its influence on rock music /Wolfgang Kraushaar --8."The revolution is over, and we have won!" : Alfred Hilsberg, West German punk and the sixties /Jeff Hayton --9.The sun and moon have come together : the fourth way, the counterculture, and Capitol Records /Kevin Fellezs --10."A weapon in our struggle for liberation" : black arts, black power, and the 1969 pan-African cultural festival /Samir Meghelli --11.The revolution will not be televised, but it will be recorded : soul, funk, and the black urban experience, 1968-1979 /Francesca D'Amico --12.Jukebox modernism : the transatlantic sight and sound of Peter Blake's Got a girl (1960-1961) /Melissa Mednicov --13.Uninteresting pictures : art and technocracy, 1968 /Joshua Shannon --14.1968 and the future of information /Andrew Lison." Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-13 A Red Noise: Pop and Politics in Post-1968 France....Pages 15-27 Mapping Tropicália....Pages 29-42 Magical Mystery Tours: Godard and Antonioni in America....Pages 43-64 Turning Inwards: The Politics of Privacy in the New American Cinema....Pages 65-82 Utopia and Dystopia in Science Fiction Films around 1968....Pages 83-100 “Musical & Magical Counterpoint”: Language, Sound, and Image in Wallace Berman’s Aleph, 1956–1966....Pages 101-118 Guitar Smashing: Gustav Metzger, the Idea of Auto-destructive Works of Art, and Its Influence on Rock Music....Pages 119-134 “The Revolution Is Over—and We Have Won!”: Alfred Hilsberg, West German Punk, and the Sixties....Pages 135-150 The Sun and Moon Have Come Together: The Fourth Way, the Counterculture, and Capitol Records....Pages 151-166 “A Weapon in Our Struggle for Liberation”: Black Arts, Black Power, and the 1969 Pan-African Cultural Festival....Pages 167-184 The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, But It Will Be Recorded: Soul, Funk, and the Black Urban Experience, 1968–1979....Pages 185-209 Jukebox Modernism: The Transatlantic Sight and Sound of Peter Blake’s Got a Girl (1960–1961)....Pages 211-226 Uninteresting Pictures: Art and Technocracy, 1968....Pages 227-244 1968 and the Future of Information....Pages 245-274 Back Matter....Pages 275-296 "Despite the explosion of scholarly interest in the 'global 1968' phenomenon, the seminal influence of the arts -- in both their popular and avant-garde iterations -- has too often been neglected. Student activism in the space of the university and the street made up only a part of the broad anti-authoritarian eruption of 1968, and not even necessarily the most important one. Arguably more fundamental was a broad democratization of cultural production in which avant-garde artists and youthful appropriators alike played a leading role. Cultural forms such as art, 'happenings, ' fashion, comics, movies, and music were critically important to the new youth sensibility and its dissemination within society more broadly. Popular music and visual culture were among the most important of these categories, opening up new vistas of emancipatory possibility and fueling the development of new stylistic codes. This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary collection brings together scholars in history, film and media studies, cultural studies, art history, music and other disciplines to consider the symbiosis of the sonic and the visual that so powerfully shaped sixties counterculture"--Provided by publisher Despite the explosion of interest in the ""global 1968,"" the arts in this period - both popular and avant-garde forms - have too often been neglected. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars in history, cultural studies, musicology and other areas to explore the symbiosis of the sonic and the visual in the counterculture of the 1960s