Swinging 60s
Uploaded by Appleman on Jun 09, 2007
Messages and Values portrayed in 1960s British cinema
The Swinging 60s was the name given to the period in the 1960s where there was a phenomenal rise in youth culture, fuelled by pop music, fashion and a sexual revolution. Swinging London was portrayed in several films during this period, notably Alfie, Darling and A Hard Day’s Night.
The main theme of Alfie and Darling is the increase of sexual relationships in the younger generations. This is due to the creation of contraceptive pills and an increase in the availability of condoms. This allowed people to sleep around with a lowered risk of getting pregnant, and so people began to think of sex as more of a pastime because it was fun and could be done all the time. This portrayal of sex as a pastime is clearly visible in Alfie and Darling.
Diana Scott has nothing to offer the world, except her good looks and easy going character. This allows men like Laurence Harvey’s character Miles to walk all over her. She has of course fallen in love with him, making it even easier for him to get his own way with her. All he wants her for is sex, and he gets it. Her husband, on the other hand, is a completely different character. Dirk Bogarde’s Robert loves Diana. He leaves his wife and children for her, but she ends up using him, breaking his heart. Towards the end of the film, when she returns briefly from Italy, he repays the favour, and uses her for sex. She is deeply offended by this, unable to see that she has been doing it all her adult life and therefore can't see that she deserves nothing more from Robert.
Alfie sleeps around also. At the start of the film, he is sleeping with a married woman in his car. He sees nothing wrong with this, because as he says he has never met the husband, and therefore he doesn’t think about him and doesn’t feel that he is hurting him. But his tune changes later in the film when he has sex with his friend’s wife whilst driving her home. He even gets her pregnant.
We see both sides of adultery. With Alfie we see a man having sex with a married woman, whilst Diana is a married woman who we see sleeping with other men. At the time nothing seems to be wrong with either...