“I wasn’t always Michael Caine. I was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite,” tells Michael Caine as he recalls his early life in 1960s London. His mother was a housekeeper and father a fish butcher, a trade that Caine was supposed to follow into, but he didn’t because he can’t stand the smell of fish.
My Generation, produced by Michael Caine, and directed by David Batty is an exciting and enthralling documentary about the radical shift in 1960s London, but through the guise of Michael Caine.
The film is less about Caine’s early career, but more about the cultural shift from the conservative 1950s to the Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones and photography by David Bailey to the previously unimagined hairstyles of Vidal Sassoon.
The film is primarily composed of archived footage of the era, not only of the political and cultural climate but also of vintage footage of Caine when he was on talk shows and footage of him from his home in Rotherhithe.
Through narration and conversation with other trailblazers of the same era, Caine speaks how his generation broke the mold, pushed past being stifled by their “betters” and charted their own courses.
Caine and his contemporaries refused to be pushed into the same class structure as their parents, and through creativity and art they changed the world.
A very unique component of this film is over the archival footage are retrospective conversations that Caine has with Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey, David Baily, and Twiggy. An incredible moment in the film is the coming of age of the rock and roll scene, both The Beatles and the Rolling Stones exploded at the same time, and Caine recalls in his conversation with McCartney when he saw The Beatles perform at a local coffee house, and another time when he went to a club where both the young Stones and Beatles attended.
McCartney then goes on to tell Caine about the moment when the Stones and the Beatles shared a cab, and the Stones just signed a record deal but were nervous because they didn’t have any songs to record, so McCartney and Lennon wrote them., “I Wanna Be Your Man”.
This is a wonderful film that retreads an era that has been written about, filmed, and sung about, yet through such a nuanced way by having Caine not only play the narrator but also being the vessel of the film.
There are few clips of Caine’s early career, with the exception of “Zulu”. Caine recalls the only reason he got the part was that it was an American filmmaker that had no idea Caine’s cockney accent would not be unacceptable being spoken by a British officer.
Review by Frank Mengarelli
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My Generation
Summary
Michael Caine takes us through 1960s London, and recalls how his generation broke the class structure they were born into and paved their own path and left their mark on the world.
