The Rebellious 1960s via the Prosperous 1990s: Youth, Modernity and Consumption in Antonis Kokkinos’Τέλος εποχής(End of an Era) (1994)

Panagiotis Zestanakis

doi:10.1017/byz.2021.8

Abstract

This article explores the movieΤέλος εποχής (End of an Era)by Antonis Kokkinos (1994), a key film in the regeneration of Greek cinema in the mid-late 1990s. The film constitutes a form of public history construing and problematizing relations between the images and the historical past, exploring the dictatorship (1967–74) through the consumer-oriented values of the 1990s. By scrutinizing historical (dis)continuities (similarities, differences, and transformations in consumer politics and sexuality in particular) between the dictatorship and the 1990s, the article argues that, focusing on 1960s youth,End of an Eraunderplayed the dictatorship's authoritarianism and (re)defined politics through the availability (or not) of consumer choices, expressing the relaxed ideological climate of the 1990s.

Highlights

In a 2015 article, the journalist Alex Proud described the British 1990s as a decade that had started as one of confined opportunities and evolved into one marked by an easygoing attitude, a desire for consumption, and a hedonistic and optimistic climate like that of the 1960s
In the 1980s, Pierre Sorlin argued that history is built and shaped by the media, while cinema influences this process by providing historical ‘facts’ to viewers.[6]
My discussion unfolds in five stages. It presents the film’s importance, its reception and the ways in which it influenced Greek cinema; I historicize the scenario, highlighting how the film was a comment on modernized lifestyles

Summary

Introduction

In a 2015 article, the journalist Alex Proud described the British 1990s as a decade that had started as one of confined opportunities and evolved into one marked by an easygoing attitude, a desire for (often conspicuous) consumption, and a hedonistic and optimistic climate like that of the 1960s.2 The Greek 1990s were comparable:. Underplaying the authoritarian aspect, the film highlights the young generation’s innate drive for defiance, manifested through a fascination with Western consumer trends. This choice was likely to appeal to viewers during a period when modernity was largely perceived as a consumer-oriented process focused on the embracing of popular Western cultural references. It presents the film’s importance, its reception and the ways in which it influenced Greek cinema; I historicize the scenario, highlighting how the film was a comment on modernized lifestyles. Georgakopoulos, ‘Τι πιστεύουν οι Έλληνες το 2017’, https://www.dianeosis. org/2017/03/tpe_2017/ (accessed August 2020)

The film that ended the drought

Historicizing the script

Findings

Linking two modernities