Good Times, Wonderful Times is Rogosin’s plea for humanity against war and fascism. The film took two years of travel to twelve countries and permission to use their war archives before it was released in 1964, at the height of the Vietnam War. In it, mundane chatter at a London cocktail party is interspersed with graphic wartime footage, satirizing the tragic irresponsibility of the modern man. It won the Cine Forum Award as the official British entry for feature film at the 1965 Venice Film Festival. —lionelrogosin.com
Born in New York City, Lionel Rogosin, the son of a prominent industrialist, was a chemistry major at Yale and a Navy engineer before becoming the director of several socially conscious documentaries in the mid-’50s. His first, On the Bowery, won an award at the 1956 Venice Film Festival. His next film, a secretly filmed look at South African life, Come Back Africa (1959), earned him international acclaim. Rogosin then became known as the owner of the prestigious Bleecker Street Cinema, a now-defunct art theater in Greenwich Village. He also continued working on the occasional documentary through the early ’70s. —allmovie guide
Lionel Rogosin's seminal anti-war documentary was made at the height of the Vietnam war, and is steeped in counterculture passion and naivete. Juxtaposes the ramblings of the disconnected, effete bourgeoisie with images of wartime atrocities. Falters when it equates the idea of ANY army with fascism, but what it lacks in nuance it makes up for with sheer conviction.
