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In an article referencing the anomie of young people like Henry Wachtel, the teenager who beat his mother to death last week, Ginia Bellafante suggests that it’s impossible “to view Mr. Wachtel’s tragedy apart from the life that the film suggests – one in which parents are absent, opportunities seem meager and the resulting freedoms feel joyless in the wake of so much anxiety about a precarious future.” (NYTimes 4/15/12 The film is “Our Time,” a cinema verite short in which Henry Wachtel had a leading role. It appeared at the Cannes Film Festival last year and deals with middle class teens in New York who are not part of the affluent life style and high achievement of kids prominently in view in this city of 1 percenters. As I read this article, I thought back to previous generations of teenagers – immigrants who came to this country without the language or the means to survive – who not only survived but excelled; teenagers who got drafted into the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War – some never to return, some to return as physical or mental basket cases, many of whom overcame their crippling disabilities to resume their lives or bravely create new ones. I thought of the words “so much anxiety” to describe kids who have a roof over their heads, a means of support, educational opportunities, no draft in sight and in Henry’s case, a mother who lived with and cared for him.
