The origins of “The Year of Living Dangerously”

The first time most people heard the phrase “The Year of Living Dangerously” was when it was used as the title of the movie of that name, released in the United States on January 21, 1983.

It starred Mel Gibson (when he was still cool and hot), Sigourney Weaver (who is still cool and hot) and Linda Hunt, in a breakthrough, Oscar-winning role as a man.

Although the film was only a modest hit, its title was catchy. It soon became a commonly-heard phrase that has since spawned many variations.

For example, if you Google “the year of living *” -dangerously (using Boolean search techniques to look for versions of the phrase that don’t include the word dangerously), you get thousands of results, such as:

• The book title The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.
  
• A Time magazine article about how Americans are tightening their belts to cope with the current economic downturn, titled “The Year of Living Cheaply.”
  
• An entry on the Talking Points Memo blog titled “The Year of Living Presidentially: Obama’s First 365 Days.”

And, so on...

The movie title was not the first use of “The Year of Living Dangerously.” It comes from the 1978 novel by Christopher J. Koch that the movie is based on.

The book is set in Jakarta, Indonesia at the start of the bloody coup that overthrew the country’s long time dictator, President Sukarno.

Author Koch took his title from Sukarno himself, who had a custom of publicly giving a name to each year.

In a speech in 1964, Sukarno called the coming year “the year of living dangerously,” due to the challenges he knew he faced from his political enemies — which included both hard-line Communists and radical Muslims.

Sukarno is said to have taken the name from the famous Italian phrase “vivere pericoloso” (“living dangerously”).

It turned out to be more prophetic than he may have expected. In September of 1965, a coup began that soon led to the overthrow of Sukarno’s government.

Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were killed in the power struggle. But Sukarno survived and was allowed to live out the rest of his days under “house arrest,” until his death in Jakarta in 1970.

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P.S. Happy Birthday to my oldest, closest friend and the first reader of this blog, Matt Eckstein! I hope this is The Year of Living Blissfully for you and Pam, at your At Home the the Tropics Bed & Breakfast in St. Thomas.