Wikipedia.org Article for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_Roll_Hall_of_Fame
Yep, we need a film that is more famous for it's soundtrack and design then it is for the film itself, so ......
American Graffiti (1973)
This is the stuff of Hollywood legends. This is the film that put George Lucas on the Hollywood map. This is American Graffiti.
If you've never seen the film, now - in a post-Lucas Star Wars world - is the perfect time to see it and witness how it all started.
If you have seen Graffiti, read my WCU genre theory essay excerpt I wrote on American Graffiti and David R. Shumway's article "Rock 'n' Roll Sound Tracks and the Production of Nostalgia." There are SPOILERS in the article, so save the read till AFTER you've seen it...
Commodified (or Communal) Nostalgia
Via
his article, David R. Shumway analyzes the ideology of numerous nostalgia films
from the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties through their use of popular music.
While he explores several pioneering films, the majority of his text centers on
American Graffiti, a 1973 film whose
storyline takes place in 1962. Shumway positions nostalgia as a fondness for
the past, but with two clear types: 1) Personal nostalgia – the subjective
experience of an emotional state of consciousness for longing for one’s own
past and 2) Commodified nostalgia – the revival by the culture industry of
certain fashions and styles of a past era, evoking the affect of nostalgia even
among those who do not have actual personal memories of the period being
revived (Shumway 1999, 39). “Commodified” is a marker for Shumway’s commercial
ideology on what would better be termed “Communal Past,” which is knowledge
and/or remembrance of the past, a feeling of generational belonging, even if
the participants shared knowledge does not derive from personal experience or
“truth” obtained within the designated generation. One should bear in mind that
all the movies analyzed by Shumway were initially seen by audiences in the
movie theater, as the advent of the home movie theater had not yet occurred
prior to the films’ release dates. In other words, the movies were seen in the
theater and were therefore a communal experience.
People could laugh, gasp, cry, dance, sing along and so on together in response to the shared commodity.
In
the end, all the films analyzed, including American
Graffiti, are deemed commodified nostalgia due to various factors of the
production, but especially due to their compilation rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack.
Another commonality of the analyzed films shared was that they depict youth as
a period of sexual initiation and experimentation. Nostalgia is an important
factor considering this thematic thread, as early sexual activities are often
threatening experiences and result in terribly painful memories. The
filmmaker’s combination of music and narrative allows pleasurable rewriting of
the past to occur in the mind of the spectators, omitting any unpleasantness or
doldrums from both socially-shared and personal histories.
The Great Pretender
The
philosophies of all three articles ring true in the American Graffiti character of Curt Henderson, played by Richard
Dreyfuss. Shumway points out that while the music of Graffiti creates the commodified/communal experience, the ironic
twist is that the film’s hero is Curt, an independent individual who escapes
from an idealized, nostalgic world (Shumway 1999, 42). Even more interesting is
that the valorized Curt not only escapes but is a success and a writer. For
this argument, Curt is a successful (a.k.a. “good”) writer as well.
After bouncing
from one familiar white middle-class suburban scenario to another (the
drive-in burger joint, the sock hop, courting rituals in the backseat of a
car), Curt finds himself seated on a hood of a parked car, without a ride, and
singing along to The Platters’ The Great
Pretender. The filmmakers’ song choice is not by chance. Enter the
Pharaohs, a racially-mixed gang that challenge, corner and kidnap Curt. Up to
now, Curt has demonstrated his adaptability to any scenario by analyzing,
understanding and pushing the limits and mechanics of the situation. In other
words, he is a “great pretender,” confident that he can helm any scenario
(genre) to his liking. He is not limited by format; he uses it to his fullest
advantage. Although intimidated by this new social group, Curt adapts quickly,
finding common subjects of conversation, undergoing initiations and becoming
involved in their illegal activities, all the while maintaining his own
identity. When the Pharaohs come full circle and ask him to join the gang, Curt
now has the power and he declines their offer. Everyone fails to entrap him in
the familiar white middle-class suburbia – his eclectic variety of friends,
formidable enemies turned allies, and even the mysterious and beautiful blond
in the elusive T-bird. He refuses settle down in town, since there simply isn’t
enough room for him to voice his ideals. Heeding the advice of the revered disc
jockey Wolfman Jack, Curt goes onto to higher education and the “great big
world out there.” The Dragnet-style end placard tells the audience that Curt is
a writer alive in Canada while his peers eke out a meager existence in their
hometown or find death in Vietnam or behind the wheel (Coppola, Lucas, Katz and
Huyck, 1973 [1990]). Not only does Curt avoid the dark days of America
involving the assassination of JFK and the Vietnam War, he has the power to
express his own ideologies as a writer. Curt is the only character in Graffiti who finds success because he
can read a situation, study and contemplate his options, and takes action,
namely, by escaping.
IMDB.com Entry on AMERICAN GRAFFITI:
George Lucas’ journey into 1960s Americana takes place during one night, mostly in the streets, while the characters ride around in cars, get in trouble and try to figure out their lives. Lucas hands us a very basic, kind of boring plot for a film that is more of a commentary on the visuals of the 1960s, than any real story or plot about the 1960s. Of course you would think a person who could take an outer space adventure, like Star Wars (1977) and make it believable, could also take 1960s Americana and make it look believable and genuine, which Lucas does with this film quite well. It is a basic plot about two students going off to college and the decisions they make in the next 24 hours stems on if they will actually leave for school or not. Some of the scenes are a little silly and unbelievable, especially the scene with the liquor store guy shooting at another guy running out of the store after he swipes a bottle of liquor. Also, the scene with McKenzie Phillips spraying foam all over another person’s car. Why didn't the people get out the car or do anything? It does have a great soundtrack which really helps date the movie. The movie looks fantastic and has a genuine 1960s feel. which I think is what Lucas was shooting for. Even in Star Wars, Lucas was knocked for having bland dialoge and not a very original plot, but who cares really, whatever, his amazing film making made us believe that Star Wars was real and he captured that brilliantly. It is the same thing with this film. Perfect in its design and appeal, but is still kind of a slow boring, bland script that just carries us through this world he created with film. Richard Dreyfus as usual is fantastic and Wolfman Jack makes an interesting cameo as “not himself”, very interesting. It's also an interesting combination of the Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley gang meeting Han Solo, with names like Ronny Howard, Cindy Williams, McKenzie Phillips, Suzanne Somers and Harrison Ford in the mix. This quiet, almost pointless, almost plot-less movie is a genuine slice of American life and it captures the early 1960s perfectly. - Phil
I even did this ..............
More American Graffiti (1979)
This film tries to follow along the same lines that George Lucas did in the first film, as Director Bill L. Norton tries to recreate the 1960s, but this time Norton actually has more source material for this film. This story seems a little bit more interesting, with more going on and I think the film goes off the rails, because of the subject matter. The script revolves around four different timelines, flashing forward and backwards, all within a few years of each other, 1964, 65, 66 and 67. The director does do an interesting thing with multiple camera shots, multiple frames, using different images, using two or three images at a time, to convey different feelings, emotions and perspectives from other characters. Also, Norton dabbles with imagery by shrinking the screen to smaller sizes and moving it around a lot, especially when the plot moves back to Vietnam. He shrinks the screen to 4:3 to make it look more like what a news reel about the war would look like on the television in the 1960s. He also takes it one step further by throwing in the grainy, washed out color, with dark tones seen in the old Vietnam News Reels. In one silly, unnecessary scene, where Candy Clark is at a strip club, the owner owns a snake and in a moment of tongue-and-cheek, some guy shoots the snake with a gun, because it startled him at the bar. A bar fight erupts later in the film at a different bar, which also gave a feeling of silliness. That is the problem with this film. It doesn’t know if it should be serious or not. I will also have to take some points off of the film, because the cameraman’s hand comes into the shot (twice), during one of the fight scenes in Vietnam. This film is an interesting change from the first film, because this one tackles issues like Vietnam, riots protesting the war, police brutality, drugs, you name it. I did think it was a bad move using Simon and Garfunkel's “Sound of Silence”. That song is synonymous for the movie The Graduate (1967) and by using it in this film, the way they did, seemed almost like satire. There was a certain reward hearing Richie Cunningham say “shit” too. - Phil
Trailer for More American Graffiti on YouTube:
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