Nostalgia is a funny thing. It’s like fashion in general. One never knows exactly what will become an object of the public’s past-looking obsession, but the when is a little more predictable. People often idolize their childhoods, and 15-30 years later will look to their own past for comfort. This happens right about the time adulthood starts slapping them down. It is natural that our own history might offer us solutions to new and uncomfortable situations. A decent set of parents or a good teacher can make a young person feel like the world is less confusing. Dealing with marriage, career and children can make anyone yearn for the simplicity of childhood. Thus it is not surprising that popular art attempts to capitalize on this phenomenon. It rarely works. More often than not, nostalgic songs or movies feel hokey and predictable. Indeed, they tend to sully our memories, or confuse with cheap anachronistic jokes, the very real yearning we have for a time when our lives made sense. George Lucas’ second movie, 1973’s American Graffiti rises above nostalgia, and uses the building blocks of his own youth to create a universal tribute to coming of age in small-town America at the birth of the 1960’s.
Set in Modesto, California, it is the final
night of summer vacation and four friends (Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss,
Charles Martin Smith and Paul Lemat) are going to spend one last night cruising
the strip of their hometown before heading off to…adulthood? Ron Howard’s Steve
and Dreyfuss’ Kurt are both ostensibly heading off to college, while Smith’s
Terry and Lemat’s John are staying put, as Steve says early on, “ to be a
teenager for the rest of your life.” The film busies itself with a series of
widely-drawn pranks and romantic sub-plots, but as it unwinds, it becomes clear
that there is a much more serious and poignant subtext to everything that is
happening. The four main characters start to become Jungian archetypes, each
representing a potential outcome for a prototypical American youth at the end
of the 1950’s. The film is critically set in 1962, just on the precipice of all
the changes the 1960’s would bring, and George Lucas succeeds in capturing a
last fleeting look at a more innocent time, while acknowledging that something
big is stirring just over the horizon.
American Graffiti succeeds
so wildly for three different reasons. First and foremost: ROCK AND ROLL! When
Lucas started making this picture, the first thing he did was get his older
sister’s collection of 45 records and a portable record player, and he used the
music of his own memories to help him map out the action of his movie. In
today’s world it is hard to imagine a time when this was such a revelation, but
it is true, that Lucas was really the first director to use wall-to-wall songs
to punctuate, and sometimes even explicate the story he is telling. The
soundtrack to this movie actually is a character, and the way the sound of the
songs are manipulated, modulated and magnified makes them behave more like dialogue
than incidental noise. Songs get louder and softer as people enter rooms or
cars drive by with open windows. The audio realism of this movie adds to an
already documentary-like feel. Cinematographer Haskell Wexler does an amazing
job of making everything feel spontaneous, as though scenes are being caught on
the fly and lit by streetlights and dashboards. The film truly has a
breathless, you-are-there feeling of immediacy.
The second factor that makes this film so
successful is the casting of a group of largely unknown (except Ron Howard)
young actors who turn out to be almost miraculous in their depictions of
American stereotypes familiar to many. The four male leads are paired with four
tremendous female leads whose performances outshine the men in many ways. Cindy
Williams is heartbreakingly believable as a sixteen-year old cheerleader-type
experiencing her first breakup as she navigates her relationship with the sweet
but dull Ron Howard. Candy Clark mesmerizes as the girl from just the other side
of the tracks, who takes Charlie Martin Smith on an adult ride to first
experiences with sex and alcohol. Suzanne Sommers is alluring as the mysterious
blonde in the white T-Bird who beguiles Dreyfuss’ character, but stays
maddeningly out of reach, and most touching of all is a teenage Mackenzie
Phillips who walks the perilous line between innocence and womanhood with such
sweet grace that the wreckage of the actress’ later life is made especially painful.
Her evolving relationship with Paul Lemat’s tough greaser character - from
babysitting to crush to mutual respect - is one of the sweetest parts of the
film.
The final aspect of American Graffiti which
sets it apart from other nostalgia films is Lucas’ masterful editing job. It is
now hard to remember a time when dramas were not told by introducing several
plots and winding them together over the course of a story. It is the way
virtually all modern cable TV dramas and films unfold. It was unheard of in
1973 and a controversial move by Lucas. I remember seeing this film for the
first time in the theatre and being exhilarated by the seemingly disorienting
quick cuts in action. It was like watching four movies at once. The emotional
impact was breathless excitement that felt like real life.
The sun must rise, childhood must end, and time
moves on in our home towns. The last scenes of American Graffiti bring
these themes home in stark fashion. The four young men meet at the airport to
say goodbye. Who leaves and who stays and what happens to them in the rest of
their lives is revealed and leaves us with bittersweet feelings, because their
fates are so similar to any four guys from any small town in 1962 America. We
are brought in by both the familiarity of their lives and simultaneously at the
extraordinary nature of the times we have lived through this century.
-
Paul
Epstein
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