Thursday, March 3, 2005
American Graffiti (1973)
This is one of those movies that everyone loves and I find pretty boring. But it's a classic so I suppose I'm glad I saw it. Maybe I'll appreciate it some day, I just obviously can't right now. It just felt... lacking in... something. I never really cared about most of the characters, and just found myself going, "Um... okay. This is it?" Ah well. 1.5 stars.
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I know George Lucas's real contribution to film-making has been Industrial Light & Magic, but as far as I'm concerned, American Graffiti stands as his greatest work. The story simultaneously plays on our own nostalgia while capturing that specific time in our lives when we know one era of our lives is coming to a close. Graduating high school is one of our most important social events because of its universality; nearly everyone does it, and at the same time in their lives. All the other major events vary; marriage, birth of children, home ownership, career accomplishments, etc., but the night shown in American Graffiti marks the end of the first phase of our lives when we're all on the same track as our peers.
As a film, I've always admired Lucas's use of music. Everyone is listening to the Wolf Man's broadcast, and it's this that creates the specific setting. Plus, the clever editing gives us the sense that we're following the whole night's simultaneous plot threads in some kind of impossible real time.
Of the characters, I've always identified with Richard Dreyfuss's Curt. I had a few nights in my youth where I set out to have a simple night and instead I wound up at a construction site in the middle of nowhere with a van full of people I barely knew or whatever, so his falling in with the Pharaohs felt kind of familiar to me (though I've never been coerced into pranking the police).
It's also just like me to become manically fixated on a girl/woman I've barely seen or met, so there's that.
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