| Collector's Corner January 2003
 American Graffiti
- Starring: Richard Dreyfuss,
Ronny Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charlie Martin Smith,
Candy Clark, Mackenzie Philips, Cindy Williams, Wolfman Jack,
Harrison Ford, Bo Hopkins, Suzanne Somers, Kathleen Quinlan,
Debralee Scott, Joe Spano
- Directed by: George Lucas
- Theatrical release: 1973
- DVD release: 1998
- Video: Widescreen (anamorphic)
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0
- Released by: Universal Studios
American Graffiti is designed primarily for fun, to be
entertaining, a warm movie about what it’s like to be a teenager. But it’s also
about the end of a political era, a sociological era, and a rock era. You have three eras
coming to an end, and people have to change and the country has to change. You have to go
from a warm, secure, uninvolved life into the later '60s, which was involvement, anti-war
stuff, revolution and a different kind of rock‘n’roll.
-- George Lucas
Where were you in '62? President Kennedy was alive and
in the White House. No one in the US had heard of the Beatles. In small towns across
America, teenagers defined themselves by their cars, who they were going steady with, and
what clique they were in. When an amorous couple wanted some privacy, they’d go to
the drive-in. Turn on the radio and you’d hear "Blue Moon," "Duke of
Earl," "Johnny Angel," "He’s a Rebel," or "The
Loco-Motion." Vietnam was a hot spot, not a war. George Lucas was an 18-year-old
living in Modesto, California, cruising the main drag, checking out the chicks.
In 1973, when American Graffiti came out, President
Kennedy had been killed, and his two successors had jumped headlong into a war with
Vietnam, which we lost. Amorous couples smoked a little weed and did it wherever they felt
comfortable. The Beatles had conquered and divided. Music had morphed from straight rock
to beach music and the British Invasion, through garage and psychedelic, until sensitive
singer-songwriters like Cat Stevens and James Taylor ruled. George Lucas was a 29-year-old
director with one fairly obscure film (THX-1138) under his belt. He was still four
years from releasing Star Wars.
Lucas’s goal with American Graffiti was to
memorialize the life he had lived. He wrote a treatment and took it to every studio in
town. Everyone rejected it. United Artists had a slight interest, but Lucas was barricaded
by a VP. He took the little bit of money he had left from THX-1138 and flew to the
Cannes Film Festival to catch the president of United Artists who wasn’t terribly
excited about the project, but gave Lucas $10,000 to develop the script. Lucas hired a
scriptwriter, paid him the $10,000, and got back a screenplay that he thought should have
been titled Hot Rods to Hell. It bore no resemblance to the story treatment. Broke
and obligated to deliver a script, he wrote it himself. He gave it to UA and they turned
it down flat. Lucas did one more re-write and started shopping it around, again. Finally,
Universal said that they would do it, but he’d have to find a "name." He
called his old friend Francis Ford Coppola, fresh from The Godfather, and asked him
to produce. Coppola agreed.
The concept of American Graffiti is simple. It all
takes place on one day, between sundown and sunrise. We follow the fortunes of four
groups. Recently graduated class president Steve (Ronny Howard) and his steady, head
cheerleader Laurie (Cindy Williams), are trying to figure out how they can keep their
relationship going while he’s away at school. He thinks they should date other
people. She doesn’t. Steve’s best friend Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) is struggling
with what he wants to do with his life when he falls instantly in love with a beautiful
blonde (Suzanne Somers) in a T-Bird. Terry the Toad (Charles Martin Smith) meets the
gorgeous Debbie (Candy Clark) and, for the first time in his life, feels like a cool dude.
Milner (Paul Le Mat), the older, never-been-beaten street racer and idol of all the
guys ends up baby-sitting the very young Carol (Mackenzie Phillips). He has to drive her
around in his hot rod while he’s being challenged to a race by the hot-rod-driving
Bob (Harrison Ford). Just like life, these stories unite and diverge throughout the film.
Each group has its own climax before the end of the film.
With an indie-type budget ($750,000) and a 29-day shoot the
cast and crew were working without sleep or any star perks. Though everyone connected with
the film went on to bigger and better things, only Ronny Howard was a familiar face, and
he was considered washed-up at the age of 18. The film was shot in Technoscope, a fancy
name for a cheap film. Haskell Wexler called it "one step up from 16mm, a poor man's
anamorphic." The first town they were in threw them out for making too much of a
ruckus. They moved to a new town and lost a day from having to mount the cameras on the
cars. Between the cheap film and the hurry-up schedule, American Graffiti took on
the appearance of a documentary. Lucas decided to film several takes of each scene so that
he could let everyone go and do most of the filmmaking later in the editing suite.
When the film was ready for a test, they brought in an
audience, plus Coppola, Lucas, and a Universal exec. The audience loved it. The UA exec
came up to Coppola with an unhappy look on his face and said it needed lots of work.
Coppola, to his credit, defended his director and crew, saying he would buy the film and
take it to another studio, offering to write a check on the spot for everything Universal
had in the film. He yelled that the exec should be on his knees thanking Lucas. No matter,
Universal put the film on the backburner, showing it only occasionally to some marketers.
Every time the studio execs called for a showing, Lucas would fill the 100-seat screening
room with low-level Universal staffers, knowing they would love it and hoping the execs
would notice. Finally, Universal offered to compromise and release the film after making
some cuts and changing the title. Coppola was ready to accede, but Lucas demanded the
title stay. Universal gave in and American Graffiti was finally released to the
public on August 1, 1973.
No one -- including Universal, Lucas, or Coppola -- had
much hope for the film. What they didn’t count on was a blip in the demographic
market. The 15-to-25-year-old set was tired of seeing misery and war. Rock had been
deflowered by the murder at the Stones concert in Altamont. The news was filled with
Watergate. Suddenly, nostalgia was hip. What better than a blissful, nostalgic,
sweet-hearted reminder of those happy days a decade ago? American Graffiti ended up
being one of the top-five grossing films for 1973 (along with The Exorcist, The
Sting, Papillon, and The Way We Were).
Watching American Graffiti now, I’m struck how
timeless this little film is. Given its exceptional influence on subsequent entertainment,
it’s hard to believe American Graffiti hasn’t grown stale. Remember, this
was the first film to have a wall-to-wall song score. Today, virtually all films (except
Lucas’s, oddly enough) are jammed with songs. Many filmmakers expect to make as much
money from the soundtrack as the film. American Graffiti interwove four stories at
a time when no studio exec thought the American public was smart enough to keep up. Just
try to find any prime-time TV drama that doesn’t use that technique today. The
potential is for familiarity to breed contempt. But it hasn’t. What keeps American
Graffiti fresh?
First, it deals in universal themes: choosing to leave
safety on a quest (something Lucas has used in all of his films), the need to be loved and
respected by your peers, trying to find your purpose in life, and facing fears. American
Graffiti also shows us universal characters. All males lived as at least one of the
four leads (Lucas said he started as Terry the Toad, became Curt, and ended up Milner).
And all females can relate to Laurie, Debbie, Carol, or The Blonde.
Amazingly for a young director, Lucas had already developed
a unique technique to show these universal truths visually. Like many directors, he had
his actors do takes repeatedly. But he wasn’t looking for a perfect take. He wanted a
flub -- one that would make the performance seem more teenager-natural. My favorite
example comes in the opening when Charles Martin Smith really loses control of his Vespa
and smashes it into a trashcan. He gets off and assumes he’s going to hear Lucas yell
cut. He ends up just standing there. Lucas likes it. For the rest of the movie,
you’ll see that Vespa knocked up against the trash. The actors talk over and over
about how many retakes Lucas demanded -- and how most of the mistakes ended up in the
final cut. We get a real sense of fallible humanity.
Second is the look. Wexler and his crew put out a work of
spectacular visual impact. The jukebox-style colors and perfect lighting still look brand
new. If it weren’t for the fact that all these actors have aged in front of us, we
might guess the film was made yesterday.
Finally, there's the music. Sure, it’s old. And I
grant you, most Limp Bizkit fans are not going to be Big Bopper fans. But that
doesn’t matter. With all the oldies radio and the use of these songs in film and on
TV, everyone knows them. Plus, they serve a role in the film. The songs are a Greek
chorus. They weren’t added post-production. Lucas decided which songs went with which
scenes as he was writing the script, making sure the lyrics fit the story.
American Graffiti, the movie no studio wanted, was
nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress
(26-year-old Candy Clark), Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
It didn’t win a thing. In the 30 years it’s been out, American
Graffiti has become the most profitable (investment versus return) film in history. It
doesn’t take long to make back $750,000. Four years after its release, when Lucas had
Star Wars' clout, Universal wanted to re-release American Graffiti. Lucas
got his revenge. He forced them to restore the film to his cut and destroy their cut. To
this day, the only available cut is Lucas’s own.
Which is what we get on the DVD, THX mastered, looking
brand new and sounding perfect. The film’s visual clarity could be a model for new
releases. Colors are rich and deeply saturated. I couldn’t find a thing to complain
about.
The bonus materials include production notes, cast and crew
bios, and one of the best "making of" documentaries I’ve ever seen.
Directed by writer and documentarian Laurent Bouzereau (who did an equally stellar job on
the "making of" for Close Encounters of the Third
Kind), we get perfect editing (by Jane Allison Heck), first-class continuity, a
gripping story, and a peek into every cranny of American Graffiti. If you have any
interest in the film at all, the 80 minutes goes by like lightning.
George Lucas has only directed five films. Early on,
Francis Ford Coppola thought Lucas’s talents were more in the writing area. After the
cold and terrifying THX-1138, Coppola challenged Lucas to write something warm and
fuzzy. American Graffiti was the result. Since then, Lucas has only directed three Star
Wars films. I understand that many of you think of those films as classics. But
personally, I wish Coppola would throw the same challenge at Lucas one more time.
...Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com |
