OLD COMFORT RECS: AMERICAN GRAFFITI

Year Released: 1973

Runtime: 112 minutes

Directed: George Lucas

Produced: Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Kurtz

Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charlie Martin Smith, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips

Oscars: Won: Nothing – The Sting swept and I’m not mad Nominated: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Clark), Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing

IMDb Plot Summary: A couple of high school grads spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

American Graffiti as a Comfort Rec

The Story. Coming-of-age films existed before American Graffiti, but Lucas and his writing team were able to inject enough originality and universality of themes to help re-shape the genre and create something compelling here. The framing of this film is as interesting as anything else in it; we follow four friends, all in one night, across four different plotlines that eventually re-converge, as they embrace their final time all being together. Curt begins the night not thinking he will go to college; he proceeds to essentially lose his faith in the institutions of his small town, while trying to chase an angelic “perfect woman” driving a white Thunderbird around all night. Steve, mirroring Curt, begins the film ready to break up with his girlfriend, Laurie, and go to college to live his life. As the night progresses and they fight, make up, fight again, make up again, he realizes that he doesn’t want to be without her and so changes his plans by the end of the night. Terry the Toad doesn’t experience a ton of growth or change, but easily has the most consistently hilarious misadventure of the night, and his time with Debbie gives him newfound confidence to be a part of the group. Paul Le Mat’s John Milner, however, might be the most thematically rich character of the film. Lucas claims to have modelled all the characters after different phases of his own life, and Milner comes from his interest in cars and street racing. In his construction though, Milner also appears like the “greasers” of the late 50’s, and some of his first lines are about how the town feels smaller with each passing day; his time is ending, and he’s beginning to realize it.

The Symbols. Milner functions as a symbol of a certain kind of American teenager and our collective ideas about a generation, but the film is rife with other symbols that reach a literary level of genius. The elusive beauty in a white Thunderbird represents Curt’s meaning in life, as he begins the film not knowing what he wants to do or if he even wants to experience the world outside his town. He catches glimpses, and any identity that someone else provides of the woman driving the car doesn’t seem to work for him. Once he has the Wolfman – a symbol in his own right – get her to contact him, he realizes he’s responsible for defining his own life; as he leaves for college, he notices the white Thunderbird driving in the same direction his plane is flying. The Wolfman’s voice can be heard on radio throughout the night in several different cars, and different characters discuss him and how real he might be. Curt eventually finds out that the Wolfman is “just on tape” from the local DJ but as he leaves, he notices that the DJ was in fact the Wolfman the whole time; some myths are just never meant to be fully understood. The Pharaohs, a mostly harmless gang, don’t just represent a potential life path for Curt; they represent who he may become if he turns his back on society’s institutions completely, something that feels possible given the experiences he has.

The Structure. The story is presented as a series of vignettes, jumping around from plotline to plotline and from scene to scene with a very relaxed pace, but that still allows an understanding of how the night each character is having is impacting them. As Terry’s, Steve’s and John’s plotlines re-converge, they feel like slightly different versions of themselves. The film’s ending title sequence, revealing the fates of these fictional characters, is also symbolic. John Milner, as was his fear, was killed by a drunk driver; despite his many skills behind the wheel, cars are what killed him in 1964 – the same time as when his type of lifestyle faded from society. Terry, the youngest and brightest, was reported missing in Vietnam early into the war – nodding to the loss of innocence, and life in some cases, that an entire generation and country experienced because of the conflict. Steve “sells insurance in his hometown”, and the implication is that he never left; Curt, on the other hand, became a writer and left the country entirely.

The Performances. Most of this cast was unknown when the film was released, but they are all pitch-perfect to match this film’s humor and heart. I’m shocked that Candy Clark was nominated for Best Supporting Actress as Debbie, but her rebellious, slightly ditzy blonde is hysterical. She works great playing off of Charles Martin Smith’s Terry, who brings the necessary physical and dialogue-based humor to his storyline, so we keep looking forward to returning. Another dynamite pairing is Ron Howard’s Steve with Cindy William’s Laurie, but the two continue to shine when they’re apart. I also want to shout out Mackenzie Phillips’ Carol for bringing an adorable amount of sass to her role as the youngest performer in the cast, and working as the perfect “odd couple” with Le Mat. Other shoutouts for minor roles include the Wolfman playing himself, Bo Hopkins as the Pharaoh leader, and Harrison Ford as Bob Falfa, Milner’s challenger. Richard Dreyfuss has the most introspective work to do as Curt, and he does it quite well, but Paul Le Mat brings John Milner, the most interesting character in the film, to life in an incredibly special way, so he’s my favorite.

Technicalities. Shot for around $800,000, this film manages to be technically flawless in my eyes. Lucas seems to make every right choice for shot, and they are all so perfectly composed, then edited together to keep the flow of each scene alive in a special way while also seamlessly jumping us from vignette to vignette. You can feel the passing of the night through each storyline progressing, and Lucas’ choice to mount the cameras on the cars allows for in-car scenes to be perfectly captured. This film also relies completely on its soundtrack, meaning no music was composed for the movie. Lucas clearly has a strong command over songs from this period and uses them as both diegetic (meaning our characters are also listening to it) and non-diegetic (meaning they can’t hear it), but it’s near impossible to tell the difference, which is both a stroke of genius to draw the audience into this era, and something that was quite radical for the time. This film is just so alive compared to some of Lucas’ later work – the Star Wars prequels, for example – you can imagine what might have been if he had continued to direct in different genres over the years.

The Legacy of American Graffiti. Pre-John Hughes, this was the coming-of-age film. Its low budget and strong box office pull make it one of the most profitable films ever, and then it went and got nominated for 5 Academy Awards. Virtually everyone in the had strong careers ahead of them, the most notable including Ron Howard, who has moved to directing and won an Oscar for directing A Beautiful Mind, Richard Dreyfuss who had still had Jaws and Close Encounters ahead of him, and Harrison Ford, who went on to become one of the most significant male movie stars ever. George Lucas followed this movie the people involved is to overlook what a gem this movie remains. My parents weren’t even alive in 1962, but the portrayals of teen life, angst, friendship, heartbreak/romance, and loss of innocence in a funny and tender way has lost none of its charm, and I suspect it never will.

John’s Highlight Reel

• Cruising. These sequences – hard to call most of them scenes, as they usually work more like interludes – are the soul of this movie, and Lucas films them perfectly. They each feel unique and are so well-staged to allow characters to interact with each other in a way to give a great sense of who they are. These stretches carry over any tensions or questions raised in the previous scene and brilliantly and simply set up the next; it all feels so natural. Oh, and they’re powered by this film’s delightful soundtrack, played in the story over the radio by the Wolfman who actually appears as a part of Curt’s story.

• The Hop. The first scene of the complicated, wishy-washy, bittersweet conflict that will power Steve and Laurie’s story plays out in the dialogue of the Hop sequence. In parallel, the way that the live band and dancing is captured is just so wonderfully alive! It makes me bummed that George Lucas gave his life over to Star Wars in just a few years; he is a major directing talent who got swallowed up by a monster of his own creation, but it did make him awfully rich.

• The ID. Terry’s story is consistently the funniest, and this might be his funniest scene (but excruciating if you can’t stomach cringe comedy). The succession of weirder and weirder people that he encounters, the editing, and the fact that this scene just keeps going cannot be overstated as an aspect of its humor.

• The Pharaohs. Curt’s extended run-in with The Pharaohs plays as about 75% humor, 25% genuine tension, which is just the right amount for this movie. The small exception, of course, being when he places the cable on the cop’s rear axle. Just as the film’s producer, and Lucas’ friend, did in The Godfather, Lucas relies on the in-the-story sound of a passing train as the only music in the scene, cranking the tension real high.

• The Wolfman. Curt’s moment of reckoning is here, and it’s a very natural and honest-feeling conversation between these two characters. This is probably the least humorous scene in the movie, but the way that the DJ is able to quietly convince Curt to leave his hometown is fairly poignant, with the final touch being the reveal that our DJ was, in fact, the Wolfman all along.

• The Race. It’s all been leading to this, and this scene gives us the payoff we were waiting for in terms of its pace, editing, and the split-second fear we have of Bob Falfa and Laurie dying in the crash. Milner and Terry’s conversation just after the race (Terry’s youthful energy and optimism convincing John to continue racing and that his status as a legend will never end) is even more poignant once their fates are revealed by the then-innovative epilogue screen.