American Graffiti

American Graffiti is a 1973 American comedy-drama film co-written and directed by George Lucas and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith, Harrison Ford, Paul Le Mat, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, and Wolfman Jack.

Set in Modesto, California, the film tells the story of a group of teenagers and their adventures over the course of a single night. It is a portrait of North American cruising culture (a social activity distinguished from regular driving by the social and recreational nature of the activity, which is characterized by an impulsively random, often aimless course. It was considered an expression of the freedom of owning a driver's license), the rise of rock 'n' roll and its impact on the baby boom generation.

While Lucas was working on his first film, THX 1138, Francis Coppola suggested that he write a Coming of age film. The genesis of "American Graffiti" it was produced in Lucas's teenage years in the early 1960s in Modesto. The concept was financially unsuccessful, but found favor at Universal Pictures after every other major movie studio turned it down. Shooting was initially scheduled for San Rafael, California, but the production team was denied permission to shoot beyond a second day. As a result, production was moved to Petaluma.

American Graffiti premiered on August 2, 1973 at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland, and on August 11, 1973 in the United States. The film was a commercial and critical success. It received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. With a budget of $777,000, it has become one of the most profitable films of all time. Since its initial release, American Graffiti has earned an estimated revenue of more than $200 million in gross box office and home video sales, excluding merchandise. In 1995, the US Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Synopsis

Five teenagers celebrate their farewell all night, since the next day each one will march in search of their future. We find ourselves with a love story that threatens to break due to the danger of distance, an impossible and platonic love, street gangs, car races and a radio announcer turned urban legend. The stories of each of the five protagonists are told almost independently of the others, despite the fact that at times all of them are related in some way. The film inspired many others, including Grease and Nataly.

Cast

Development

Inspiration

During the production of THX 1138 (1971), producer Francis Ford Coppola suggested that George Lucas write a script that would appeal to the general public. Lucas embraced the idea, using his early 1960s teenage experiences cruising in Modesto, California. "Cruising disappeared and I felt compelled to document the whole experience and what my generation used as a way to meet girls," Lucas explained. As the story unfolded in his mind, Lucas included his fascination by Wolfman Jack. Lucas had considered making a documentary about Wolfman when he attended the University of Southern California, but ultimately dropped the idea.

Adding semi-autobiographical overtones, Lucas set the story in his 1962 hometown of Modesto. Characters Curt Henderson, John Milner, and Terry "The Toad" Fields also represent different stages of his younger life. Curt is modeled after Lucas's persona during USC, while Milner draws on Lucas's street-racing adolescence and junior college years, and hot rod enthusiasts he had met from Kustom Kulture in Modesto Toad depicts Lucas's years. nerdy as a freshman in high school, specifically his "bad luck" with the quotes. The filmmaker was also inspired by I Vitelloni (1953) by Federico Fellini.

After the financial failure of THX 1138, Lucas wanted the film to act as a pitch to a world-weary audience:

[chuckles]THX] dealt with real things that were happening and the problems we faced. I realized after I did. THX that these problems are so real that most of us have to face those things every day, so we are in a constant state of frustration. That only depresses us more than before. So I made a movie where, essentially, we can get rid of some of those frustrations, the feeling that everything seems useless.

United Artists

After Warner Bros. abandoned Lucas's initial cut of Apocalypse Now (during post-production on THX 1138), the filmmaker decided to continue developing Another Quiet Night in Modesto (Another Quiet Night in Modesto), eventually changing its title to American Graffiti. To co-write a 15-page treatment, Lucas hired Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who also added semi-autobiographical material to the story. Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz pitched the American Graffiti pitch to various Hollywood studios and production companies in an attempt to secure the necessary funding to expand it into a script, but were unsuccessful. Potential financiers were concerned that music licensing costs would drive the film over budget. Along with Easy Rider (1969), American Graffiti was one of the first films to eschew traditional film music and successfully relied on synchronizing a series of popular songs with individual scenes.

THX 1138 opened in March 1971, and Lucas was offered opportunities to direct Lady Ice, Tommy or Hair. He turned down those offers, determined to pursue his own projects despite his urgent desire to find another film to direct. During this time, Lucas conceived the idea of an (as yet untitled) space opera that later became the basis for of his Star Wars franchise. At the 1971 Cannes International Film Festival, THX was chosen for the Directors' Fortnight competition. There, Lucas met David Picker, then president of United Artists, who was intrigued by American Graffiti and Lucas's space opera. Picker decided to give Lucas $10,000 to develop Graffiti as a script.

Lucas planned to spend another five weeks in Europe, and hoped Huyck and Katz would agree to finish the script by the time he got back, but they were about to start their own movie, Evil Messiah , so that Lucas hired Richard Walter, a colleague from the University of Southern California for the job. Walter was flattered, but initially tried to sell Lucas on a different script called "Barry and the Persuasions," a late-1950s East Coast teen story. Lucas stood his ground: his story was about adolescents on the East Coast of the United States in the early 1960s. Walter was paid the $10,000 and began expanding the Lucas/Huyck/Katz treatment into a script.

Lucas was dismayed when he returned to the United States in June 1971 and read Walter's script, which was written in the style and tone of an exploitation film, similar to 1967's 52 Mile Horror. overtly sexual and very fanciful, like playing chicken and stuff that teenagers didn't really do,' Lucas explained. "I wanted something that was more like the way I grew up." Walter's script also had Steve and Laurie going to Nevada to get married without their parents' permission. Walter rewrote the script, but Lucas fired him due to their creative differences.

After paying Walter, Lucas had exhausted his United Artists development fund. He began writing a script, completing his first draft in just three weeks. Drawing on Lucas's large collection of old records, Lucas wrote each scene with a particular song as its musical backdrop.The cost of licensing the 75 songs Lucas wanted was a factor in United Artists' final decision to reject the script.; the studio also found it too experimental: "a musical montage with no characters." United Artists also passed on the future Star Wars project, which Lucas shelved for the time being.

Universal Studios

Lucas spent the rest of 1971 and early 1972 trying to raise money for the script for American Graffiti. During that time period, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Columbia Pictures all declined the opportunity to co-finance and distribute the film. Lucas, Huyck and Katz rewrote the second draft together, which, in addition to Modesto, also took Mill Valley and Los Angeles as the setting for the action. Lucas also intended to end American Graffiti by showing an intertitle detailing the fates of the characters, including Milner's death and Toad's disappearance in Vietnam. Huyck and Katz found the ending depressing and couldn't believe that Lucas planned to include only the male characters. Lucas argued that including the girls would mean adding another intertitle, which he felt would prolong the ending. Because of this, film critic Pauline Kael would later accuse Lucas of machismo.

Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz took the script to American International Pictures, which expressed interest but ultimately believed that American Graffiti was not violent or sexual enough by studio standards. Lucas and Kurtz they eventually found favor with Universal Pictures, who allowed Lucas full artistic control and final cut rights on the condition that he shoot American Graffiti on a strictly low budget. This forced him to drop out. the opening scene in which Blonde Angel, Curt's image of the perfect woman, drives through an empty theater in her Ford Thunderbird, her transparency revealing that she doesn't really exist.

Universal initially projected a budget of $600,000, but added an additional $175,000 once producer Francis Ford Coppola signed on. That would allow the studio to advertise American Graffiti as "from the man who brought you The Godfather," but Lucas was forced to give up final cut privilege. The proposal also gave Universal first-look deals on Lucas's next two planned projects, Star Wars and Radioland Murders. As he continued to work on the script, Lucas encountered difficulties in Steve's story and Laurie. Lucas, Katz, and Huyck worked together on the third draft, specifically the scenes with Steve and Laurie.

Production continued with virtually no input or interference from Universal, as American Graffiti was a low-budget film, and executive Ned Tanen had rather modest expectations of its commercial success. However, Universal objected to the film's title, not knowing what American Graffiti meant; Lucas was dismayed when some executives assumed he was making an Italian film about feet. Therefore, the studio presented a long list of more than 60 alternative titles, his favorites being Coppola's Another Slow Night in Modesto and Rock Around the Block. any of those titles, but he was disgusted with all the alternatives and persuaded Tanen to keep American Graffiti.

Reception

Launch

Despite unanimous praise at a January 1973 screening attended by Universal executive Ned Tanen, the studio told Lucas they wanted to re-cut his original cut of American Graffiti. Producer Coppola sided with him. Lucas' side against Tanen and Universal, offering to "buy the movie" from the studio and reimburse her for the $775,000 it cost to make. 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures made similar offers to the studio. Universal turned down these offers and told Lucas they planned to hire William Hornbeck to re-edit the film.

When Coppola's The Godfather won the Best Picture Oscar in March 1973, Universal relented, agreeing to cut only three scenes (spanning a few minutes) from Lucas's cut: a meeting between Toad and a fast-talking car salesman, an argument between Steve and his former teacher Mr. Kroot on the dance floor, and an effort by Bob Falfa to calm Laurie down with "Some Enchanted Evening." The studio initially thought the film was only suitable for release as a telefilm.

However, several studio employees who saw the film began to speak up, and its reputation grew by word of mouth. The studio dropped the telefilm idea and began arranging for a limited release in select theaters in Los Angeles and New York. Universal presidents Sidney Sheinberg and Lew Wasserman heard about the acclaim the film had been garnering in Los Angeles and New York, and the marketing department expanded its promotional strategy, investing an additional $500,000 in marketing and promotion. The film was released in the United States on August 11, 1973. The film cost only $1.27 million to produce and market, but returned worldwide box office grosses of over $55 million. It was only modestly successful outside the United States. States, but it became a cult film in France.

Universal re-released American Graffiti in 1978, in Dolby sound and earned an additional $63 million, bringing the total revenue from the two releases to $118 million. The re-release included stereophonic sound and minutes additional scenes that the studio had removed from Lucas's original cut. All home format releases also included these scenes. Additionally, John Milner's date of death was changed from June 1964 to December 1964 to fit the narrative structure. from the upcoming sequel, More American Graffiti. At the end of its theatrical release, American Graffiti had one of the highest cost/benefit ratios for a film.

Criticism

American Graffiti was critically acclaimed. Based on 47 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of critics enjoyed the film with an average score of 8.43/10. The consensus reads: "One of the most influential teen movies of all, American Graffiti is a funny, nostalgic, and bittersweet look at the last days of innocence for a group of recent high school graduates." Roger Ebert gave it a full four stars, praising it for being “not just a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the film's success in recalling exactly what it was like to be alive in that cultural moment." Gene Siskel gave it three and a half stars out of four, writing that although the film suffered from "overkill" of nostalgia, particularly with regard to a soundtrack so overstuffed that it amounted to "one of those blurry images on TV", it was still "well-done, it achieves moments of genuine emotion and provides a feast full of memories".

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote: "American Graffiti is such a funny and precise film, so controlled and efficient in its storytelling, that it can be overdone at the maximum". AD Murphy of Variety felt that American Graffiti was a "vivid reminder of adolescent attitudes and morals, told with outstanding empathy and compassion through an exceptionally talented cast." of unknown actors. Charles Champlin of The New York Times called it a "masterfully executed and profoundly affecting film." Jay Cocks of Time magazine wrote that American Graffiti “reveals a welcome new depth of feeling. Few films have so well portrayed the enthusiasm, the sadness, the ambitions and the petty defeats of a generation of young Americans."

Themes

American Graffiti depicts various characters going through a period of growth, such as decisions to attend college or live in a small town. The 1962 setting represents almost the end of an era in American society and pop culture. The musical backdrop also links between the early years of rock 'n' roll in the mid to late 1950s (i.e. Bill Haley & His Comets, Elvis Presley, and Buddy Holly) and early 1960s British Invasion, which Don McLean ' American Pie' and the 1972 revival of the 1950s and oldies side acts during conception and filming.

The setting also predates the outbreaks of the Vietnam War and the assassination of John F. Kennedy and before the peak years of the counterculture in the 1960s. American Graffiti evokes humanity's relationship with machines, particularly the elaborate number of hot rods (vintage, classic, or modern American cars with large engines modified for greater speed), calling it a "classic car movie," representative of the automobile's importance to culture American at the time it was made. Another theme is the teenage obsession with radio, especially with the inclusion of Wolfman Jack and the mysterious, mythological faceless voice of him (for most).

Legacy

Internet reviewer MaryAnn Johanson acknowledged that American Graffiti revived entertainment and public interest in the 1950s and 1960s, and influenced other films such as The Lords of Flatbush (1974) and Cooley High (1975) and the television series Happy Days. Along with other films of the New Hollywood era, American Graffiti is often cited as helping to give birth to the blockbuster. The box office success of the film made George Lucas an instant millionaire. He gave an amount of the film's proceeds to Haskell Wexler for his visual consulting help during filming, and to Wolfman Jack for "inspiration." Lucas' net worth was now $4 million, and he set aside an independent fund of $300,000 for his future project Star Wars (1977).

The financial success of Graffiti also gave Lucas opportunities to establish more elaborate development for Lucasfilm, Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic. Building on the success of the 1977 reissue, Universal began production on the sequel More American Graffiti (1979). Lucas and writers Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz later collaborated on Radioland Murders (1994), also released by Universal Pictures, for which Lucas served as executive producer. The film features characters intended to be the parents of Curt and Laurie Henderson, Roger and Penny Henderson. In 1995, "American Graffiti" was deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 1997, the city of Modesto, California, honored Lucas with a dedication of the American Graffiti statue in George Lucas Plaza.

Director David Fincher credited American Graffiti as a visual influence for Fight Club (1999).

Given the popularity of the movie's custom cars and deferred hot rods in the years after their release, their fate immediately after the movie is ironic. All were offered for sale in advertisements in San Francisco newspapers; only the '58 Impala (driven by Ron Howard) attracted a buyer, selling for only a few hundred dollars. The yellow Deuce and white T-bird failed to sell, despite being priced as low as $3,000. The registration plate on Milner's yellow deuce coupe is THX 138 on a slightly altered California yellow plate that reflects Lucas' earlier sci-fi film.

Awards

Oscar 1973