Where Were You In 62?

For me, cinema is about the ability to connect with members of my own species. It is a deep chance to share the tradition of storytelling that, as humans, is woven deeply into our makeup and our spirit. The collective viewing experience of a movie, like the collective telling of a story, is a heightened and exhilarating experience. The exhibition business holds that tradition and shared experience at its core. Detachment from the collective is something that erodes this tradition and something that is counter-beneficial to our existence as a community, as a region, and as a species as a whole.

?We are always better when we are together. Inane politics and wacky perspective take away from our global humanity and provide further isolation in a technologically isolating world.

?As a kid, my parents were very careful of what I saw on screen. I was fed a steady diet of Walt Disney, Joe Camp and Sunn International movies. As I got older my curiosity got the better of me. I started sneaking off and watching more mainstream fare, often during a matinee. It was during the watching of "American Graffiti" that I fell in love with the movies.

?In a rare spurt of democracy, our class took a vote to go see a movie at a small theater located in the downtown core, The Towne Cinema. The movie was “American Graffiti” directed by an emerging filmmaker George Lucas. I did not know what to expect. One early? fall afternoon we took a? bus into the city, got off and walked to the theater.

?So with popcorn and Coca Cola in hand I took my seat.? The theater curtains opened, trailers were projected, (these were the days prior to the tsunami of advertising). The classic “now our feature presentation” and then a disjointed montage of turning a radio knob over the classic Universal Logo. The bumper for a radio station XERB, and then Bill Haley and the Comets “Rock Around The Clock” explodes. A background of the San Francisco classic now demolished “Mel’s Drive-In”. On a future viewing, I saw the title sequence was in fact a still frame of Ron Howard standing by his 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air Impala. The font, the beat of the music acted as a tractor beam into another time and place.

?When the 1973 film American Graffiti was released, it was obvious that this was a love letter to another time and place. A more innocent America and maybe a better America. There is a deep nostalgia that cries out from every frame. The only name actor was Opie from the Andy Griffith Show. It was the celebration of car culture and a celebration of an emerging, somewhat idealistic American. In my opinion, ” American Graffiti” was the greatest celebration of what it was to be young, innocent, and American. A time before the murder of John F. Kennedy. The ascent of the war in Vietnam and the betrayal of integrity that was Watergate.

?Placing this movie in the historical tragedy that was about to follow the night celebrated in the movie makes it an even more poignant experience.

?It’s a low-budget film that utilizes mostly unknown actors, and within it contains zero special effects. The ballet of classic cars, coupled with the glow of a neon evening is within itself an amazing effect. It is the vision that comes from some of the founders of the era of the blockbuster. George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Kutz, Walter Murch, and the patron saint of both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, as well as the editor Verna Fields. Fields would later cut together “JAWS” for Spielberg,

?Getting back to a young me. I was staring at the movie screen transported back to the early 1960’s. The four storylines contained in this movie unfolded gracefully and naturally. All with deep humanity and presence. While all stories had as a central player all male characters, Steve Bolander, Terry The Toad, John Milner, and Curt Henderson, all motivation and plot impetus was pulled from their interaction with female characters. The female characters played by Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, Candy Clark, and an ethereal Suzanne Sommers would drive each one of its storylines to a natural and often poignant conclusion.

?All of this is played over a back-to-back soundtrack furnished by the mystical Wolfman Jack and a constant stream of motorized icons from the era when cars ruled. The movie, in many ways, reflects the changes in American society. It was made in 1971-72 and released in 1973, a decade after the time period when the movie took place. The changes that occurred over those ten years were more than profound and in retrospect a tad disconcerting.

?The movie ends with a song that timewise is not accurate, but speaks to the tonality of the movie, The Beach Boys “We Had Fun All Summer Long”? which was released in 1964. We see where the characters have found themselves in life, Milner, the rebel killed by a drunk driver, Terry the Toad missing in action while serving in Vietnam, Steve Bolander, now working as an insurance agent and Curt Henderson a writer now living in Canada.? The credits take the wind out of humans, consolidating the empathy that you grew to have in the 1 hour and 50 minutes of this movie.

?The movie was made for $777,000 and returned $140 million at the box office. The movie was thought to be un-releasable by the studio executives, but due to histrionics by Francis Ford Coppola and directed toward studio executives, the executives in the face of the man who brought you the Godfather turned tail and ran.

?I walked out into the light of day, deep in thought. I was shown how at its best cinema as an art was certainly the most powerful of mediums and had the power to ignite passions and inspire change. That day I truly fell in love with the movies.

Looking back on American Graffiti, this movie still fascinates me and engages me. It was riddled with both truth and a fond look at Americana. In my opinion it was and still is the greatest movie that captures the truth?of American innocence and foreshadows it’s betrayal. Patrick von Sychowski Domenico Del Priore Rob Arthur Sunil Suri Tony Franks Laura Peralta-Jones John Sullivan