I'd never seen this 'classic' movie before and decided to give it a try. I appreciated it for what it was and was enjoying it for the most part, then seemingly out of nowhere the epilogues for each character appear and potentially two of them are dead?
I know it was appropriate based on the period in which the film took place, but I found it a major buzzkill.
"Well...I've seen enough. Come on Charlie, we're going home."
The creators were nostalgia junkies.
Your film gods: Lee Van Cleef and Laura Gemser
http://tinyurl.com/pa4ud44
I find it was a way to say, that that night was something memorable. Time would go on, and all sorts of things would happen as the 60's continued onward. But that's also Lucas' hammer-to-the-head way of saying that 'life happens.'
"Thanks, guys." "So long, partner."
- Toy Story 3 (9/10)
Yeah I thought it was weird and kind of unnecessary. Someone else mentioned the nostalgia part of it. Lucas based alot of the movie on his life growing up, maybe he knew people that died and felt he needed to add the epilogues for realism.
Yes, the whole movie is a "slice of life." And that bit at the end illustrates this very well.
shareI agree. I believe the audience should be able to use their imagination concerning the characters' post movie fates. I believe most of us know what harsh reality is from our own personal lives. We watch a silly nostalgic film like this to get away from that. If I want to see pictures of people and how they died, I'll just watch the news. Just another instance of Lucas stepping on an otherwise good creation :/
shareJust another instance of Lucas stepping on an otherwise good creation :/
Hardly. The film is about change and the end cards give an idea where those changes led. It's in perfect keeping with films of the era. Everybody under the sun swiped it in future films, including Animal House, though to more comedic effect. For a lot of audiences, it capped off the film.
It also reflects a stark reality of adulthood. You get together with old friends and discover that some are now gone, and how people have changed, some for the good and some not. Personally, I think it helped keep the film feeling realistic, when so many before would have Curt riding off into the sunrise.
Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!
The "major buzzkill" is exactly the point. This is the end of first teenage, rock-n-roll generation. And what's hard to realize now is this movie was made just at the end of the turbulent 60s when, yeah, all those buzzkill things like JFK, RFK, and King being assassinated or Vietnam with over 58,000 young Americans dead had just happened or still going on.
This movie was made not for you to feel nostalgic over, but for people who, for the most part, had just experienced both the 50s and 60s eras and still very much feeling the reality and myths of both.
This post nails it. I thought it was a little odd and eye-rolly that they included the epilogue but it's there to ground the movie in reality. It was a special night and it was just before the times changed in an awful way.
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You'll never get what you want if you don't know what it is.
Don't expect Millenials or even later Yers to have a clue to the poignancy of what the epilogue meant.
Might as well be living on Mars.
Way to generalize. I'm a millennial and understand Lucas's point of the epilogue entirely and why it was set in 1962 specifically (last year of the "good ol' days" before JFK was assassinated and the country changed forever culturally and politically). Yes, it's possible for people not of a specific era to understand the context of that era-- it's called history. People study it, ya know?
Religion should be made fun of. If I believed that stuff, I'd keep it to myself. -Larry David
OK, you're a reasonably informed millenial, on that matter. Rare.
Yes, it's possible for people not of a specific era to understand the context of that era-- it's called history. People study it, ya know?
They're hugely important elements of cultural history, not just factoids in some obscure specialist area of study.Well, you can blame it on the schools cuz they don't teach it! I never even learned about Vietnam in history class.
It's not trivial ancient history. It's one of the most significant cultural watersheds of 20th century American cultural history.Yes, I'm aware. It's also not relegated to North America as the counterculture permeated the entire Western world. This is why New Hollywood is my favorite era of film because I'm fascinated with the time period-- and the Great Depression/WWII which is actually the most significant event of the last 100 years; as the fate of the baby boomers and even Generation X are linked to its outcome. The social context of the era happen to align very closely with my own worldview, I've been told by other baby boomers that I'd fit well in the 1960s. And I'm reasonably informed about many things, I even wrote a mini-essay on The Graduate explaining the themes of the film:
We were living this turmoil throughout the 60's, 70's, and much of the 80's. Reagan and the Conservative resurgence was/is a countermove to the events of the 60's.Yes, it was a return to the excess and corporate attitudes of the 1950s-- which is why I despise just about everything 80s (in the areas of film, tv, politics, fashion, art, music and the like) and also despise many of the elements that carried over into the 90s.
Yes, it was a return to the excess and corporate attitudes of the 1950s-- which is why I despise just about everything 80s (in the areas of film, tv, politics, fashion, art, music and the like) and also despise many of the elements that carried over into the 90s.
Ironic that Millennials are mentioned. According to Wikipedia, the generation begins with those born in 1981. These same people would have to deal with 9/11 in the same life-phase as those in AG having to deal with the devastation that was soon to meet them in the 1960s with things taking a serious downturn.
If you really think the deaths of RFK/JFK/MLK with the Vietnam war is in any way more traumatic than 9/11 and the perpetual wars that the US has been involved with since then you're just fooling yourself.
Both these Boomers and Millennials went through the same thing in a different frame of reference. Top that with the ugliness of the social and political climate and you'd think each could treat the other a little better.
The "major buzzkill" is exactly the point. This is the end of first teenage, rock-n-roll generation. And what's hard to realize now is this movie was made just at the end of the turbulent 60s when, yeah, all those buzzkill things like JFK, RFK, and King being assassinated or Vietnam with over 58,000 young Americans dead had just happened or still going on.
This movie was made not for you to feel nostalgic over, but for people who, for the most part, had just experienced both the 50s and 60s eras and still very much feeling the reality and myths of both.
Indeed.
shareI'd never seen this 'classic' movie before and decided to give it a try. I appreciated it for what it was and was enjoying it for the most part, then seemingly out of nowhere the epilogues for each character appear and potentially two of them are dead?
It's not seemingly out of nowhere. The movie wasn't just a fuzzy trip down memory lane. It was also supposed to be a clear-eyed look at what it meant growing up as a Baby Boomer. Things started out great for them in the 50s and early 60s. It was all sunshine and rainbows, filled with hope and optimism. But then reality threw them a curve ball around the mid 1960s, beginning with the assassination of JFK. From that moment on marked the "end of innocence" for them and an era of civil unrest, strife, dramatic social changes (like spikes in the divorce rate), Vietnam, etc. The epilogue is about that, saying, "Yes, it was great and wonderful for awhile. But in the end, the childhood sweethearts will wind up divorcing and the plucky kid going off to Vietnam will go MIA."
Yeah. So Gen-Zers, next time you want to say "okay boomer," think of all the stuff they've been through.
shareI felt the epilogue was great and remember that films didn't use epilogue soften back then. I think most viewers of the movie would want to know what became of them and adding 2 tragic stories (Missing In Action and a drunk driving death) reminded viewers that good times are to be appreciated and there may not be a tomorrow. I remember getting choked up and I feel Lucas wanted that feeling. A happy ending would have made this movie less memorable.
shareYeah, I was surprised by that. I didn't think it was necessary either.
Having an opinion can save your life. Just ask Marvin.
What was interesting was that while Toad would fall victim to the great "overseas tragedy" that was Vietnam, Milner got killed "locally," a banal domestic death which, nonetheless, rather fit his lifestyle(he drove a LOT, this would likely expose him to an automobile-related death, though in this case, not at his own skilled driving hands.)
They made a much lesser sequel "More American Graffiti"(1979) which ends with a poignant and spooky version of Milner's fatal crash(we don't see the crash, but we see the last moments leading up to it) but there is a surprise in the other story: Toad doesn't die. Rather...he DESERTS. He's not safe at the end of More American Graffiti, he's wandering in the Vietnam jungle -- but he's alive.
..which rather undid the "buzzkill" from the original.
I return to re-affirm in a more specific way what was said above that may have had some interesting timeliness.
To me, the overall tone of American Graffiti is rather "buzz kill" all the way through the movie, even though what we are seeing are "comedy vignettes" (and a few heart to hearts) in the foreground.
The characters never mention Viet Nam. In 1962, I don't think the draft was fully functional...but it was coming.
And it would be of great importance to the lives of young men of a certain age.
So, look: Terry the Toad GOES to Vietnam. And ends up MIA.
So, look: Curt is "a writer living in Canada." He FLED to Canada, as many young men did when the draft came calling.
The draft was a powerful thing in the 60's, as it had been in the 40's(World War II) and some of the 50s (Korea.) Its funny in this age of total disrespect for Presidents to remember that Presidents once had the power to take the sons of mothers and fathers out of their homes at age 18...and kill them. All that child bearing, all that child raising and...they take them away and kill them.
Oh, there were "ways out": student deferments. Marriage and kids. And there were certainly young men and women who were proud and ready to join the military and join the fight (in WWII especially.)
Anyway, American Graffiti is a movie that one watches with pain in the pit of the stomach even as "fun hijincks" appear on screen.
More on those final cards:
Vietnam shadows both the Toad and Curt.
Steve, who swore the need to "escape this turkey town," remains there -- in Modesto. As an insurance agent. He never went anywhere (but ah, nowadays, Modesto is a cool town of distinction, because: George Lucas.)
Curt, who started the movie unsure of wanting TO leave Modesto...went far, far away(Canada) and never returned.
CONT
In short, the fate of these three young men tied directly into both the story we were being told(one boy stays, one boy goes...but its the opposite of who we thought) and the times (Vietnam will reach out to grab the boys.)
John Milner's twist ending (he will die just two years after this film ends) was at least, "fitting." He drives all the time, increasing the odds of meeting a drunk driver. But his character was also presented as "having run out of time" anyway.
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Critic Pauline Kael was among those who berated American Graffiti for not giving us sign cards for the women. But those wouldn't have been appropriate.
This was a story BY a guy(George Lucas) about his childhood and friendships AMONG guys. The core story -- "leave town for college or stay where you are?" was resolved in those cards, as was the "era" story of Vietnam. Milner's "side story" was dealt with -- and he was rather the action hero of the plot.
What of the women? The story isn't about THEM -- except for Laurie, whose story will end with Steve's no doubt. Wife. Mother.
MacKenzie Phillips pre-teen isn't tied to anything we can work with.
As for Debbie Dunham -- the only Oscar nominated performance in the movie (Candy Clark) -- there's a lot going on there, but she rather drifts out of the movie as EITHER a real potential girlfriend for Toad(she asks him to call her) or...simply one young man's night of excitement with a woman.
When they made More American Graffiti(1979) and rather betrayed the original, MacKenzie Philiips STILL didn't get a card but the other two women dic: Laurie is a wife, mother --"and heads a consumer group." Debbie is a "country western singer." Which isn't really a fate. Its an occupation. Actually More American Graffiti told us that Debbie moved to San Francisco and became...a stripper! Which rather continued her "boy toy" persona from the first movie, and suggested a hardscrabble family life.