AMERICAN GRAFFITI II

In a way cinema is about looking up at the screen and seeing your friends, seeing yourself. We watch movies to know we are not alone, and that’s the sensation I have every single time I watch this film.  That’s why I can´t recommend American Graffiti enough. It penetrates what we are. It transcends our existence. American Graffiti is about capturing teenhood, how our youth was supposed to feel and how coming into adulthood is supposed to be. The film has also a timeless mythical quality about it.

 George Luca´s masterpiece is not a letter to teenagers but a letter from teenagers who, I am not alone on this, talk like kids- shame on the last teen films made by the industry- who behave like youngsters. That is the authenticity of this piece of work. Capturing characters at any age is challenging, but its more hard if the characters are teenagers. By the way, here you can read some of the greatest lines in American Graffiti:

 Bob Falfa: Hey, hey babe, what do you say?

Laurie: Don´t say anything and we`ll get along just fine.

Perhaps my individual perception is wrong but, I guess that American Graffiti is about having fun, the supreme feeling of going out with your mates in searching for adventure. I know sometimes we only remember the things that never happened but even so, the movie is also about the dream of a summer night when you can find romance. It´s important to notice that although is full of material of fashionable nostalgia, never exploits nostalgia. In another words; Lucas managed to find the balance between realism and fiction.

The movie is full of hope because is not based on antagonism like other movies. The argument, however, is low- key and the music- George Lucas has songs trough the movie- is treated as a sound effect to create the drama, and what a music with all those Rock and Roll and Doo wop songs.  And trough the songs they are listening in their cars we can know the kind of people the characters are who, by the way, travels into their own journey. Music doesn´t come from particular places, it pervades the space to glorify teenhood.

American Graffiti captures the heart of America`s last age of innocence. American Graffiti looks like no other movie, an achievement which, like a great critic said, is always the best measure of a truly gifted director.

Masterpiece.

Sergio Calle Llorens