American Graffiti (1973). Photofest.
(George Lucas, US 1973, 110 min., 35mm)
Fourth of July. As influential for launching so many careers as it was for inspiring a new subgenre of nostalgic film and television, George Lucas’s first commercial feature was turned down by four studios before finding a home at Universal. A soundtrack of more than forty vintage songs accompany Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, and Paul LeMat as they cruise around 1962 Modesto, California, post–high school and pre–real life. Balancing the tragic and the comic—and decidedly differentiating his film from the exploitative “teens and cars” movies of the 1950s and ’60s—Lucas pulled from his own experiences to craft a moving portrait of the transition to adulthood.