Jean-Marie Burbee American Cinema FIL-110-OL010 Professor Allen Mentz American Cinema Final July 2016 American Graffiti: A 'Coming of Age' film that left its mark In 1973, Director George Lucas released a film entitled, “American Graffiti.” Although created in the 70's, the film itself chronicles the end of summer 1962 centralized around two men and their last days of childhood before they officially become adults and their various friends still in high school. This is a time in most of our lives when we are desperate to shed our 'child' titles for the new title of 'adult. It is also a time that most of us can point to and readily identify where some of the choices we made would define and shape would we would later become and where are lives
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Film shooting at times was done from the trunk of a camera car to capture dialogue between characters in their cars as they traveled down the strip in California and once again give perspective and help establish the realism(LucasFilm Ltd). One of the finishing scenes of the film is a brief synopsis of what fate befell each of the main four characters which gave it almost a biographical feel as well(Dirks AMC). The actual time period that American Graffiti was made was during the end of the Vietnam War and revolves around a time in 1962 before so many of the still to come changes and upheaval would take place. When considering the time period from 1962 to 1973 there are many events that could have easily influenced the plot to have changed drastically. Some of the high lights of this time period include: the Cuban Missle Crisis, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the US entry into the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Act, the First Landing on the Moon, the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Woodstock, and the invention of the …show more content…
Language is also used to illustrate this point as well when the character Steve is yelling at the teacher at the hop and yells ,”Kiss a Duck”! Or when girls in the film are describing good looking guys and refer to them as being 'Boss' and 'going steady' when describing dating. The making of American Graffiti was a small budget for a film, coming in at approximately $700,000 dollars to make the film but grossing over $50 in just rental earnings (Lucas Ltd). For the year of 1973, American Graffiti was the third top grossing film of the year at 115,000,000 dollars for the US and 140 million worldwide. This was quite a remarkable earnings for this film considering other films of 1973 that American Graffiti beat out such films as, Papillion, Paper Moon and Enter the Dragon. (Shabidu Jr. 2012) Overall, the impact of American Graffiti that was left on audiences was a mark upon us to recall the high school experience and how real, silly, serious and awkward it was. We remember the Steve in our school that we all knew was just destined to do great things and knew without a doubt would
Film shooting at times was done from the trunk of a camera car to capture dialogue between characters in their cars as they traveled down the strip in California and once again give perspective and help establish the realism(LucasFilm Ltd). One of the finishing scenes of the film is a brief synopsis of what fate befell each of the main four characters which gave it almost a biographical feel as well(Dirks AMC). The actual time period that American Graffiti was made was during the end of the Vietnam War and revolves around a time in 1962 before so many of the still to come changes and upheaval would take place. When considering the time period from 1962 to 1973 there are many events that could have easily influenced the plot to have changed drastically. Some of the high lights of this time period include: the Cuban Missle Crisis, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the US entry into the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Act, the First Landing on the Moon, the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Woodstock, and the invention of the …show more content…
Language is also used to illustrate this point as well when the character Steve is yelling at the teacher at the hop and yells ,”Kiss a Duck”! Or when girls in the film are describing good looking guys and refer to them as being 'Boss' and 'going steady' when describing dating. The making of American Graffiti was a small budget for a film, coming in at approximately $700,000 dollars to make the film but grossing over $50 in just rental earnings (Lucas Ltd). For the year of 1973, American Graffiti was the third top grossing film of the year at 115,000,000 dollars for the US and 140 million worldwide. This was quite a remarkable earnings for this film considering other films of 1973 that American Graffiti beat out such films as, Papillion, Paper Moon and Enter the Dragon. (Shabidu Jr. 2012) Overall, the impact of American Graffiti that was left on audiences was a mark upon us to recall the high school experience and how real, silly, serious and awkward it was. We remember the Steve in our school that we all knew was just destined to do great things and knew without a doubt would