Join us at 1 p.m. Sunday, September 27th for a screening of “American Graffiti,” director George Lucas’s coming-of-age comedy about a group of small-town teenagers facing crucial turning points on the last night of summer break.
An enduring classic, “American Graffiti” celebrates an America of the early 1960s, where teenagers cruise the streets in hot rods and rock and roll tops the music charts. Inspired by his youth in the valley town of Modesto, California, “American Graffiti” was George Lucas’ second feature film, and is a masterwork of vibrant colors, exciting soundtracks, and endearing characters. A story of coming-of-age, it remains one of the most successful films in history.
Over the course of a summer evening, four teenage friends ponder their futures, navigating relationships centered around the cruising culture of their sleepy town in California’s San Joaquin valley. After a madcap series of hilarious encounters, they each make decisions that will forever change their lives.
“American Graffiti” acts almost as a milestone to show us how far (and in many cases how tragically) we have come. Stanley Kauffmann, who liked it, complained in the New Republic that Lucas had made a film more fascinating to the generation now between thirty and forty than it could be for other generations, older or younger.
But it isn’t the age of the characters that matters; it’s the time they inhabited. Whole cultures and societies have passed since 1962. “American Graffiti” is not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie’s success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant.
On the surface, Lucas has made a film that seems almost artless; his teenagers cruise Main Street and stop at Mel’s Drive-In and listen to Wolfman Jack on the radio and neck and lay rubber and almost convince themselves their moment will last forever. But the film’s buried structure shows an innocence in the process of being lost, and as its symbol Lucas provides the elusive blonde in the white Thunderbird — the vision of beauty always glimpsed at the next intersection, the end of the next street… George Lucas knows that for one brief afternoon of American history angels drove Thunderbirds and could possibly be found at Mel’s Drive-In tonight… or maybe tomorrow night, or the night after.” – Roger Ebert
Tickets are $5 and available at the link above. UM students use code STUDENT at checkout for free admission. Cane cards must be shown at the door.
