Comparison between American Graffiti and Dazed & Confused

1. A M E R I C A N G R A F F I T I A N D D A Z E D & C O N F U S E D
FM2 (C) AMERICAN
COMPARATIVE STUDY

2. SIGN OF THE TIMES
• An exam question may
be refer to how
influential the times in
which it was made were
on the narrative,
characters and subject
matter of the film.
• The messages and
values portrayed in the
film may be influenced
as well.
• In this slideshow we will
look back at the early
careers of Lucas and
Linklater
• What was happening at
the time the films were
made and what
influence this may have
had on the film
narrative, characters
and subject matter.

3. GEORGE LUCAS
• From Modesto, Cali.
• Grew up in the fifties, an
age regarded as the last
‘age of innocence’.
• Rock ‘n’ roll and cruising
• Racing driver
• Filmed races on 8mm
camera
• Vietnam Draft after
graduating in 1967
• Exempt due to diabetes

4. LUCASFILM LIMITED
• Re-enrolled at USC in
film production.
• USC was one of the
first universities to run a
film course.
• Student film won
Warner Bros
scholarship.
• Meet Spielberg,
Coppola and Scorsese,
who were all film school
grads.

5. NEW HOLLYWOOD
• The Studios began closing in 1960s
• Bought by big corporations
• “new wave” of young filmmakers given opportunity to
target the lucrative youth market – success of Easy
Rider (1969).

6. “LOST INNOCENCE”
• Lucas wanted to document the cruising culture of
small town USA before the supposed loss of the ‘age
of innocence’.
• US involvement in the Vietnam War – the communist
north fought the pro-American south. US sent in
hundreds of thousands of troops. US pulled out in
1975 after losing the war and US public opinion.
• Many of America’s male youth were drafted – Lucas
not allowed to go on medical grounds.
• Mass demonstrations and violence turned public
against war.
• Lucas makes reference to it at the end of film with
Terry “missing in action”.

7. “LOST INNOCENCE”
• The Vietnam war was not the only jolt to the ‘age of
innocence’ baby boomers, JFK came to power in 1961 on the
promise of the ‘new frontier’. Hope of an American Golden
Age. Shot on 22nd Nov 1963.
• Political assassinations – Malcolm X (shot 1965) and Martin
Luther King (1968) – two great civil rights campaigners both
shot ending a period of great political hope and shattering
many dreams.
• Radical politics of the sixties – civil rights was the key battle
with figures like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X pushing for
race equality in all areas of American life.
• Birth of militant politics – Black Power and Feminism
• Gay Rights Movement – Stonewall Riots

8. TIME TRAVEL
• The poster’s tagline refers to Lucas’ desire to take his
audience back to this lost age – Where were you in ‘62?
• The opening sequence shows Mel’s Drive In restaurant (a
preserved 1950s style burger joint adorned with neon
lights) with Bill Haley and the comets’ Rock Around the
Clock (a song which sparked the rock ‘n’ roll consumer
trend) playing. The majestic but darkening Californian
sky tinged with purple signals a nostalgic but fantastic
time travel text. An era before the massive cultural shifts
of 60s America.
• His use of techniscope film stock, which uses only half
the standard 35mm film frame thus creating documentary
look in widescreen.

9. HIS OWN GLORIFIED MEMORY
• By early 1970s cruising had
gone
• Lucas reconstructed this
bygone era by assembling a
distilled scrap book of cultural
iconography and sounds –
many of the cars were
collector’s items and well
cared for.
• The lighting gave the visuals a
hyperrealist look and added to
the nostalgia.
• Music recorded in the streets
as though coming from car
radios and giving a community
feel.

10. ‘THE BRITISH INVASION’
• The music soundtrack is a key element, not only in
establishing the setting, but adding to the nostalgia and
sense of authenticity. This is also a very American sound
and heralded the arrival of the teenager as a cultural and
commercial phenomenon.
• Lucas was a big Rock and Roll fan and bemoaned the
shift in music to pop, particularly the Brit Invasion.
• By 1964, British pop music, in the form of the Beatles,
Dave Clark 5 and The Rolling Stones, had shifted
American youth away from Buddy Holly quiff to The
Beatles mop.
• John Milner laments this change when the Beach Boys
surf pop comes on the radio “I don’t like that surfing
shit.”

11. AMERICAN GRAFFITI
• Francis Ford Coppola – The Godfather
of the New Hollywood filmmakers.
• Universal finally funded film when
Coppola threatened to fund the film
himself. The studio were not
convinced that teen-related films were
box office gold.
• Own teenage years basis for script.
• $775k budget
• Nominated for best film and other
Oscars.
• Est. $200m box office takings and
showed the studios where their target
audience lay.

12. TEENAGER AT THE DAWN OF
ADULTHOOD
• A recurrent theme for Lucas is “leaving” – THX-1138 leaves
to go to the surface and Luke in Star Wars leaves for
planetary adventures.
• Steve and Curt make decisions about leaving that come
determine the rest of their lives.
• This uncertainty provides the cause-effect in the narrative.
Curt’s indecision and Steve’s dating proposal.
• Curt, Terry and John represent different aspects of Lucas’
own teenage years – Terry is early adolescent as a series
of mostly small defeats and awkward moments until is
triumphant in his quest to become a man; Milner is older
and represents the perpetual male who is reluctant to take
responsibility.

13. TEENAGER AT THE DAWN OF
ADULTHOOD
• Curt is bright and inquisitively intellectual, who has won a scholarship
to pay for college. He chases a love ideal in the form of the
mysterious blond in the white car.
• Romance – Steve and Laurie as the American dream couple, the
power couple – Steve, the class president, and Laurie, the head
cheerleader.
• Attractive and pleasant Steve wants to move on and taste the 60s
sexual freedoms at college by suggesting to his girlfriend, Laurie,
they date others while he is away. He ends up domesticated by
agreeing/deciding to stay and becomes an insurance agent and
never leaves.
• Laurie is dressed as a typical bobby-sox fifties girl, but she is
portrayed as nagging, manipulative and playing with Steve’s macho
jealousies. Misogynistic views of director? Or is Lucas using her as a
representation of 50s soul-sucking morality that rock and rollers
wanted to leave behind?

14. TEENAGER AT THE DAWN OF
ADULTHOOD
•Milner - is a negative anti-intellectual reference figure: at 22,
he is still immature, emulating James Dean with his classic
white tee, jeans, puffing on a Camel and smoothing his
greaser’s haircut. He is king of the strip and on the hunt, but
he bemoans the lack of action compared to previous times.
•He has to deal with Carol, the bouncy lippy twelve year old
girl, who he is tricked into picking up. He becomes the
reluctant caring older brother figure after a series of
embarrassing moments.

15. RITES OF PASSAGE
• Lucas follows similar themes in his narrative to other coming of age
with rites of passage being central to Terry – alcohol, losing his
virginity, cruising the strip in Steve’s car. All for comic amusement.
• Curt is forced into joining the Pharaohs via initiation – sees teenage
rebellion and being outsiders.
• Does Lucas’ narrative follow the American dream ideal with Curt
listening to older and wiser heads, his old teacher and Wolfman Jack,
and deciding to leave to better his prospects.
• Milner has to deal with a young girl who knows the teenage words but
has no experience of the deeds. He has to take adult responsibility
for her.

16. “When I was making it, I was horrified,
because I was reliving my past point by point.
I’d be on the set and I’d look around, and I
would be back in 1976, a freshman in high
school again. And those weren’t necessarily
good memories. I was revisiting sorrows and
horrors. I was making it from a distance, so it
perhaps came out more positive than
negative, but it’s not all fun and games.” —
Richard Linklater onDazed And Confused
DAZED AND CONFUSED (LINKLATER, 1993)

17. RICHARD LINKLATER
• Born Houston, Texas
• Generation X
• Worked on oil rig
• Film interest developed
through Houston Film
Repertory Cinema
• Bought Super-8
camera, projector and
editing equipment

18. AUSTIN FILM SOCIETY
• Founded AFS
• Ozu, Bresson and
Dreyer
• Enrolled Austin
Community College to
study film
• It's Impossible to
Learn to Plow by
Reading Books

19. SLACKER
• $23k budget
• Grossed $1.25m
• Cult classic
• Generation X
• Dazed and Confused
• Box office failure but
cult hit

20. GENERATION X
• Generation born after the
baby boomers – 1960s to
1980s.
• Name popularised by
Douglas Coupland’s 1991
novel, Generation X:
Tales for an Accelerated
Culture. Young adults
characterised as slacker
and disenfranchised and
saddled with permanent
cynicism.

21. THE EIGHTIES
• Politics – Ronald Reagan “Reaganomics” and
reactionary right-wing policies. Gung-ho foreign policy.
• AIDS – identification of HIV
• Fall of Soviet Union and Berlin Wall
• Bland Hollywood films – too formulaic and age of
blockbuster.
• Beginnings of new independent cinema heralded by
Sundance Film Festival

22. KEY FILMMAKERS
• Quentin Tarantino
• Steven Soderbergh
• David Fincher
• Todd Haynes
• David O Russell
• Spike Jonze
• Darren Aronofsky

23. THE ’50S WERE BORING, THE ’60S
ROCKED, THE ’70S OBVIOUSLY SUCK…
MAYBE THE ’80S WILL BE RADICAL.”
• Linklater remembers driving around endlessly one night
in ‘76 with friends listening to ZZ Top’s Fandango on an 8
track with nothing much happening and going nowhere.
Still managed to cover 150 miles.
• Sold to Universal as “an updated American Graffiti”.
• 70s seen as a poor period culturally compared to 60s or
80s according to the critics, but Linklater wanted to put it
in perspective – the music ‘rocked’ and the energetic
sub-cultures attached.

24. A “NOSTALGIA” MOVIE
• Clearly labelled as
nostalgia – last day of
school May 28 1976.
• Recreates the period as
closely as possible –
cars, music, clothes,
language.
• Linklater was Mitch’s
age in 1976.
• BUT …the main
characters cannot wait
to move on. The
freshers sarcastic
remark on leaving the
last junior high dance,
Cythia’s statement and
Slater’s “can’t wait to
get to college, man.”
• Pink’s comment on ”if
these are the best
years of my life…”

25. THEMES
• Linklater often concerned with temporality or living in the
present (L-I-V-I-N).
• Rebellion – key idea with teen pics but something
Linklater has been associated with as a filmmaker and
an active part of narrative here – Pink and Mitch.
• Society vs Individualism – young liberal vs old
conservative
• Growing up – experience of the time

26. BROADER CULTURE?
• Lack of nostalgia on
Linklater’s part.
• Economic troubles of
the late 80s and the
Reagan-Bush years
• Disenchanted youth
lacked own idealised
coming of age so
wanted to see this.
• Questioning of America
– teachers and
students. Revisionist
theories on George
Washington and critical
of bicentennial
celebrations.
• Rebellion – Fighting
rebels moto of school
and Pink’s refusal.
• Social conformity vs
individualism.

27. RITES OF PASSAGE
• Explicit representation of sex,
drugs and alcohol
• Film aware of this – nerds
questioning of the utter
stupidity of initiation rituals
• Mitch – too drunk, smokes
weed for first time, implied he
has sex for first time. Happy to
do these.
• Other rituals are humiliating
and violent – play on desire to
be popular. Air raid, paddling.
• Clear demarcation between
youth and adulthood.