More American Graffiti (1979)

*. In my notes on American Graffiti I mentioned how it might be thought of as the real inflection point in American cinema in the 1970s, turning away from independent, anti-establishment films toward more commercial properties. American Graffiti certainly was commercial, being a surprising box office hit. It was also about as American as mom and apple pie and hot rods.
*. Given that success, the lag time for a follow up (six years) may be thought surprising. There are two reasons for it. In the first place, franchise filmmaking hadn’t taken hold yet, where a sequel is often being planned even before a film is released. Second: a couple of other, even more lucrative blockbusters had changed the game. What with Jaws and Star Wars setting the bar there was little demand for more American Graffiti.
*. This could have been seen as liberating, and I think to some extent it was. The producers here were free to go in a new direction and they did. More American Graffiti, to its credit, is something different. Not a good movie, but different.
*. Two things stand out. In the first place it’s more of a broad comedy than the first film. American Graffiti was going for gentle nostalgia. More American Graffiti goes for laughs. The second change-up is the intriguing way the story is presented. There are basically four stories interwoven, taking place at different times and shot in different styles (a smaller frame for one, split screens for another). Sure it’s a gimmick, but were you expecting a gimmick? I wasn’t.
*. As with any gimmick movie, the gimmick raises a question: But for the gimmick, would the movie be interesting or worth watching? Sometimes I don’t think this question is fair. I don’t, for example, think it’s fair to ask whether Memento would be worth watching if it was played forward instead of backward. It’s a movie that was designed to play in reverse. In other films, however, the question of the added value of the gimmick can fairly be raised. And it was here.
*. David Ansen in Newsweek put it this way: “This [the film’s composite structure] is all very film-school fancy, but what does it mean? Alas, precious little. ‘More’ in this case is decidedly less. Once you get used to the cross-cutting — which is rather like switching channels between four different TV shows — the realization dawns that none of the segments is particularly interesting.”
*. In other words, the film-school stunts are just there to make up for the fact that nothing much is going on. But this makes one pause. Could anything less be going on than in American Graffiti? And isn’t there in fact a lot going on here? Steve and Cindy (now married with children) break up and then have to get back together again after various adventures, Debbie becomes a roadie for a hippie band, John Milner has to win a big race (again), and Toad is trying to think up some scheme for getting out of Vietnam.
*. Well, we might say, there are different ways of being interesting. There is a lot going on here, but I agree with Ansen that it does little to hold one’s attention, even with the scattered narrative. It’s just that I wasn’t much interested in American Graffiti either.
*. More American Graffiti also seems kind of pointless. There is an anti-establishment message playing throughout. Steve has to learn to let Cindy go her own way, and ends up fighting against the Man. Milner resists being co-opted by corporate interests. Toad bucks authority in ‘Nam. Bob Falfa, the villain of American Graffiti, has a cameo as a jackbooted thug (motorcycle cop). Again one has the sense of a sequel coming too late. In 1979 such a message could almost play as nostalgically as the cruising lifestyle of the first film.
*. It’s a movie that let a lot of people down, mainly because it was not, in fact, “more” American Graffiti. But I respect the direction taken. They took chances. They came up with something different. And what they came up with wasn’t all bad. Personally, I’d just as soon watch this movie again as American Graffiti. But I’m not a fan of either. In both cases I think maybe you had to be there.

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