Our house holiday party wrapped up late last night with an impromptu viewing of Saturday Night Fever. I hadn’t seen this movie since I was a kid in the late-70’s, and didn’t remember much about it. Without spoiling too many plot points, here are five things that stood out for me as I watched this classic for the first time with adult eyes…
1) It’s refreshingly un-PC. Saturday Night Fever instantly makes it obvious how much the cursing in modern movies has been watered down to eliminate anything that might be truly offensive. Right from the get-go, the “Spics”, N-bombs, “sluts” and “c*nts” fly as fast and furious as shrapnel in a war zone. The language might sting delicate politically-correct eardrums, but it has the effect of making Tony Manero (John Travolta) and his crew seem like a real bunch of hoods, and not some Hollywood screenwriter’s imaginative depiction.
2) The songs on the soundtrack jump to life when heard in conjunction with the scenes of people dancing to them. The silliest stuff on the soundtrack (and there’s plenty) sounds faboo when paired with images of leisure-suited, butterfly-collared gents, and sequined, leotarded ladies earnestly shaking their groove thing. Even Walter Murphy’s absurd ‘A Fifth Of Beethoven’ (one of the worst #1 songs in history) sounds pretty good in its proper context.
3) The best choreographed scene in the movie doesn’t take place on the dancefloor. It happens when Tony’s Italian family slap each other around the dinner table in a flawlessly executed piece of physical comedy.
4) Disco had a dark side. “This isn’t the happy fun disco movie I remember,” one of our friends commented late in the film, and I couldn’t agree more. This movie touches on a number of less than uplifting themes, including gang brawls, gang bangs, misogyny, racism, catholic guilt, and suicide. The scenes on the dance floor are fun, but the stuff that happens off it is as surprisingly raw as New York City itself in the 1970’s.
5) John Travolta should have won an Oscar for this performance. Because he had travelled the narrow character path from Vinnie Barbarino (on TV’s Welcome Back Kotter) to Tony Manero to Danny Zuko (in Grease), it was easy to assume that Travolta was just “playing himself” and not really acting. “You’re a cliche,” the character Stephanie spits at him midway through Saturday Night Fever, and the truth in that insult is probably what doomed Travolta’s Oscar chances and damaged his career. Having now experienced Travolta outside his trifecta of late-70’s characters, it’s easy to see that the cliche of Manero’s life is interesting and multi-dimensional because of Travolta’s gutty acting. He was nominated for Best Actor, but lost the award to Richard Dreyfuss, who won for his performance in The Goodbye Girl. Ridiculous. Travolta deserved that statue.
*****
Listen: Jive Talkin’ [Bee Gees]
Listen: Stayin’ Alive [Bee Gees]
Listen: You Should Be Dancing [Bee Gees]
Tags: Bee Gees, John Travolta, Richard Dreyfuss, Saturday Night Fever, Tony Manero
11 January 2009 at 8:38 pm |
I can’t believe that I saw this pretty much right when it came out (maybe even in the theater?). That would have made me about 6 or 7. Combined with my Love Gun album from the year before, it’s astonishing that I’m not a mass murderer. The parenting books circulating my suburban neighborhood don’t say what I should do when my 7 year old sees a movie about gang bangs.
For some reason my only memory of this movie is my grandma seeing a dancing scene and saying “he’s moving like his underwear is on too tight.”
11 January 2009 at 9:24 pm |
I think it was on cable right after it left the theaters – must’ve been late ‘78 or early ‘79. We had HBO around that time, and I’m pretty sure that’s where we saw it (along with The Warriors, of course).
The movie I remember being shocked seeing as a kid was an animated feature called Wizards. Uncle Buzz took us to see that one in the theaters, and it had nude fairies, gun-toting wizards, scary monsters, and F-bombs everywhere. I think you were about 5 years old when we saw that one…
12 January 2009 at 8:09 am |
I remember that one too. I’ve talked to my therapist about it many times.
Seriously, this discussion makes me feel better about letting my 7 year old ocassionaly hear me say ’shit’ or ‘damn’.
12 January 2009 at 4:11 pm |
“Hey! Don’t Touch The Hair! I Spend A Lot Of Time On My Hair!” Dude, one of the all time great stoner movies. i can’t even tell you how many times i’ve seen it. gets better every time. and to your point dan, the music does jump out at you to the point where i would have it in my top 10 all time soundtracks. not sure if it made yours. I’m glad you had a chance to revisit this classic.
19 January 2009 at 1:36 pm |
On this recommendation, I signed up the DVR to get this off the movie channel and we watched it last night. I want that 2 hours back. This movie was a real stinker. Bad acting and worse writing. The movie never really went anywhere. It did do a good job of capturing a point in time – a la ‘Colors’ in 1980s LA. To say JT deserved an Oscar makes me laugh.
On a more positive note, I liked the music. I agree with your comment about the movie making the music more meaningful. Good stuff on that front.
20 January 2009 at 3:16 pm |
Tastes being what they are, I can’t say too much about the first part of your comment, but I would like to explain the reasoning behind my suggestion that Travolta deserved the Oscar.
Here was the field for best actor in 1978:
Richard Dreyfuss – The Goodbye Girl (as Elliot Garfield)
Woody Allen – Annie Hall (as Alvy Singer)
Richard Burton – Equus (as Martin Dysart)
Marcello Mastroianni – A Special Day (as Gabriele)
John Travolta – Saturday Night Fever (as Tony Manero)
We could probably have a good debate about Woody Allen vs. Travolta. Maybe they cancelled each other out in the voting because both were playing 1970’s neurotic New York cliches, but this race has to come down to those two…