Word: bakshi
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...first half of the movie drags and jerks along, as Bakshi introduces characters without sub-stantiating their dialogue. An orthodox rabbi, singing Hebrew, is murdered by Cossacksin Russia; his son Zalmie immigrates to America, hanging out in smoky vaudeville dance halls, entranced by the grotesque bodies of showgirls. He grows up fast, losing his virginity in a dressing room after a mock strip tease. Trying to appear tender and symbolic, Bakshi never fleshes out the people enough to make them more than the cartoons they...
...opening titles chart out the ambitious journey: photos of America--at the turn of the century, through art-deco, to the protests of the sixties--swirl before the camera to a medley of the songs that will mark the movie's progress. Throughout, Bakshi returns to pictures by Jacob Riis or film clips from The War at Home to stress the parallels between his work and the real world. Yet it all rings false, especially given the true origins of today's popular music...
...FILM'S FIRST HALF contrives, the second lies and confuses. The most prominent fault lies in the skipping of the 50s, the decade in which blues and r&b spawned rock and roll. Bakshi's chronology jumps from World War II to Greenwich Village poet-beatniks, but misses a beat--the beat...
Tony, Benny's son (the bildungs roman continues), travels across the country, stopping briefly in Kansas and seducing a young blond waitress in the cornfields by telling her, "This country is my Cracker Jack Box, and you're my prize," in typical Bakshi Americana style...
This historical inaccuracies might be forgiven in view of the scope of Bakshi's project, but it seems crucial that the people over 30 in the audience (if there are any, given the ad campaign) get a clearer picture of sixties music...