Word: graffitied
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...ugliness of the world, but people's powerlessness in its face. There was an ongoing sense that the scene has gone out of control. If the world's not doomed (Mean Streets), it's irrational (Don't Look Now); if it's not confined (Papillon, American Graffiti), it's corrupt, inconvertibly so (Serpico, Day of the Dolphin, Paper Moon, etc). And--most apparent in this year of sidekicks and Kung Fu, women in the movies are less in evidence than ever...
...American Graffiti could have presented a too-easy picture of bygone days, showing off about detail, dressing up the present in period costume while having nothing to say, like so many other "nostalgia" films. Instead, when this movie gives us manners, culture and seemingly superficial trends, it does so with a sense of history that is key to the attitudes of the characters involved. In 1962, a generation was desperate and restless, bursting out of its skin. As it began to define itself against the constant background of radio and TV, a get-up-and-go, frontier mentality built...
...taxis now. In the chaotic days before the coup, just getting to town took a feat of near legerdemain, since cab drivers, like many other businessmen, were on strike against Allende's plans to nationalize many sectors of the economy, including transportation. Another obvious change: the multicolored graffiti that turned the walls of Santiago's buildings into checkered political billboards have been whitewashed by junta order...
...AMERICAN GRAFFITI. Small-town adolescence in 1962, perceptively rendered by George Lucas...
MOST OF AMERICAN GRAFFITI, like Mean Streets, takes place at night. There's a closed specificity of tone, and Lucas wants to put his teenagers in perspective: the world is going on elsewhere. Even though there were no adults in the picture, you knew they were out there, and that they were different from the kids on the strip. Charlie, Michael, Tony and Johnny Boy are not the only ones on the mean street: the older mafioso glide elegantly and watch TV; the bums have kindly, lost smiles; crowds throng around the neon crosses at the festivals. Bizarre...