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I've been thinking a bit about how some movies are hurt by their stature. Perhaps the stature is deserved because the movies are of sufficient quality, but I wonder if approaching a film known for its greatness might blind you to its pleasures if its power comes from its ability to disarm and surprise. The question has been on my mind thanks to the marketing for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a movie I don't feel particularly eager to see. To me, much of the power of the original movie comes from how it subverts the special effects blockbuster, with a group of absolutely ordinary heroes taking on great cosmic forces. Plenty of movies have borrowed its mixture of wisecracks and spectacle (think of all the programmatically deployed quips in the Marvel movies), but fewer grasp the underlying tension and irreverence that make it work.
Animal House, a earlier product of the same SNL/SCTV/National Lampoon ecosystem (Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis were involved in both pictures), is another movie that I think suffers accordingly. Its slobs-vs-snobs plot has been absorbed so thoroughly into the comedy genre that it can be hard to grasp what might have been so fresh about this material initially. (I certainly had this problem the first time I watched it, having seen multiple movies that studiously copy its exact beats.) And there's certainly been a lot of (well justified) rumination about how this movie has held up in relation to the more toxic dimensions of its sense of humour. What I'm going to suggest is that this material was always supposed to be abrasive, even troubling. The movie is packed wall-to-wall with the kind of things right-thinking people aren't supposed to laugh at. What's the worst possible thing that could happen when you're trying to get laid? What if your date passes out? And then turns out to be underage? What if a bunch of white guys wandered into a black bar and some of the patrons stole their dates? What would happen if you tried to play a prank with a horse and it died of a heart attack? The punchlines resonate because taboos have been breached. This is a pure lizard brain movie.
The movie is full of pitch perfect performances, from the pathological stiffness of John Vernon to the apoplectic rage of Mark Metcalf (a quality he deployed later in two memorable videos for Twisted Sister) to the rich, sinister baritone of Cesare Danova, and the movie brings them together in a shambling, episodic, anarchic structure. Yet I'd like to direct your attention to the two that I think are most key to its effect. The first, obviously, is John Belushi. Much has been said of the bracing, animal impact of his presence, of the way his onscreen excess perhaps mirrored his troubled personal life, and of the many iconic moments he has during the proceedings. But there's something to his total lack of dignity, the fact that he appears at almost all times to be unkempt, in dirty clothes, belching when he's not jamming something in his mouth. It's hard for me to see anything he does as an endorsement. Contrast this with the warmth directed towards the heroes in Revenge of the Nerds, one of this movie's better known progeny, where we're supposed to root for the titular nerds as they commit a bunch of sex crimes. (I do like the movie, mostly because how jarring the contrast is between its moments of sweetness and its uglier elements. And hell, that climactic musical number is a lot of fun. "Clap your hands, everybody, and everybody, clap your hands.")
The other is Tim Matheson, the smug, somewhat charismatic, somewhat unctuous leader of the Deltas, who adopts the language of the aspirational only to highlight its hollowness. The caption during the coda gives him another fate, but it's easy to see this character going on to become a used car salesman. Consider his speech in defense of his fraternity during a sham hearing (during which he wears a fittingly hideous plaid sportcoat):
Animal House (Landis, 1978)
I've been thinking a bit about how some movies are hurt by their stature. Perhaps the stature is deserved because the movies are of sufficient quality, but I wonder if approaching a film known for its greatness might blind you to its pleasures if its power comes from its ability to disarm and surprise. The question has been on my mind thanks to the marketing for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a movie I don't feel particularly eager to see. To me, much of the power of the original movie comes from how it subverts the special effects blockbuster, with a group of absolutely ordinary heroes taking on great cosmic forces. Plenty of movies have borrowed its mixture of wisecracks and spectacle (think of all the programmatically deployed quips in the Marvel movies), but fewer grasp the underlying tension and irreverence that make it work.
Animal House, a earlier product of the same SNL/SCTV/National Lampoon ecosystem (Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis were involved in both pictures), is another movie that I think suffers accordingly. Its slobs-vs-snobs plot has been absorbed so thoroughly into the comedy genre that it can be hard to grasp what might have been so fresh about this material initially. (I certainly had this problem the first time I watched it, having seen multiple movies that studiously copy its exact beats.) And there's certainly been a lot of (well justified) rumination about how this movie has held up in relation to the more toxic dimensions of its sense of humour. What I'm going to suggest is that this material was always supposed to be abrasive, even troubling. The movie is packed wall-to-wall with the kind of things right-thinking people aren't supposed to laugh at. What's the worst possible thing that could happen when you're trying to get laid? What if your date passes out? And then turns out to be underage? What if a bunch of white guys wandered into a black bar and some of the patrons stole their dates? What would happen if you tried to play a prank with a horse and it died of a heart attack? The punchlines resonate because taboos have been breached. This is a pure lizard brain movie.
The movie is full of pitch perfect performances, from the pathological stiffness of John Vernon to the apoplectic rage of Mark Metcalf (a quality he deployed later in two memorable videos for Twisted Sister) to the rich, sinister baritone of Cesare Danova, and the movie brings them together in a shambling, episodic, anarchic structure. Yet I'd like to direct your attention to the two that I think are most key to its effect. The first, obviously, is John Belushi. Much has been said of the bracing, animal impact of his presence, of the way his onscreen excess perhaps mirrored his troubled personal life, and of the many iconic moments he has during the proceedings. But there's something to his total lack of dignity, the fact that he appears at almost all times to be unkempt, in dirty clothes, belching when he's not jamming something in his mouth. It's hard for me to see anything he does as an endorsement. Contrast this with the warmth directed towards the heroes in Revenge of the Nerds, one of this movie's better known progeny, where we're supposed to root for the titular nerds as they commit a bunch of sex crimes. (I do like the movie, mostly because how jarring the contrast is between its moments of sweetness and its uglier elements. And hell, that climactic musical number is a lot of fun. "Clap your hands, everybody, and everybody, clap your hands.")
The other is Tim Matheson, the smug, somewhat charismatic, somewhat unctuous leader of the Deltas, who adopts the language of the aspirational only to highlight its hollowness. The caption during the coda gives him another fate, but it's easy to see this character going on to become a used car salesman. Consider his speech in defense of his fraternity during a sham hearing (during which he wears a fittingly hideous plaid sportcoat):
The fervour with which he delivers this doesn't mask the transparently flimsy reasoning, and in pitting him and his debased friends against a group of junior authoritarians, the movie posits that all of the supposed good vibes we're supposed to feel about the college experience, and the sanctity of the related institutions, is actually a whole lot of bull****. The total lack of good intentions behind the climactic gesture (ruining the big parade) are especially revealing. (And isn't that an indictment of our entire American society?) In light of all this, the most dignified thing one can do is to get ****faced and sing along to "Louie Louie"."But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg, isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America."