AMERICAN GRAFFITI

Nick Murphy, director of The Awakening and Save Me, watches George Lucas’ other classic

I HADN’T DELIBERATELY avoided American Graffiti; I’d only not seen it growing up because my local video store figured ten copies of Death Wish II and The Clan Of The Cave Bear would bring better business (and in the mid-’80s they probably did). But I knew about it. And I expected it to be youthful and energetic. But when finally watching it, the main, glorious surprise was how little appeared to be happening.

The film principally follows the fortunes of a handful of teenagers over the course of one night in 1962. But despite an implausible amount of incident in the 12 hours that the movie covers, it all feels joyously inconsequential. Cars are raced, weird friendships are formed, relationships are broken and mended and police cars vandalised, but there is something so startlingly low-key and random about the way these things unfold it feels at the time, well, pointless. Throughout it all, George Lucas doggedly keeps his distance, covering most scenes with long lenses so they don’t feel bald or didactic but the story also seems so perfectly unassuming. I read that Lucas struggled to get this financed. I’m not in the least bit surprised. But nor am I surprised it became one of the most profitable movies ever made.

Nobody in the story has a damn clue what they want. Imagine that today? Pitching a mainstream movie or TV show in which the ambitions and objectives of literally every character is hidden from the audience? Even sublime shows such as The Deuce contain moments of tacit plotting around which all the gorgeous human details hang like loose clothing. But that had the reputation of David Simon behind it; back in 1970-whatever Lucas was nothing. And I guarantee the impact and efficacy of this movie did not leap off the page in the way other shows and movies do. American Graffiti needed to be made to be believed.

When we read scripts, the intellectual side of our brain takes the lead. We don’t like to think it does, but it does. We look for the logic and clarity we believe an audience needs. But it’s totally different when you see a film completed or even in the cutting room. That’s why scenes that we, or more often executives, argued were important on the page simply aren’t when

you get them on screen. We get asked, “How do I know she means well?” or, “How will I know their marriage is in trouble?” So films get over-written. Of the material we end up cutting, 90 per cent is that stuff; the stuff I was being told instead of being allowed to absorb emotionally and figure out later.

American Graffiti is a masterclass in that. The conclusions its characters draw at the end are absolutely clear, life-changing even, and make complete sense given what you’ve seen. But at no stage during the night do you see their decisions forming or a thesis emerging. Sure, you see wonderful bouts of dialogue conducted between moving cars on the strip. And throughout the story, folks hop from car to car to involve themselves briefly in the lives of other people before moving on. But only at the end do you feel the cars are a metaphor for fate and fortune. Only in the closing moments, when Richard Dreyfuss’ Curt Henderson watches a tiny white T-bird far below him that may or may not contain the woman who woulda-coulda-shoulda changed his life, do you work out that to share a car is to briefly share direction. She is the answer he doesn’t have yet and he seems okay with that.

Another of the boys [Ron Howard’s Steve Bolander] has hung his entire identity on a car that isn’t even his, until it’s stolen and he must go it alone. Another [Paul Le Mat’s John Milner], having spent the night driving a cynical young girl round in his souped-up racer, discovers he misses innocence and the ability to be impressed. Even when the fastest car in the area, driven by Harrison Ford, the man who would one day be Indiana Jones, crashes and burns, the metaphor isn’t rammed down your throat. But at the end, all the characters know where they are, even if they don’t know what’s down the line.

I looked at what else came out in ’73: Serpico, Paper Moon, Badlands, The Exorcist, Don’t Look Now, The Wicker Man, La Grand Bouffe, and some flick called Mean Streets. Jesus Christ, you have a movie that holds its ground in that crowd, you’ve done something pretty special.

Save Me is on sky Atlantic in February