Cameron Crowe's Cinematic Influences: A Look into 'Almost Famous' and Billy Wilder, Apuntes de Periodismo

¡Descarga Cameron Crowe's Cinematic Influences: A Look into 'Almost Famous' and Billy Wilder y más Apuntes en PDF de Periodismo solo en Docsity! ALMOST FAMOUS A WALK THROUGH CAMERON CROWE’S CINEMA Ana María Clemente Puigserver Modern and Contemporary Film Movements Master in Film Studies and Visual Culture University of Antwerp ABSTRACT The next paper is about an analysis of the film Almost Famous directed by Cameron Crowe in 2002. The paper has been divided into different parts, although they are all related between them. Firstly I’ve done an Introduction and a Conclusion (personal vision), and then I divided the essence of the paper in four parts. The first one is about the historical context in which the film is set, giving most of it importance to the musical aspect. Then I focused to the essence of the film, explaining what the director wanted to show and its autobiographical aspect. The third point is about the cinema influences of the director, Cameron Crowe, focusing in his connection with classical cinema, but especially in Billy Wilder, as a Crowe’s big fan. The fourth and final part of this essay is about the technical aspects and the analysis of some important scenes. KEYWORDS Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe, Film Analysis, Billy Wilder, Seventies, Contemporary filmmakers, Auto-biography, Music, Journalism The director and the essence of the film Almost Famous is a nostalgic movie. The autobiographic nostalgia of the director and scripter Cameron Crowe, who in the 70’s lived something very likely of what happened in the movie, being a lived memory of that age, a picture of how were lived the seventies and how the music still experiments even with the pass of time. Because of that, there is a difference between Almost Famous and the rest of Cameron Crowe’s career works, this is, that the film, is based in Crowe’s living experiences. Although the movie is settled in a musical atmosphere, its intentions had been wider when filming. An exam of humanity in its best and worst moments, distilling a simple story about appearances, about the values, family and friends, the love of a complex characters and a perfect resolution. Crowe was born in California and in his childhood wrote for The San Diego Door, then, he met Lester Bangs, a music journalist who worked for Creem, Musician and also Rolling Stones. Crowe when he was young and had an order from Rolling Stone Magazine to interview some of the bands, currently famous like Led Zepppelin, David Bowie or The Eagles, he begun with the band Black Sabbath, and in that same concert, he met the band Stillwater (as occurs in the film), which he made great friends with and joined them on a tour all along the USA with, as they called themselves, the band aids (groupies). Here, one can see that the journalist character that the film has, is also because, he has the writing as one of the most important thing in his life. (Smalley, 2000) It’s important noticing that, constancy according to the labour, it has made of him a professional in cinema terms. Nowadays there are many cinema directors that are used to release big ticket office hits with movies that stand for having a great amount of attributes and detail that with the help of modern digital technologies, allows creating fantastic worlds with an incredible realism, in a way that helps the viewer going in a travel deep into their imagination. 3 Yes, it’s true, and it has anything bad, but however, in the Cameron Crowe’s case, he has awakened the will of many to go to the cinema, it is not only sought of entertainment. There is much more to search in his films, something that without any doubt is unique in each of his movies and artistic creations. This is, the worries to reflect the human behaviour, and not in a general way. In a certain way, Crowe tries, with the writing of his scripts and the direction and production of his movies, show what he has fond as a truth of the people. A truth that uses to pass across the minds of everyone, even if it is not many times in our lives and in a lazy way or not very highlighted. This truth makes reference to the capacities that men haves to achieve something in his life, to the power he has among it, when wanting to break the routine, to the need of surpass that follows him, and above all, the need of having company by his side, and this is something very well treated in the movie. Influences in Almost Famous As it has been explained before, the journalistic character and the admiration that Cameron Crowe, as a contemporary filmmaker has for the writing, is something that can be reflected very well in the film Almost Famous. As well as the influence that the classical film maker, Billy Wilder, (22nd of June 1906- 27th of March 2002) has left him as a legacy. In addition to writing a book about him, “Conversation with Billy Wilder”, trying to emulate the same thing that Truffaut did with Hitchcock years before, and also the admiration he feels as a scriptwriter and director, makes that, many elements of Billy Wilder’s cinema, are reflected very well in Crowe’s film. (Tobias, 2000) There is one t thing here to remark about the book and the film. The movie was made immediately after the book that Cameron Crowe wrote. Due to the fact they spend a lot of time together, we can say that some of the talent of Wilder could be sticked into Crowe. Focusing now on the film, one of the first characteristics to highlight is the love triangle that appears between the main character, William Miller, the guitarist, Rusell Hamond, and the groupie girl, Penny Lane. 4 The relationship between them, is also seen in a Billy Wilder’s classic movie, The Apartment (1960), but in this case between C.C Baxter, Fran Kubelik and Jeff D Sheldrake. A detail that, since the beginning, is perfectly visible. In both films the married men, Hamond and Sheldrak, have an affair with another lady. On one hand, in the case of Hammond with Penny Lane, and on the other hand in the case of Sheldrake, with Miss Kubelik.Two relations that even they are similar they are not identical. Also, there is one more important fact to highlight in both films, another similarity that Crowe adds from Billy Wilder’s cinema. The two female characters, try to commit suicide. Penny Lane in a hotel, and Fran Kubelik in Baxter’s apartment. Both characters know that their love will never be corresponded. The two women know that they will never leave their wives, and because of that, and the depressive moment which they suffer. Both women took some pills trying to kill themselves. Nonetheless in both cases, William and Baxter arrive on time to save them. It is important to take into account that The Apartment is one of Cameron Crowe’s favourite movies, so that is one of the main reasons that Almost Famous could be very resembled (besides the connection that can also be found in Jerry Maguire’s film, directed years before). Certain plot elements, the relationships between characters, mentioned before, the resemblance of the two women characters in both films (Penny Lane and Fran Kubelik), but also the tone of the film itself, is very similar as The Apartment. In addition, there is another Billy Wilder’s film that should be mentioned because of the connections that share with Crowe’s film. In Almost Famous one can say that there is a “mise en abyme”, a representation inside another, from A Foreign affair, directed also by Wilder in 1948. (Brufau, 2006). As a classical director, Billy Wilder has left an important legacy of the fifties, sixties and also seventies movie characteristics, something that Cameron Crowe has taken advantage of it because of the elements and also the connections that one can found in his films. 5 Another sequence, which is important to highlight, is when William’s sister, Anita, is leaving her home, due to the repression she feels by her mother. A Low-Angle shot from the right, which reveals the girl looking her home with certain longing. Then when Anita is going to say goodbye to William, the camera focus on her face with an Extreme Close Ups shots, and then to William’s face with a Close Up shot, which reveal the viewer that she is going to tell him something important. Then the camera moves away and with a Medium Close Up the two brothers appear giving them the same importance and the same with her mother. At the end of the sequence, Anita’s face in the window of the car, thanks to the Medium Close Up shot, make us think that, despite the anxiousness that she feel about discover a world away from home, she will miss all that she is already leaving, It is important to consider that, the song, which is playing during the scene, “America” by Simon and Grfunkel, is about looking for America, something that Anita is about to get. (Bramson,2000) The camera effects, the style, the bus they use for the tour, the props, and also the character’s clothing, have helped so well to create the feel that this Cameron Crowe’s film is really set in the seventies. Conclusion Almost Famous is a radiography of that transition between adolescence and maturity, with all it’s discovering and also, its “downs”, but above all is a film about the little doings that can mark life and drive it to its destiny. A destiny many times expected, but in other times, totally new. Personally, it seems to me that addresses in a very correct way, that feeling of the teenager when discovering a new world unknown and strange for him, and the need to explore, inherent between the youth. With a very acceptable cast (Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Anna Paquin, Kate Hudson, Jason Lee or Philip Seymour Hoffman), Crowe generates nostalgia, love for music and, for its atmosphere full of extraordinary characters, fans touching the adjective of groupies and virtuous lovers of music. 8 The script has rhythm and intelligence, establishing a network of characters that evolves when they get in contact with the effects of fame and money. Almost Famous is very educational when portraying the rock atmosphere of the 70’s, a mixture with presence of idealism and protests. A very splendid plot and very well wrote and it comes to be very funny along introduces, in a very realistic and passionate way, the interesting world of the mass musical phenomenon, everything decorated with a great music selection. “Almost Famous” is a film that can please in an average way, that will generate more than one polemic about the reflect of a generation who had its defects, although it had also its virtues, but it doesn’t seems that its intention is to be a faithfully portrait of someone but itself, creating an originality that makes it unique from other movies of the same genre. A very personal vision of an aspect of the movie is that, this one, lefts a great lesson for those who in a future wants to dedicate themselves to journalism. It doesn’t matter the hour, the place or the moment, the job of a journalist never rests, because the labour of each of us, the ones that will work on that (or pretend it), is to inform. We live of informing people, and because of that we always have to have proofs to verify that information given. But something much more important and that I can take as conclusion about this aspect, is that never we have to give up towards obstacles that life gives us, as many trammels that accumulates, there has always to be a try and keep going, follow the dreams that one wants, and as it says the quote…“Who something wants, something costs” 9 Bibliography Bordwell, David (2005), Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging. University of California Press Bramson, Danny (2000). Almost Famous soundtrack. The Unool Crowe, Cameron (1999). Conversations with Billy Wilder. Faber and Faber Farré Brufau, María Soledad (2006 ). Billy Wilder o el arte de narrar en imágenes. “Nexos” Harry Shapiro (2006). Historia del rock y las drogas. Ma Non Troppo James, Andrew (2007). Finite Focus: The Musical Bus Ride (Almost Famous). Row Three. Rade, Josh (2009). Movies We Love: Almost Famous. Film School Rejects Smalley, Suzanne (2000). Almost Autobiographical. Newsweek Tobias, Scott (2000). Cameron Crowe. A.V Club (Interview) Information taken from IMDb Filmography Almost Famous, 2000. Cameron Crowe. USA The Apartment, 1966. Billy Wilder. USA