1. William's mother's parenting was slightly extreme and freaked some characters out after interactions with her over the phone. Do you think her behavior is justified? Too mellow? Too extreme? And where does this behavior stem from? Losing her daughter? Losing her husband?
2. We hear multiple characters declare: "It's all happening." But what's all happening? In the midst of the lives of rock stars where lots of things are happening, this sentence is pretty vague. So what all is happening and what does this mean for their futures?
3. What is this realness that Russell yearns for so badly? What's so "real" about William that Russell notices?
4. This was obviously a movie with a happy resolution. But it doesn't give much insight as to what happens in the future for William. Is he still uncool? Having written for an extremely popular publication, his life doesn't seem to have changed much afterword when we see him eating at the table with his sister and mother. And while the relationship is better between the two of them, how they finally came to this conclusion doesn't apply the same way to the other problems within the film. Is the resolution of this movie having to do with becoming more mature and realizing what really matters? Is it realizing that it doesn't mater whether or not your cool? What was it that the movie was trying to get us to see?
Here's Cameron Crowe accepting his Best Screenplay Oscar for Almost Famous.
And finally Russell Hammond proclaiming he is a golden god.
See you all on Monday. If you want to get a head start on the reading, you can read Chapters 1 and 2 of The Painted Bird that will be due on Tuesday.
2. When the rock stars and the bandaids say “It’s all happening,” I think they mean that the famed lifestyle that they’ve always envisioned, with the drugs, the music, the sex, the fame, etc, is finally a reality. This is it, they have arrived. But I think the reason that they constantly express this realization is that they have to remind themselves that this is what they wanted all along. They have to fight back against disillusionment, against disappointment, by constantly reminding themselves that this lifestyle was their goal all along, and that they should enjoy it while they can.
ReplyDelete3. The realness of William is that he hasn’t yet created a persona. Every other character, from the rockstars to the bandaids to Russell himself, has a carefully manufactured personality that helps them cultivate their image. William, perhaps due to his young age, doesn’t wear any sort of mask. Though he may mislead people about his journalistic experience, his personality and interactions with others are all very real. He wears his heart on his sleeve and his emotions on his face, enabling Russell to connect with him more meaningfully than any other character. It probably is exhausting for Russell to constantly have to maintain his persona, and being around William enables him to just have normal interactions, to talk about life and childhood and go to Topeka parties.
4. I think that this movie is a coming of age story, but not just for William. In fact, we see perhaps even more growth in the older characters, like Russell and Penny Lane. Penny Lane’s transformation seemed the most dramatic to me. She goes from being a “manic pixie dream-girl” of sorts, to a fully developed character who pursues her own goals. She proves William’s statement that “there never was a Morocco” wrong, purchasing tickets to start a new phase of her life at the conclusion of the movie. I really believe that she has learned not to make her self-worth contingent upon the approval of others, especially Russell. I think she has learned to recognize when she is being used, which hopefully will prevent her from entering into future one-sided relationships. Russell, also, has developed from the studly, mysterious rock star into someone who realizes that his actions have consequences. Thanks to William, he’s able to see how his callous behavior, which he originally saw as an integral part of his persona, can harm others deeply. Penny Lane’s near death experience also shows Russell that he doesn’t always get another chance, that sometimes flattery and gifts can’t make things right.
2. At first when we hear, “it’s all happening”, it seems to signify that all the dreams different characters have in their life are occurring. They have these glorified ideas of what they think is cool or the definition of success. To them, “it’s all happening” when they get to hang out with people of high social status (in their minds), or when they get to have experiences that they have glorified as being cool. The phrase means that all the dreams that they have attached certain expectations to are finally happening. By the end of the story, they realize that these dreams and expectations are unrealistic and idealized. Groupies get bored in tiny towns like Greenville. Touring isn’t a glorious, luxury road trip. “It’s all happening” takes on a new meaning at the end of the movie. It no longer signifies superficial events that make you look cool. Instead, it starts to represent bigger life events, like figuring out who you are and how you want to live.
ReplyDelete3. Russell and all the people around him are always looking for what they think is cool. Their actions are guided by these ideas. Everything he does is supposed to be ‘cool’ because he is a rock star, but that can start to make your life feel fake. Just because what he is doing seems cool to others doesn’t mean he enjoys it. To an extent, William is not being guided by these ideas of looking ‘cool’ or trying to do things because that is what he is supposed to do. He just likes music and writing, so that’s what the does. William can do the things he likes just because he likes them--- and for no other reason. Russell seems to sometimes lose that. He sometimes must do things because he feels compelled to fit in.
4. I think that William matures over the course of the movie, but he still seems naïve, even at the very end of the film. There is an element of a ‘boy growing up’ story here, but I think that isn’t the main goal of the story. What I took from the movie is that everybody is just a person, and there can often be a strange disconnect between a person’s reputation, actions, and who they really are. Rock stars (at least the ones we see) aren’t geniuses or extremely profound. Penny Lane is not in control even though she exudes confidence. The groups that we generalize people into do very little to describe who they actually are and their experiences. By the end of the movie, the characters who have the most “success” (or their storylines are most resolved) have come to see and accept the authentic selves of the people around them.
1. I'm going to answer the parenting question, which by the end of the movie really takes on greater importance than it may have seemed at first. Penny Lane's mother gives her the great (!) advice to "Marry up. Marry someone grand. That's why she named me Lady." And there's Saphire talking to Elaine admitting that she has said more to a stranger than she ever said to her mother. And by the way, where are the parents of all these 15, 16, 17 year old "Band-Aids" as they tour the country and go to England with Deep Purple? Elaine is trying so hard to not stifle her precocious son's passions while still being a disciplinarian (since her husband died), and to treat him as a young adult; at the same time, she is deathly afraid to let him go into the adult world, a world of "compromised values." And she wants to be appreciated for her efforts, hence her displeasure with Anita. The parents of the girls, of Penny? Too busy trying to be cool themselves? Too much like the guys in the band, trying to avoid responsibility? Maybe Elaine tries too hard—definitely Sapphire, Polexia, and Penny's parents try too little. But that was the seventies as I remembered them. The movie has that detail right.
ReplyDelete3. I agree with Mira and Emma. And just to add to this, who doesn't want to be cool (maybe Elaine)? And we realize the image that Russell puts up—the whole band, the girls, even Lester Bangs (a real life rock writer) included—is to, I think, is to cultivate image. Russell is a HS dropout, though the band's bio doesn't reveal that, and really not terribly bright nor really very kind often to the people he says he "loves." But he is Russell Hammond, the Greek God. And that has to be wearing and wearying to play a role all the time. In the screenplay, after the fight with Jeff Bebe (who it's clear in the script is coked out—William sees him snorting in a bathroom), and before he goes off looking for "real," he runs into his fifty-something father who is with a much younger woman who "eyes Russell hungrily." DAD says to Russell: "He got all the good genes, huh? Meet Deirdre. We're getting married in July." The compromises that Elaine sees in him (without ever actually seeing him in the flesh) he is all too aware of, I think. And they're gnawing at him. Real is not compromising for the thing that can't be seen, which Dennis Hope says is all that matters if they want riches.
4. "The only currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool." So says Lester Bangs who acknowledges his own uncoolness—yet he's as enraptured by the music and bands as any fan is. Really, who is "cool" in the film? Jeff Bebe, as cool as he thinks he is, is certainly not. Yet at the end he has come to realize something important: he's always going to be second fiddle to Russell, for he is "the you they get when they can't have you." And nothing is going to change that, no matter how hard he tries to make it not so. William can love the music, but not necessarily the bands who he has romanticized. Penny escapes from being used—something she knew from the very beginning, I think, but refused to acknowledge. Russell has to really see that he is an asshole who indeed has compromised his values. The world hasn't changed—Dennis Hope is the future of rock music (and Mick Jagger is still shaking his ass in his 70s despite what Dennis says)—but these people see the world and themselves a little more clearly and to use Mira's word, "authentically," honestly.
1- Her behavior was a misguided attempt to put him ahead of the curve - to set him up for success. Who wouldn't want to graduate at age 15? 16? Who would want to be "the youngest lawyer in the field"? Perhaps especially when his older sister seems to be barely scraping by, she wanted him to succeed - but she put William ahead of the curve without realizing the implications. He couldn't fit in - he was excellent, but isolated. Maybe more dangerous, being ahead of the curve also pushed him into deep water before he was ready - pushed into a world of drugs and underaged sex, he alternated between phases of having the time of his life and dealing with things a 15 year old shouldn't be dealing with. He tells Lady he loves her while she's poisoned and fading, smiling and looking at her legs as she pukes medication into the bathtub - a girl kisses him goodbye as she heads off to Europe with a band, no older than him - he tries to talk a drugged Russel into coming down off the roof, and instead watches him jump into the pool, and sink - he nearly dies in a plane crash, but instead hears the potential final words of his would-be idols, and screams at them for how they treated Lady. I think the look on Russel's face when William's mother calls and tells him that William's fifteen - his immediate switch from "everything's fine" to "yes, ma'am" - does a good job of illustrating the situation. For these reasons, I think that her parenting method was essentially good intentions gone wrong - she excelled him at the price of losing his childhood.
ReplyDelete3- Rock and roll, like anything in the lime light, is a performance art - what you appear to be is more important than what you are. At the beginning of the film, they tell William to "make them look good," but spend a significant portion of the film fighting, making mistakes, and messing with each other. Russel wants something genuine - he doesn't want to keep up the act, or have anyone around him acting. William is terrible at pretending - he can't help but be genuine, and that make him an interesting phenomena to a man surrounded by people so involved in stardom that it dominates their behavior even in private. He wants something that isn't fleeting or changeable - but he sabotages himself and the people around him in this respect. Every time he could have had a genuine talk with William it reverts back to stardom and glamour - and every time Lady starts thinking that maybe, just maybe, this time he really does love her, he throws it away. The thing is - I think he really does care about William and Lady, but he's so uncomfortable and unwilling to care about people and let them care about him that he keeps throwing people away.
4- It is a coming of age story, but I'd definitely agree with Emma in that it isn't just about William. It's about personal growth - determining what is valuable to you, what you want to do, who you want be, and who you want to be with. The idea of being cool or not was a huge theme in his life, and that's why he became obsessed, first with the man in the record store who insisted that the point of rock and roll was to be explicitly uncool (a new and appealing concept to someone so often described as such), and second with the members of Stillwater (rockstars being the pinnacle of cool, as far as he was concerned.) At the end of the film, I think William has found and settled into an identity, and that makes him cool. Russel's growth is centered around William and their interactions, but really what kicked off his character shift was William's mother - the phone call where she tells him to take care of her son, and that there's "hope for you, yet." Being constantly on the edge of an emotional breakdown, surrounded by people who use each other - who use you - whom you use - suddenly, he's being told that he has another chance. William is part of this chance - Russel suddenly finds himself in charge of keeping a fifteen year old kid safe in a world where fifteen year olds get swept off to Europe to sleep with bands. I think being given that kind of responsibility was so astounding it destabilized his view of the world, and with the final push of Lady's trick at the end, pushes him towards being more "real." Finally, Penny Lane - Lady Goodman. Agonizing over getting Russel's love and attention, she travels all over the country just to stay with the band, regardless of how many times she's left behind, or traded to other rockstars. She's a brilliant actress, and can captivate an audience seemingly without trying, but the more blatantly she's thrown away the harder it is to fool herself into thinking that maybe Russel has finally actually fallen in love with her. At the end of the film, she's stopped trying to fool anyone, and tells William her real name - this was her final acceptance that she needed to move on. She grew past Stillwater, and moved on to more genuine - more real - living. The film is less about being cool, and more about being genuine - it shifts from "make us look cool" to "write whatever you want," and ends with the characters finally finding the "realness" that Russel was desperately seeking.
ReplyDelete2. I think that “it’s all happening” means that the wildest dreams are coming true. These people dreamed of being rock stars or, in the case of the bandaids, being with rock stars. They are famous, glamorous, desired by crowds, and admired by teenagers across the country. It is shocking to them because they live inside their own heads and experience their own lives—their reality is nothing like what the fans think it is. They are trying to convince themselves, by saying “it’s all happening”, that they are the cool, together people who they appear to be. They are living glamorous lifestyles, the lifestyles they have always dreamed of living, but they don’t feel the way they had imagined they would—they are not happy.
ReplyDelete3. William is a raw, uncorrupted, innocent human being. He is young, so he has not had time to experience the hardships that come with adulthood and independence. He has also grown up in a sheltered world, well-protected by his mother. He has not done drugs or gotten drunk or been lost with nobody to call. He has always had a sense of security, safety, comfort, in his life. This safety allows him to be himself, to explore himself and discover aspects of his personality, likes and dislikes, hopes and fears. Russell lives in constant fear because he is scrutinized by the public—he does not have the freedom to explore himself. He is a persona, a mask, and he doesn’t know what lies underneath. William, in all his awkwardness and ingenuity, is himself through and through. He is a real person.
4. I don’t think this movie was about William, ultimately. I think William is a foil for the other characters, for Russell and Penny Lane, a point of contrast and comparison. He helps them discover themselves, or at least a little bit more about themselves, through his own discovery of who they are. William was always going to be okay—he is smart and he has a mother who cares about him and if he doesn't end up as a lawyer he will be a famous journalist. It was Russell and Penny Lane and the rest of the band members and bandaids who learned from William, grew from caring about a real person.
sorry this is Nell I am having computer issues
ReplyDelete1. I don’t know if her actions were justified but I think they can be understandable (except for her decision to ban rock music). She is definitely not too mellow, but I would guess that her crazy restrictions partly stem from being a single mother. I don’t think that’s all of it, but an individual’s parenting methods can differ depending on whether or not they have a partner. It’s harder to be a single parent because every decision is yours. I think that in William’s mother’s case, she was overly protective and strict and there wasn’t anyone there to sort of compliment her parenting style by having a more lax parenting method. Instead, she had sole control and say over what her children did. I think losing her daughter did loosen her up a bit because after her daughter left; she was more willing to give William a little more freedom. At the beginning of the movie, she wouldn’t let her children listen to rock n’ roll let alone allow William go to a rock concert and go on tour with a band. I think she lightened up because she saw what a tight grip did to her relationship with her daughter.
ReplyDelete3. Russell just about everyone on that tour are living with the goal of being cool and that takes away from them just living and being what comes naturally for them. William is living and has all of these quirks that are considered uncool, but he doesn’t really try to change them in order to be cool, he just lives. He’s fully aware that he is “uncool” and to a certain extent he wants to be cool but he doesn’t really do anything to attain “coolness” because that would mean changing himself or faking. Unlike William, the people on the tour, especially Jeff, actively strive to be cool and mysterious. Penny Lane pretends to not care about Russell or anything else and takes on a whole persona to look carefree. Jeff is so set on making the band cool that he doesn’t talk about any issues that he has with the band, mainly Russell, until he cant keep them in anymore. It seems like Jeff’s goal for the band is to make them look cool, which is why he refuses to give William a real story and why he calls him “the enemy”. This is clear when he looks up at the sky and says, “Is it really that hard to make us look cool” after finding out that William wrote everything he saw on the tour. Russell realizes that the band is becoming less and less about the music as the days go on and more about their appearance and reputation for being cool.
4. I think that whether or not William is cool doesn’t matter in the end. I think the point of the movie was echoed throughout, both seriously and ironically. To me, “it’s all happening” was kind of an homage to the early rock n’ roll, that according to Lester Bangs, is dead. It makes no sense in the lives of the people in the film but they say it because rock n’ roll was revolutionary and that was sort of the anthem. To a certain extent, the band was trying emulate the coolness and rebellious nature of early rock n’ roll through the “it’s all happening” mentality when in reality nothing was happening. I think the goal of the film was to show the ingenuity of the film characters and the world around them with the reference to early rock n’ roll serving as a comparison of genuineness . I think there was a resolution in the end because the band (especially Russell) and Penny Lane became themselves and a little more genuine.
Elaine's early parenting, when William was 11(or as he believed, 12), is overbearing and overprotective. She violently corrects him on his grammar, she censors her own language, she bans rock and anything with possible negative influences in the house, she lies to William about his age so that he would not complain about being two grades ahead, and she develops a bird call so whenever he isn't on a tight leash around the house, he knows when it's time to fly back to mama hen. The fears she may have as a widowed mother having to bring up two children in a world she perceives as decadent and corrupting are understandable, acting on them in a way that stunts her children's social life is not. Elaine's later parenting, when William is on tour with Stillwater, however, is justified in my eyes. Leaving a fifteen year-old boy alone for the first time with a rock band could go wrong in so many ways. It would have been perfectly reasonable for her to deny the request. I saw her action as one of incredible leniency considering her precedented actions. So when she calls Russel and the hotel receptionist and berates them over the safety of her son, I see nothing wrong, she's just looking after her son.
ReplyDeleteEverybody around Russel seems to be putting on a front: Penny Lane hides her real identity, Jeff wants to look cool and be the center of attention, multiple people have slept with Russel's wife, and the record company seems determined to commercialize them. So when William comes around, a fifteen year old boy whose only agenda is to get interviews and have fun listening and being with the band, Russel gravitates towards his frankness and lack of toxicity. In addition, William enjoys rock for the music, not for the fame or fortune, which resonates with Russel, evidenced by his “last words” of “I dig music.” This also explains why he is so easily convinced to go to a fan's party, the fan likes him for his music.
I thought the point of the movie, if there was a point to it, was that you should care about people that care about you because no matter what you do, you'll always be cool in their eyes if you keep caring for them. William's whole dramatic confrontation with the rest of the band about Penny Lane and how she had the the band's biggest fan exemplifies this theme: she cares for the band, but the band leaves her, so she ditches Russel and leaves for Morocco. This also explains why William's sister makes up with her mom; she realizes it would be uncool for her to not show appreciation and affection for all the love and care her mother gave her. Ultimately, the matter of cool or not cool is a moot point, the only thing that matters is love.
2. I suppose I think they mean they’ve sort of made it. As is, they no longer have to work as hard as before, and they can just sort of bask in their success, and in that they ultimately fail because the second you stop trying to be better and improve yourself, that’s when you cease to be truly great. Adulthood isn’t something that just happens. You don’t just wake up on your eighteenth birthday and become an adult. You have to continuously work at bettering yourself and figuring out who you are. While everything may be “happening” now, that doesn’t mean it’ll continue in the future, and I think that’s where they go wrong.
ReplyDelete3. I agree with both Emma and Mira, but to add on, I think the “realness” Russel is looking for has a lot to do with his and the band’s struggle to stay true to the music they’ve dedicated their lives to. We see Russel pick appearance over passion and substance over and over again with Penny and at the end with his denial of William’s story. The realness he’s looking for is not something hidden behind the shiny exterior of glitz, glam, and rock’n’roll that surround him; it’s within himself, and by that means, within reach. He with never find truth in the world around him if he cannot first determine the truth about himself, whether that truth be his love for Penny or his love of music for music’s sake. To Russel, William exemplifies this truth by being completely transparent. William loves Penny and everyone knows, but more than that, William loves music and he knows why. He knows himself and can therefore discern what is real from what is an illusion. He makes it out of Russel’s world and manages to go home. Like Dorothy, the power to go home or to live in the real world is entirely within our own capabilities, and at the end, Russel finally realizes that.
4. This felt like a coming of age story to me, just as everyone else has said, and I think what made it especially powerful was that as opposed to the old teaching the young about the world, it was a story of a young boy who strong and innocent sense of right and wrong had yet to be muddled by the temptations of the adult world teaching grown-ups about what really matters. While Russel is a really clear example of this, I think an even more powerful one is that of William’s mother. Elaine has to learn to compromise, and I think that’s one of the most mature things a person can learn to do, and also one of the hardest.
1. I think that Elaine loves her family a lot, so she clings to her children as tightly as she can, especially after she lost her husband. Like Mrs. Bridge, I think that her intentions as a parent are in the right place – mainly she wants to protect her children, but my guess is that she wants this out of love and not out of a need to control their lives. I think her desire to keep her children close to her all the time led to her restricting them so much so that their happiness was compromised (though I don’t think this was her intention), like her banning of her daughter’s music from the house. I think that she doesn’t want to lose her children, but how much she clings to them drives her daughter, especially, away. But I think, as a contrast to Mrs. Bridge, she’s not afraid to be different and to stand up for what she believes in. She encourages her children to think and to use their smarts to their advantage.
ReplyDelete1. I think Russell wants real relationships with people. Maybe, after spending so much time with William and observing his innocence and how different his life is, he’s wondering how different his own life could be. I think the animosity between him and his lead singer is on his mind when he’s talking to William, and I think he may be wondering how ‘real’ his love for the band is. How can it survive with that type of bitterness between its two key members? I think that Russell may also be thinking about drugs in this scene. Connecting with people when they’re high or drunk may diminish some of the “realness”, because you’re interacting with someone in an altered state of mind, and I think all of the people on tour are regularly high. Maybe Russell misses interacting with people in what he may consider a more honest and sincere environment, especially after William opens up to him about his family.
2. I think a lot of this movie has to do with learning how to be and accept yourself. Being yourself isn’t about other people, ultimately. It’s about you and what you want out of your own life and what you want for yourself, although of course interactions with other people along the way matter. One thing that I thought was really important about William was that I never thought he was traveling with this band to be cool (when I’m sure a lot of other teenagers would kill for an opportunity like William’s, simply to seem cool). He did it for himself and for his writing. And a lot of characters in this movie have to discover themselves and, I think just as importantly, accept themselves. Penny decides to go to Morocco. Jeff Bebe realizes that he can’t be Russell, and how this could possibly be good for him. Anita never seems to be the person that her mother wants her to be, right from the start of the movie.
1. Elaine might have been out of touch with the world that her kids were growing up in, but I think that the movie made it clear that she was a good parent or at least better than the parents of Penny and the other Band-Aids. She loved her kids so much, even when they disobeyed her, and she let them follow their dreams even when they didn’t align with her ideas of what they should be doing with their lives. What we know of the other characters in the movie’s parents was really disconcerting. They seemed even farther from being able to understand their kids than Elaine, and their lack of good parenting was probably one of the main reasons the Band-Aids ended up caught in the system they ended up getting caught in.
ReplyDelete3. For the characters William travels the country with, being cool is essential and it is worth sacrificing almost everything for. When the characters sacrifice uncool parts of their identity to get cooler, they begin to become less and less real. The bandmembers, or at least Russell and Jeff, seem to have lost touch of what really matters to them besides wanting the band and themselves to achieve success. And they think that they must look and act cool to achieve success as a band and they might be right about that. William also wants to be cool but he is more unwilling to sacrifice the parts of himself that make him uncool which makes him more real. Maybe what keeps him real is a knowledge that exists maybe in his subconscious that he will never be cool no matter how hard he tries so it isn’t worth giving up any part of himself. I think real and cool are opposites in this movie.
4. This movie is about facing the real world and acknowledging your real self. For William, leaving home to go on tour with Stillwater, is his introduction to the real world. He sees that the people he looks up to most in life either have major flaws, are insecure, or are complete assholes. He sees that the life of this band is a carefully crafted image that must be preserved if the success of the band is to continue. I loved the scene where Russell was talking to Elaine because it showed that Russell could jolted back to something resembling an obedient child when someone ignored his stardom. Throughout the movie Russell began to see himself more and more clearly for the person he was, not just as the cool guitarist from Stillwater. He realized that he had compromised all of his morals and this realization, and his subsequent decision to tell Rolling Stone that everything William wrote was true, lead to Elaine saying “there’s hope for you yet.” Penny eventually acknowledged that she was being used and ended up breaking away from the life she had fallen into.
1) I think her behavior was too extreme. Of course she had good intentions and wanted what's best for her son, but her behavior was still too extreme. My problem with William’s mother is similar to the problems we had with Mrs. Bridge – she makes almost zero attempt to connect and/or understand William, his interest, or the world he's living in. Would it have been so hard for her to pick up a few cd’s and listen to them, or at least acknowledge that there's maybe something in the music that her children like? When she says “Don't take Drugs,” does she even know what drugs she's talking about. Does she know the difference between weed, acid, and opiates and the actual risks associated with all of them? With such a strong stance against the, you'd think she at least know what drugs are. She wants to live through her children, forcing them in to career paths and condemning anything that strays from her ideal vision of how he children should live. Like Mrs. Bridge, she expected them to be just like her.
ReplyDelete2) The “all” in “in its all happening” refers to everything they had pictured would come with the rock and role lifestyle. And when they say “all,” they really mean everything is happening. The phrase is used so many different ways. It refers to drugs, sex, the tour bus, backstage parties, hotel parties, meeting famous people, even moving to England. I think the phrase is trying to highlight just how crazy the rock and roll world is, and how many different paths it can take you down. It's vague on purpose. They never specify what the “all” is because you never know what's going to happen with this kind of lifestyle. One day you're supposed to leave in a Greenville, the next day you're in Ohio. One moment you're performing, the next your hand gets electrocuted. One moment you're having a fight with your band, the next you're about to jump off a roof into a dirty pool screaming you're a golden god. Rock and Roll is unpredictable, and that phrase perfectly captures this.
3) (Number 4) First I want to say, I think this movie and its themes/messages are very simple and straightforward, and that the movie prides itself in that and owns it. I think it Kay's everything it wants to say out on the table. Nothing his hidden. When the movie wants to make a point, it's blatantly obvious. Like, a William’s mother is an intellectual who is pushing her child to a life of law rather than following his own passion? That has to be the most cliché thing there is, but it gets the point across clearly. Now to actually answer the question. I agree with what everyone has already said, but I think there's another point the movie was trying to make. We see these characters make A LOT of mistakes. Even that is an understatement. But in the end, we see everything is perfectly fine and all of the conflicts are resolved. William and Russel have a nice little chat, William’s sister returns home and they all have a nice dinner, and Penny is staying in that cute blue house. So I think this was trying to tell us to make those mistakes – all of them. Even the really bad ones. Just follow your dreams, and be stupid. If you make mistakes following what you believe, in the end everything will work out. It may cause you pain along the way, but at the end you'll at least have learned something and will be a better person because of it.
1. William's mom has one of the most extreme and bizarre parenting styles I have ever seen. She simultaneously tries to force William to grow up and go through school more quickly and can't imagine him leaving. She is certainly a force to be reckoned with. To some degree i think this is a lovingly exaggerated caricature of Cameron Crowe's mother (though I don't know anything about her), but there are other reasons for her methods. She is used to being in a position of absolute power in the classroom, and faced with raising two children alone, emphasizes academics and is intolerant of disruption. Though this character clearly is larger than life and sometimes misguided, she demonstrates the intensity of a mother's love in a movie where few characters show intense devotion to anything in particular.
ReplyDelete2. The concerts and backstage life of the 1970s are some of the most overstimulating settings possible. So much is happening all the time. Lights, sounds, sex, and drugs are almost constantly present. But as we see in Russell's desire for realness, something's missing. At the end of each stop on tour, they need more; they live in the present in hopes that it will kep them satisfied. They keep saying "it's all happening" to tell themselves that this is what they want. As long as they say that "it's all happening" there is no future and need for thoughts of the future.
4. Throughout the movie the band members focus on temporary pleasures, including the fame and external validation of the concerts. From early in the movie we know that this fame won't last, the stars change, and Stillwater will age. In the end, characters learn to focus on more permanent things. William's family makes up and reconnects, Penny goes someplace for herself, rather than to be close to someone else, and Russell owns up to what he did, and admits to his love for music. They stop trying the same things over and over again and, even if they aren't doing the right thing, they are doing something new. "Cool" is temporary, and the things worth focusing on last much longer.
1. Ultimately, I think Elaine's parenting is justified. I know I'm supposed to say that she suffocated her children, but I feel like upon further examination of the film there are clear reasons for her actions. I think the main thing to acknowledge is that Almost Famous is not solely about William, his family, and Stillwater. While they encompass the main characters, Crowe clearly intends for William's odyssey to be a microcosm of society; "it's all happening" is Crowe's expression that Almost Famous is only a part of a larger movement. Societal conflicts such as the musicians' struggle between making money and staying true to their roots are clearly exemplified. Maybe Crowe wasn't trying to go fully Marxist, but I definitely saw a critique of unbridled capitalism. I'm making this point not just for the hell of it, but to put it in the context of Elaine's parenting choices. The Millers celebrate Christmas on a day in September not just so Elaine can express her will, but to have it on a day when it "can't be commercialized." She puts William ahead not to meet her own agenda, but because she thinks adolescence "is a marketing tool." She protests William's tour not just so she can control him, but because she knows they are taking advantage of him, hoping "he will make [them] rich." We definitely see Stillwater succumbing to greed -- in fact we see the whole world succumb to capitalist greed and excess; the results of which are the usage of the bandaids, the sacrifice of William's reputation, and almost Penny Lane herself to name a few. Even if Crowe is not strictly critiquing capitalism, labeling these events the results of societal excess results in the same conclusion: that William's mother, as an academic, is fighting not just for her own persona and her feeling of self-worth, but for her children -- her harshness being a form of protection. And, in the long run, she is correct. She knows about the band succumbing to greed, she can see the damage that drugs will do or just running away as a stewardess, and she tries to stop her children from falling into that trap. Ultimately, she fails (society is all powerful, as always) but I don't think that should detract from the massive sacrifice she made to fight so hard for her children. I think that part of her "controlling" nature might come from having things taken from her, but to focus on that would ignore her true fight. Furthermore, it is a subtle form of sexism; the belief that a woman's identity could never be formed on her academic career and philosophical beliefs and they have to be contingent upon family -- or ultimately, the man that she lost.
ReplyDelete2. Ultimately, the declaration that "its all happening" gives lost and isolated characters meaning. We see how desolate the life of a rock star, a bandaid, or even William can be. While they have periods of happiness, they also suffer -- and they suffer a whole lot. The singer constantly feels insecure about his role as second to Russell, Russell feels so trapped he has a hard time calling his world, except William, real, Penny Lane is constantly used by Russell and cannot escape from a constant cycle of love and betrayal, and Polexia gets manipulated and sold. While characters drink and do drugs to siphon away their pain, I think there is a latent realization that what they are doing is not only meaningless, but painful. "It's all happening" is a way to rationalize their existence and position themselves as not just some random band, but part of a canon, a greater whole, a piece of history. "It's all happening" reminds them that even though they can sometimes be miserable, people still idolize them and thus their struggle is worthwhile. "It's all happening" buys into American mythology and ignores serious problems with rock and roll culture.
ReplyDelete4. I don't think it matters if William is "uncool" or not. Ultimately, while William is the main character I'm not even sure if the movie is about him. When he arrives back at his house at the end of the movie, he is, besides aging, not very changed besides his newfound disillusionment with rock and roll culture. William's main function, ultimately, was to have his boyish innocence touch and change other adult characters. William helps Russell see that some things are worth more than money, and that fame and charm cannot fix everything. He helps Penny Lane see that she will never escape to Morocco as long as she remains attached to Russell. I think Penny and Russell engage in the most character development of the movie. Penny finally escapes her life and Russell regains integrity, showing that there is hope in this sad, sad world.
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