The long and the short of it is, I own well over 300 movies on DVD and Blu-ray (I’ll know for sure how many at the end of this project). Until June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.
Movie #12: Almost Famous
I have a theory that someone could base an entire masters thesis on the use of music cues in Cameron Crowe films. Having been not only a music aficionado but a professional music journalist at 15, he knows better than any other director the exact right song to evoke the exact right emotion or make the exact right statement at the exact right time. Pick any Cameron Crowe movie and one of the most iconic scenes therein will feature such a song — Say Anything… with “In Your Eyes,” Jerry Maguire with “Free Fallin’,” and Almost Famous with “Tiny Dancer,” are perhaps the top three. He uses these songs very deliberately, with specific intent. Each one meant to convey something vital and meaningful to each film. With Almost Famous, the song is a tension breaker after an especially volatile night of infighting and defection within Stillwater, the band our hero William Miller (Patrick Fugit) is there to interview, but it’s not only that. It speaks to the power of music, to the ability of a song to bring people together, of the community one feels among people who share your love for something. When William stops singing along to tell Penny (Kate Hudson) he has to go home, she tells him what we’re all feeling: “You are home.”
That this movie is autobiographical — Crowe himself spent three weeks at age 16 covering The Allman Brothers Band for a Rolling Stone cover story — almost makes it more fantastical and harder to believe, while still giving it additional heft as a story, particularly with regard to William’s mother Elaine, played with a perfect balance of anxiety and love by Frances McDormand. While both she and Hudson were nominated for Oscars in the Best Supporting Actress category for the film, McDormand’s fussy portrayal of Elaine tended to be overshadowed by the bright shining light of Hudson’s Penny Lane, which is a shame. Despite being at times unreasonable and often out of touch, Elaine is actually the solid center of an otherwise chaotic space. She gives William the strong footing he needs to succeed in this maniacal business, and without her influence hovering both over and inside him throughout his journey, he easily could’ve gotten lost.
This, of course, does not diminish the strength and influence Penny Lane also has over William, over the band, and over all the events of the film. She is worldly beyond reason, often seeming much older and more experienced than she has any reason to be. She guides William, literally and spiritually, through the process of touring with a band and of loving — really loving, in your soul — their music. She’s all about the music. But she’s also all about Russell (Billy Crudup, looking preternaturally beautiful), and that’s really where her age betrays her. Because while she is wise, she is also young and vulnerable and in love with a man she can’t keep. The range in Kate Hudson’s eyes, from the tight shot that cuts from hers to William’s as he’s about to be “deflowered” by the other girls, to the little-girl-lost pain in her tears when she asks why Russell doesn’t love her, to the dawning recall of the memory of the things William said and did when she was overdosing on quaaludes, is really a thing of beauty — especially the deflowering scene, as she realizes the stark longing William has that she join them, that the only one he wants to be with is her, and with only her eyes in frame her expression goes from playful to knowing to just a sliver of sadness. It gets me every time.
Then there’s William’s mentor, Lester Bangs, played by the late and brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman, who says as much in his pauses as he does in his dialogue. Although Lester was a real person, here I like to think of him as a mouthpiece for Crowe — not Crowe as he was at 16, because that’s Patrick Fugit’s job, but Crowe as an adult, giving advice to his former self, as we all wish we could do at times, to be true to himself, to the music, and to the story, and to not be a slave to “the industry of cool.”
“Music, you know, true music — not just rock ‘n roll — it chooses you.”
“You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful.”
“I’m always home. I’m uncool!” I can relate. If only I’d known it was okay to be uncool when I was 15.
Viable Option 