On June 20, 1975, two cinematic movements were born on the fins of one mighty fish.
The latter was, of course, a great white shark, and the first movement was the blockbuster invention. Some would argue that it happened three years earlier with the godfatherBut the majority opinion still holds for jaws. And if Spielberg’s maritime thriller Release the hingesGeorge Lucas blew the doors off two years later with Star Wars.
It’s a legendary start to a fascinating story, but one that has already been skillfully told elsewhere. Look no further than Tom Shawn’s excellent book Blockbuster Witness the first three decades of big budget filmmaking.
Still, what about this second chapter? It refers to a change less bombastic than the first, but just as resounding in its cultural impact. But to trace its roots, we have to go back in time, to November 22, 1963.
It has been said that the assassination of JFK, and the subsequent Warren Commission report—and ultimately a lack of trust—marked the beginning of the moment when Americans stopped implicitly trusting their government. De facto The start of the Vietnam War less than two years later did little to soften the national mood. Not even 1968, which only saw, among other tragedies, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. Then came Watergate, in 1972, to cap it all.
Since these are only the high points, the average citizen can be excused for seeing this period as a decade of decline.
However, out of immense pressure, sparkling diamonds are created. In fact, the period between 1967-1974 was seen as something of Hollywood’s second golden age. And with good reason. This fickle stretch gave us Bonnie and Clyde, the adult, 2001: A Space Odysseythe first two godparents and China townjust to mention a few.
Like the music of this era, the films can hardly be accused of being shallow. However, beyond the Oscar lights and critical acclaim came one inevitable result: not too many people walked out of the theater with a smile on their face.
They didn’t make people jaws, or But then, they won’t. This is not how hope begins. Before you can look up, you have to look forward. Johnny Cash¹ and Neil Diamond² each sang about this phenomenon; Winston Churchill immortalized it with the words, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
What does all this have to do with a man-eating shark? jaws It may have been a horror film, but it scared its audience differently than its predecessors The Exorcist or night of the living dead. The first time, there was No It’s time to wallow in the dark. Unlike its main character, the film itself didn’t drag you down.
After a show of jaws, you were more likely to catch your breath than hang your head. For in the horror of the film there was also an elation that had not existed before. Shawn emphasizes this feeling while conveying the film’s communal appeal:
the godfather…was basically a study in collective isolation; You watched it alone, no matter how full the theater was, and left the theater eyeing your fellow moviegoers with new uneasiness, unsure if you’d ever want to share a theater with them again. but jaws Unite his audience with a common goal – a shared reluctance to be served as lunch – and head out to high-five the three hundred new best friends you’ve barely avoided death with. And then you came back the next day to avoid it again… you watched jaws Again for the same reason people go back to thrill rides, or keep bungee jumping.³
Clearly a corner has been turned. But the destination was still a mystery.
An important clue was revealed on Oscar night, 1977. In one corner sat the favorite of the best movie, All the president’s people. Besides being an excellent film, it perfectly encapsulated – this time in a literal way – the Watergate-fueled paranoia that conspiracy thrillers love The parallax display and Conversation Just a reflection. Like any other movie, All the president’s people was a celluloid icon of the last decade.
And then there was the other corner, which contained something completely different – and new. An underdog if there ever was one, he wore his blue-collar Philly roots like a badge of honor. And wouldn’t you know it, rocky you won
Was Stallone’s Nazi Legend a better movie All the president’s people? unlikely. But then, the Academy Awards are as often a popularity contest as they are seminal arbiters of cinematic excellence. And like America itself, Rocky Balboa Has taken his fair share of lumps lately. And yet he emerged – not only alive, but victorious.
A few months later this trend of cautious hope would become intergalactic. Star Wars Wasn’t the first checkout feeling good, but then again, things felt a little different this time. It was The first blockbuster to so seamlessly combine action and comedy. Forget about special effects – e tone of this film were almost non-existent before 1977. Sarcasm and adventure were not supposed to share the screen in such quantities.
Like a locomotive leaving the station, it took time for the trend to gain momentum. The lovers of Smokey and the Bandit and Superman Helped, until then The empire strikes back and Raiders of the Lost Ark Set records, the rest of Hollywood caught up. Soon it was ET and Tootsie Filling theaters, and the trend was no longer like that; It has become the norm.
Largely on their own, and certainly unintentionally, Spielberg and Lucas injected their industry with an infectious energy, a bright wonder that permeated and dispelled the thick cloud that had hung low over the previous decade.
Nevertheless, they had help, perhaps from one of the most unlikely sources. For Hollywood did not address the market with self-confidence. The surrounding culture also found its smile, thanks to a leader who happened to know a thing or two about movies.
Ask any number of people to name an ‘eighties movie’ and many will immediately turn to John Hughes. Indeed, the teenage maestro had a near monopoly on high school dramatics throughout the decade. However, lurking beneath the glamor of their zeitgeist-shaping popularity is the likelihood that they wouldn’t have worked in any other time.
Once upon a time the nineties rolled around, irreverent youth comedies, sometimes outdated like clueless and Mallrats constitute and reflect the cultural tone. The pack of brats would come out as total squares. and before? Well… just consider the adult.
When Dustin Hoffman rescues Kathryn Ross from the altar and they go on their public transportation vacation, the tone of the film quickly shifts from happy to serious. The couple’s faces fall before Simon and Garfunkel can even mention the voice of silence. And at once, we see it in their eyes: a great lack of purpose. They don’t know what they want, nor where to find it.
It just won’t fly in Hughes land. It’s not that his characters don’t face growing pains and identity crises – it’s that they always seem to grow out of them. Some cross the finish line with the goal in hand, others just peek at the goal. But the view is always clear. And if not for them, then the movie himself. For theirs is a sharply defined world where good and evil are black and white. It is a world of security.
None of this is of course related to John Hughes. It all basically leads back to Ronald Reagan.
Love him or hate him, as president he left his mark on the culture of the decade more than anyone else. Reagan was the eighties. And Hollywood was no exception.
During the Reagan administration, America experienced incredible military and economic growth. As a whole, the nation was finally able to shed the shame of Vietnam and, at least in its own mind, embrace the side of virtue in the Cold War. More than most heads of state, Reagan understood the role and power of being a cheerleader for his country. His entire presidential legacy can be summed up in two words: “can do.”
And yes, it flows to the end Sixteen candles and Beautiful in pink. But perhaps more illustrative examples are at the heart of the decade, and we can really call them the triumvirate of ’80s movies’.
The first two are Beverly Hills Cop and back to the Future, which deserve mention for similar reasons. Each was a huge hit brimming with exuberant inventiveness that seemed to set in stone the optimism that Spielberg and Lucas displayed in the original. If, in 1985, you managed to escape the theater without tapping your toes Mix it up or The power of loveYou must have been in the minority.
The third example is top gun, where Tom Cruise’s million-dollar smile shares top billing with America’s own hypersonic patriotism. To be sure, this film became one of the Navy’s best recruiting tools. But it also stood as a symbol of the country’s collective approach. Nothing demonstrates this fact better than a slightly different film, released six months earlier.
iron eagle was always going to be a poor man’s top gun. But their tone could hardly be more similar and their inspiration came from the same place. The former simply had the decency to say it bluntly. Case in point: Early iron eagle, amateur fighter pilot Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick) doubts the US military’s ability to rescue his father, an Air Force lieutenant colonel whose plane has just been shot down in North Africa. Doug mentions that this could be a glitch along the lines of the Iran hostage crisis a few years earlier. But his friend Reggie sets him straight:
Oh no, that was different. Mr. Button was in charge then. Now we have this guy in the Oval Office who doesn’t like non-small states. Why do you think they call him Ronnie Ray-Gun?⁴
These lines are transmitted, and received, with a straight face. No mean smile, no cheeky skepticism. Not for more than twenty years – and not since then – has popular culture placed such faith in its government. Whether it was a net positive or negative is in the eye of the beholder.
In the end, it all comes down to faith. This is what they were really about in the 1980s. A belief that right and wrong, that the difference between them is not that complicated, and that there is enough room for everyone in the same team, whether you were a Gonny or a grandfather.
This conservative conviction was born, ironically, from liberal minds. Spielberg and Lucas represented a West Coast worldview whose political distance from the Reagan White House mirrored its geographic separation. To say the least, they likely weren’t happy with the way their creativity seamlessly complemented Rawhide’s confidence.
And yet, many would say that this accidental bipartisanship led America from a darker world to a better one. At least on the silver screen.
¹ Get a beat
² The song is blue song
³ Shone, Blockbuster p. 37
⁴ Kevin Alders and Sidney J. Fury (screenplay), Iron Eagle, 1986
