The New Hollywood era is largely considered a contradictory period in cinematograph. Indeed, it was the time when the talents of many directors were reconsidered for the sake of the growing demands of film industry. Some were disregarded and neglected, others found their niche on the background of the emerging trends and genres. There also existed some directors, however, who managed to established their own view regarding filmmaking and fight back the seemingly unstoppable and insatiable manufactory of patterned movies. One of these directors was George Lucas, a true auteur who did his best in reconsidering the obsolete fashions and founding his unique way of introducing his art on the screen.
Indeed, the name of George Lucas appears among the first ones to recollect when analyzing the term "auteur". In point of fact, these are directors who have enough strength and will to resist the dominant tendencies in cinematograph, just like those that existed in the New Hollywood at that times (McCarthy, Patti J., 2014). What is more, an auteur also appear a director who manages to not only survive the prevailing fashion, but to preserve his own creative style and way of representing his art before audience.
In fact, Lucas hated Hollywood studios just as much as any another auteur of the New Hollywood era. Luke Coppola, Scorsese or Friedkin, Lucas dreamt of screening intelligent auteur cinema (McCarthy, Patti J., 2014). With that, he grew up in times difficult for the U.S.: the murder of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, the constant rivalry with the Soviets that was about to develop into war. As well as Spielberg, he was not an active pacifist or hippie and was never interested in politics. Nonetheless, all the events that took place in the country undoubtedly affect his early work.
Lucas' full-length debut THX-1138 is a cold mental dystopia, which in itself is the reflection of the fears that permeated the American society of that time. The history of a person named THX-1138 who rebels against the totalitarian society headed by computers in the distant 25th century. Unlike the future Star Wars trilogy and all subsequent Lucas' films, this movie was screened in a very gloomy and pessimistic style, which was peculiar for the New Hollywood of the 70s. Smart science fiction always failed at the box office, and THX-1138 was no exception. Besides, during his work on the film, the auteur became completely disappointed with the work with studios: before the very rental, Warner Bros. remounted the film and released in on the screen without informing the auteur. Later on, after the fiasco of the gloomy THX-1138, Lucas decided to film something life-affirming - a film that would be quite different from everything that was produced by Hollywood at that time.
This picture was represented by American Graffiti. The history about several young people living in a small American town and getting ready to come to a full-fledged life was borrowed by Lucas from his own childhood. As stated by the auteur, he decided to screen a film about his generation; not about the hardships of people, but about the fact that there is still hope for something better. Without Coppola, the director of Godfather, there would not be American Graffiti and subsequent Star Wars, since it was he who provided Lucas with a million dollars to screen the film (McCarthy, Patti J., 2014) (Taylor 29-45). After the resounding success of American Graffiti that gathered more than $50 million, the young auteur became independent of studio bosses. It was the period of American Graffiti that shaped the Lucas we know today - a prudent, mercantile director who thinks not only about the quality of his films, but also about the profit they will bring.
Furthermore, it was American Graffiti - the film depicting the everyday life of teenagers that greatly contributed to the establishment of the canons of this genre - that made Lucas a famous director (Taylor 29-45). Unexpectedly becoming a hit for everyone, American Graffiti provided Lucas with not only world-wide prominence, but also with the contract for a new motion picture. As a result, the auteur was granted with $10 million and made a film that would later become one of the most famous ones in the world.
After the financial failure of THX-1138 depicting the history of a fictional and idealistically functioning underground city, Lucas was frustrated and depressed. As a result, his next picture described a history that stood far from fiction. Instead, Lucas decided to make a retro-comedy by transferring the action 10 years before the actual time of filmmaking.
Early fall of 1962, a small town north of San Francisco, where all the events happen during one night on the eve of the planned departure of two protagonists. For the most part, this autobiographic film is dedicated to the frenetic affection of Americans for automobiles: almost half of the plot development takes place in cars, whereupon the main events represent an extravaganza of cars circling around the town and the glittering chrome covering in the neon light of night streets.
Car riding becomes somewhat a major life ritual for the teenagers, since it helps them to divert themselves from suburban boredom and closer the dream of escaping from this reality into the big world. However, only one hero finds strengths to leave his native town: even the dreams about a blond stranger cannot prevent him from doing this. On the contrary, another guy, a nice class monitor, prefers staying home, since at the very last moment he realizes he cannot abandon his girlfriend.
Unlike the Star Wars trilogy, American Graffiti is devoted to the perpetually topical issue, especially for teenagers thinking over their lives, that is, the inner conflict between conformism and the desire to liberate oneself from time and places. The establishment of a sad nostalgic mood and the feeling of an ended era is further contributed by songs that fill the entire background, even if to clarify that the majority of those hits had already gone out of fashion by the beginning of the 1960s (Carroll 76-84).
What is more, for the roles of the teenagers, 28-year-old Lucas invited people who were practically his coevals: Paul Le Mat was 26, Richard Dreyfuss was 25. The youngest person here was 18-year-old Ron Howard, the Hollywood star-to-be who would make his debut in big movies only after 5 years. Harrison Ford, however, became somewhat overshadowed on the background of the central quartet. Here, in American Graffiti, it appears hard to recognize the superstar-to-be, though Lucas managed to do it and made him one of the main actors in the subsequent Star Wars trilogy (Taylor 29-45).
Having screen a movie about cultural changes that took place in America at the crossing of the 1950-60s, Lucas found himself in the epicenter of public expectations. The feeling of triumph pleased his to a far greater extent than the frustrating mood that chased him of the failure of THX-1138. Moreover, American Graffiti even encouraged the auteur to become an Oscar nominee, though eventually he had to concede it to George Roy Hill with his retro-comedy "The Sting".
Besides, the financial success of American Graffiti was enormous indeed: even the bravest expectations were surpassed. American Graffiti truly provided Lucas with the crucial financing for his subsequent plans, thus making the film one of the most profitable ones in the New Hollywood history. Hence, Lucas quickly became a millionaire, which meant that from now on he had no financial problems. Studio bosses willingly provided him with unlimited credits, since they quickly understood that the auteur had the scent of success.
American Graffiti proved that Lucas indeed was the quickest in terms of getting into the narrow zone of consensus, and he knew best how to implement the topical issues on the screen, not speaking about his feeling of modernity that would prove useful throughout his entire career. Indeed, this period was marked with the news about the emergence of the newest computer technology of electronic monitoring that enabled directors to make an unexpected number of cinematic combinations. Hence, Lucas became one of the pioneers of the emerging technology, which was followed by the beginning of the new era, the Star Wars era.
Similarly to the way he created the plot of American Graffiti, Lucas also seemed to be resorting to his childhood memories when creating Star Wars. However, the auteur did not limit himself with mere nostalgia for the comics of his childhood. With a careful examination, Star Wars appears one of the most inter-contextually saturated blockbusters of all time: among the sources of inspiration for Lucas was not only the Wizard of Oz, with C-3PO and R2-D2 representing an evident allusion to the images of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, but also Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress (Guillemin, 48-54) (Brode, Deyneka 96-97). Indeed, it was no mere coincidence that Lucas wanted Toshiro Mifune to play Obi-Wan (Barber 2016).
What is more, the very term "jedi" also comes from Japan: a year before the Star Wars creation, Lucas visited Japan and watched a samurai series called "Jidaigeki". As a result, this word pleased the auteur so much he decided to endow his space knights with this title. Furthermore, Yoda's name is translated from Sanskrit as "warrior".
Therefore, unlike the patriotic and juvenile character of American Graffiti, Lucas seems to resort to the traditions and notions held throughout the world in order to represent Star Wars as a polyhedral and multi-faceted universe that would appeal to any human-being on our planet. Of course, the Eastern influence were not accidental: Lucas was also the son of the 60s in his own way, since he introduced Eastern esoterism and Buddhistic paradoxicality to the Western youth. The final of the New Hope when Luke strikes the Death Star with his eyes closed appear a primitive adaptation of the Zen principles regarding the cosmic world of the distant future. The essence of the Force also seems to bear the evident Eastern roots, where Darth Vader appears on the dark side, with Luke and Obi-Ward standing on the light one. What is more, Lucas strongly resorted to the mythological works of Joseph Campbell, which is clearly perceived during the analysis of the universe (Kapell, Shelton 66-69).
One the whole, both American Graffiti and Star Wars appear similar it terms of Lucas' adaptation of the film to the universal audience. Indeed, the plot of American Graffiti is likely to find approval of people of different age, mainly because its nostalgic character and the essential spirit of American freedom, which was further expanded by Lucas in Star Wars (Carroll 76-84). What is more, a well-chosen story also appeared a crucial point in the success of both the films: since many children of the end of the 70s were one from divorced families, their views acquired new colors while watching Star Wars. Looking at the adventures of Luke Skywalker who grew up without a father and found a proper replacement in the face of Obi-Wan Kenobi, many boys strongly associated the film with their own lives.
What is of the most importance, however, is that on the examples of American Graffiti and Star Wars the auteur demonstrated that the destiny of a film does not end with theatrical release. Hence, Star Wars became to starting point for the foundation of an entire universe, which included toys, books, videogames, and many other things. In other words, the space opera of George Lucas became the first film that entered adjacent media spheres. In its turn, it was American Graffiti that supported the right of Lucas of how a film for the universal audience should look like.
Works Cited
Barber, Nicholas. "The Film Star Wars Stole From." BBC. 4 Jan. 2016. Web. 1 Mar. 2016. <http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160104-the-film-star-wars-stole-from>.
Brode, Douglas, and Leah Deyneka. Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2012. 96-97. Print.
Carroll, Michael Thomas. Popular Modernity in America: Experience, Technology, Mythohistory. Albany: State U of New York, 2000. 76-84. Print.
Guillemin, Jeanne. Anthropological Realities: Readings in the Science of Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1981. 48-54. Print.
Kapell, Matthew, and John Shelton. Lawrence. Finding the Force of the Star Wars Franchise: Fans, Merchandise, & Critics. New York: P. Lang, 2006. 66-69. Print.
McCarthy, Patti J. The Lucas Effect: George Lucas and the New Hollywood. Teneo, 2014. Print.
Taylor, Chris. How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise. Basic, 2015 29-45. Print.
