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| John Travolta |
Welcome to Alternative to What: a weekly column that tries to find a great alternative to driving to the multiplexes. Based on releases of that week, the selections will either be thematically related or feature recurring cast and crew. The goal is to help you better understand the diversity of cinema and hopefully find you some favorites while saving a few bucks. At worse, this column will save you money. Expect each installment to come out on Fridays, unless specified.
THIS WEEK:
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
- Alternative To -
- Alternative To -
We Are Your Friends (2015)
There's very little more odd than making a movie about wanting to make it in the music industry. It isn't that music isn't important. It's just that the medium may be one of the most scattered formats out there. It's impossible to make an honest living, especially when record sales have to compete with YouTube's free playing of every song. There's too much at stake and the idea of making it isn't as sweet as it once was. In fact, the choice to try and make it as an EDM artist is even more difficult, especially as it requires no talent beyond pressing a few buttons. So, what exactly is the appeal of We Are Your Friends? It's about a man whose life is built to record sounds and play them on a computer. If that's any sign of the increasingly lack of monetizing in music, then nothing is.
But there's another film about another music fad and the dream of the young stars out there. It's Saturday Night Fever. The film has had the odd reputation in the decades following its release about being a glorification of the disco culture. True, it does have John Travolta dancing to the Bee Gees-centric soundtrack. It does have some iconic dancing and outfits. Yet, the film is so much more. For all of its accentuation of the disco culture, it is also a darker and more complicated story about coming of age and setting aside petty jealousy in favor of responsibility. Don't believe me? Well, then you didn't see the movie.
In actuality, Saturday Night Fever may be one of the strangest films to go back and discover. If you know the old Travolta from Grease, there's a good chance that you think this is a lighthearted movie on par with that. It's far different. It is dark and actually has a lot of taboo subjects. There's brothers planning to join priesthoods, neglected girlfriends, and there's actually moments of rape. It all adds up for a gritty story full of crime connections and potential suicides that reflect something more dour about the culture at the time. For all of the upbeat songs, there's a lot of wallowing in despair. It may be fun to dance, but the rest is just as much of a struggle.
Then there's Travolta. It may be tough to really assess his career because he has come and gone so frequently. In his early days, he was especially ambitious, as evident here. He may be the cocky type that his character deserves, but he also has a sensitive side that unveils into the slow realization that life isn't as perfect as he thinks. For those wondering if Travolta ever made movies worth two cents, this would definitely be on the list. It's sort of tragic that his hammy roles later on changed the public's perception of him. However, he is sincere, funny, and just magnetic as a screen presence. All he has to do is walk in the opening credits and you know that he has style. It is a role that would define his career until Pulp Fiction, and that isn't the insult that most accusing this of glorifying disco want to give it.
I don't know if We Are Your Friends will be halfway as perplexing as this film. I don't know if it will have characters with dark and tragic stories who escape their problems in dance. These are all things that could make the film better than it looks. However, there's a certain passion to music that has slowly been lost. Maybe both are about gathering and dancing, but the use of the DJ has changed immensely. Where it used to be to rile up the crowd, it is now to press buttons. Nobody has moves like Travolta did, and that's a shame. This isn't to say that We Are Your Friends can't be good. I just think that it has a lot, like Saturday Night Fever, to do before you can understand that its substance is so much more.
But there's another film about another music fad and the dream of the young stars out there. It's Saturday Night Fever. The film has had the odd reputation in the decades following its release about being a glorification of the disco culture. True, it does have John Travolta dancing to the Bee Gees-centric soundtrack. It does have some iconic dancing and outfits. Yet, the film is so much more. For all of its accentuation of the disco culture, it is also a darker and more complicated story about coming of age and setting aside petty jealousy in favor of responsibility. Don't believe me? Well, then you didn't see the movie.
In actuality, Saturday Night Fever may be one of the strangest films to go back and discover. If you know the old Travolta from Grease, there's a good chance that you think this is a lighthearted movie on par with that. It's far different. It is dark and actually has a lot of taboo subjects. There's brothers planning to join priesthoods, neglected girlfriends, and there's actually moments of rape. It all adds up for a gritty story full of crime connections and potential suicides that reflect something more dour about the culture at the time. For all of the upbeat songs, there's a lot of wallowing in despair. It may be fun to dance, but the rest is just as much of a struggle.
I don't know if We Are Your Friends will be halfway as perplexing as this film. I don't know if it will have characters with dark and tragic stories who escape their problems in dance. These are all things that could make the film better than it looks. However, there's a certain passion to music that has slowly been lost. Maybe both are about gathering and dancing, but the use of the DJ has changed immensely. Where it used to be to rile up the crowd, it is now to press buttons. Nobody has moves like Travolta did, and that's a shame. This isn't to say that We Are Your Friends can't be good. I just think that it has a lot, like Saturday Night Fever, to do before you can understand that its substance is so much more.
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