Register  |  Sign In
View unanswered posts | View active topics It is currently Fri Apr 26, 2024 12:16 pm



Reply to topic  [ 2 posts ] 
 Saturday Night Fever 

Rate this film:
A 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
B 100%  100%  [ 1 ]
C 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
D 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
F 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 1

 Saturday Night Fever 
Author Message
KJ's Leading Idiot

Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 8:15 pm
Posts: 36923
Post Saturday Night Fever
Image
Quote:
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood. It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man from Brooklyn who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local discothèque while dealing with social tensions and general restlessness and disillusionment with his life, and feeling directionless and trapped in his working-class neighborhood. The story is based upon "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", an article by music writer Nik Cohn, first published in a June 1976 issue of New York magazine. The film features music by Bee Gees and many other prominent artists of the disco era.

Saturday Night Fever was a huge commercial success and had a tremendous effect on popular culture of the late 1970s. The film helped significantly to popularize disco music around the world and made Travolta, who was already well known from his role on TV's Welcome Back, Kotter, a household name. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, becoming the fifth-youngest nominee in the category. The film showcased aspects of the music, the dancing, and the subculture surrounding the disco era: symphony-orchestrated melodies; haute couture styles of clothing; pre-AIDS sexual promiscuity; and graceful choreography. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, featuring disco songs by the Bee Gees, is one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time. John Travolta reprised his role of Tony Manero in Staying Alive in 1983, which was panned by critics despite being successful at the box office.

In 2010, Saturday Night Fever was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.


Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:14 pm
Profile
The Kramer
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2004 11:36 am
Posts: 23779
Location: Classified
Post Re: Saturday Night Fever
This movie has ... a lot of problematic things in it. Yet ... I feel like 70s cinema was best at capturing the lives of assholes like this while never glorifying them. Travolta is the best on the dance floor, but it is just an escape from a life that he sometimes hates and sometimes sleepwalks through. Disco might as well be heroin. It's interesting to watch his journey from total dick to "not the worst" as a new girlfriend makes him feel bad about things like rape and racism (two things that his group of friends Loves.) Of course when there's one step forward (giving the trophy to the Puerto Ricans) there's another step sideways, or full backwards (blaming the girl in the backseat for being raped.) That last car scene was very uncomfortable though, just terrible people doing terrible things. And then the one guy who didn't rape anyone that night is the one who dies? Come on, where is the justice in this world? I guess it doesn't exist. Travolta is forgiven from his almost-rape, swears to get away his toxic life, but what comes next then? I think if they had cut from the end of the club scene to Travolta apologozing about having a near mental breakdown (instead of a near rape) the movie would have aged so much better.

As is, even with all these extremely troubling aspects, I can't say that I disliked it. It's a compelling world to fall into for a few hours and the soundtrack is dynamite. Let's go B-


Fri Jul 16, 2021 11:40 am
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Reply to topic   [ 2 posts ] 

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 168 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by STSoftware for PTF.