Saturday Night Fever

viewed October 5, 1999 on video

For full information about this film, click here

Another of the recent movies I've seen whose theme happens to be questioning one's role in society.  After two decades, this movie works as well as it ever did, because it captured the spirit of its era, its environment and the people who struggled through the economically stagnant 70s.  Music pulses through the entire movie like blood; in the brilliant opening sequence you can look through Tony Manero's eyes and see the Bee Gees playing inside his head as he struts down the street in step to their beat.  Travolta dances through the entire movie; even when he's caught in an awkward situation, he takes it in stride.  As Tony, Travolta's whole acting job is being quick on his feet, always moving, while gradually figuring out that always moving isn't always moving forward.  

Of all the many things to say about this richly thematic movie, I'm most intrigued by how this film anticipates Reaganomics and the zealous young people who embraced it after growing up with bleak prospects.  Tony and Stephanie, with their hungry looks and raw manner, want it all and are ready for any opportunity to get it.  My favorite dialogue comes when the two have lunch in the cafe, and Stephanie lays on the high-class airs and name-dropping real thick.  Tony has to try real hard to keep up ("She wants a lemon with tea"; "Romeo and Juliet; that's by Shakespeare, right?"  "No, Zefferelli.  It's a movie"), and his bottomless charisma pulls him through.  For all of their combined ignorance, the two of them come off real sweet, like children playing grown-ups, their energy buoying their awkwardness. This energy mixed with ignorance and pretense is exactly what led to the 80s.  Compared to the energy mixed with cynicism of the 90s, the previous era seems a lot more fun. 

If it weren't for the zealous tunnel-vision towards an undefined horizon that Tony and Stephanie share, the content of the film would be completely nihilistic.  Looking at it from a couple of steps away from the dance floor, the movie is about knowing what you don't want and heading out for something you think is better.  Over the course of the film Tony abandons everything that comprised his life at the beginning: family, friends, work, even dancing.  All of them are dead-end situations beyond his control: he can't even lose the dance contest if he wanted to because it's on his turf.  Though some like Pauline Kael have been disappointed that he gives up what had best symbolized his spirit and talent, I think the film makes a point in having Tony ditch dancing: he's really putting his future on the line, giving up all things familiar in pursuit of the undiscovered.  Early in the film he expressed his need to find a release in something other than just dancing, and in the end, he finds it in Opportunity.  Everything that opposes Opportunity (family, friends, job security) has to go.  That's okay for Tony, because he, unlike his companions, is a survivor whose moves on the floor symbolize his agility in life, which, he wagers, outlasts his dancing.

The ending doesn't really tie up loose ends -- it seems that by the time Tony ends up at Stephanie's apartment the friends he's left behind are ready for him to put behind and for the audience to forget.  We finish with Tony and Stephanie going back and forth about the terms of their friendship, which will most certainly not remain a friendship for too long.  Even though they take several minutes trying to make the platonic nature of their relationship clear, it's obvious that between Tony's mischievous eyes and Stephanie's tough-gal front that these two will hit the sack in a matter of time, and then move on to other pursuits.  Their inarticulateness hasn't changed, and although Tony now knows what he doesn't want in life, he's still not very clear on what he does.  What they have reaffirmed in each other is ambition; it's pretty much the only thing that attracted them to each other in the first place.  Over the course of the film they've defined their goals a little more clearly for themselves, but it's still largely raw material left for the Reagan era to forge.  But the important thing is that they've got the spirit of the future decade down: when they shake hands in friendship they're not fooling anybody. How deep is their love?  Not very.

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