“Almost Famous” guarantees a contact high while watching – it makes you feel warm and blissed out. This coming of age story exudes a heartfelt glow of nostalgia that cuts deep. It was especially poignant to watch again while sheltering in place for it captures those emotions you feel when you’re young and the whole world is in front of you – ready for the taking. The film takes you on a 1970’s rock n roll equivalent of Dorothy’s trip to Oz – including bigger than life characters and lessons along the way. Music plays an important role in the experience – and director Cameron Crowe curates one of the best song selections for its soundtrack. Melodies you’re so familiar with add an extra layer of recognition to your viewing. While helping you understand the main character’s journey, you also bring your own personal association to the songs – creating a communion and intimacy – a sense of connectivity I’ve rarely felt in cinema. For example, when you hear Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” and the characters sing along with it, your heart will skip a beat.
The movie centers around 15 year old William who through sheer chutzpah gets an assignment from “Rolling Stone” to go on the road with up-and-coming rock band Stillwater in the early ‘70s. His stern yet loving mother (a never better Frances McDormand) is mistrustful and fearful of the endeavor (“Don’t do drugs!’). Meanwhile, William is mentored by two disparate and unforgettable characters – Lester Bangs (iconic Philip Seymour Hoffman) – the editor of renegade rock magazine “Creem” who believes in him despite his age and advises him to “Be honest and unmerciful” – and Penny Lane – who is a groupie no older than William. She has a moral compass and boundless faith in the power of music and she shares it with William. She becomes the heart of this movie – and when hers is broken – yours will be, too. Kate Hudson’s delectable performance is something to behold.
All of this has a particular resonance because it is palpable you’re watching the director’s personal recollections. Crowe was a teenage rock journalist for “Rolling Stone” Magazine. The band depicted in the film – Stillwater – is a composite of five rock groups that Cameron toured with – Poco, The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin, Eagles and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The guitarist Russell Hammond (played by Billy Crudup) is based on Gregg Allman. As the title “Almost Famous” suggests, Stillwater is on the verge of hitting it big – and William witnesses their peccadillos, their narcissism as well as their squabbles and compromising between early artistic idealism and commercial success. One of the best moments in the film is when the members – flying on a private plane – are caught in a lightning storm, and they think they’re all going to die. This acts like a truth serum – everyone revealing more than they bargained for.
Despite all the harshness that William encounters in the real world – he retains a sense of optimism and wonder. It is that quality that permeates this film – and bathes it with a contagious golden glow. Remarkably, this hopeful young man will go on to give us such remarkable films as “Jerry Maguire” and probably one of the best teenage movies – “Say Anything.”
There are so many wonderful quotes in this screenplay (which won Crowe an 2001 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) it is hard to pick just one.
Lester Bangs – “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”
Love,
Roger
Available on Hulu, Showtime and to rent on Amazon Prime, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu and Google Play.
Directed by Cameron Crowe
Written by Cameron Crowe
Starring: Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, Jason Lee, Patrick Fugit, Anna Paquin, Fairuza Balk, Noah Taylor, Philip Seymour Hoffman
123 minutes
About Writer and Director Cameron Crowe
Born in Palm Springs, CA, but raised in San Diego, Crowe became a journalist at the age of 15, writing music reviews and articles for such major publications as Creem, Playboy, and Penthouse. A year later, he became a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and was later promoted to associate editor. During this period, he interviewed many rock music legends, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton. At age the age of 22, he returned to high school to research a book on adolescent life and subsequently adapted the best-selling result into the script for Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). The film became something of a legend, not only because of its realistic, sensitive, and funny portrayal of teenage travails, but also for launching the careers of some of Hollywood’s brightest stars.
In 1989, Crowe continued to mine the lucrative adolescent vein with his directorial debut Say Anything…, again earning kudos for creating believable multidimensional characters in an age when most teen comedies were relying on sex jokes and flimsy stereotypes. With his next directorial effort, he delved into the lives of a group of friends struggling to become adults in the Seattle-set Singles (1992). The film was not as well-received as Say Anything…
Jerry Maguire represented Crowe’s first foray into exploration of more adult concerns. One of the biggest hits of 1996, the film was remarkable for bridging the two disparate romantic chick flick and sports movie genres. Following the success of Maguire, Crowe laid low for awhile, working on his next project. That next project, initially called the “Untitled Cameron Crowe Project,” became Almost Famous (2000). The following year Crowe would make his first venture into the land of remakes with Vanilla Sky. A reworking of Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar’s fiercely original Open Your Eyes. In 2005 he returned as writer/director of Elizabethtown.
Crowe spent a few years out of the limelight, but started to recharge himself with a pair of documentaries about rock and roll. The Union captured Elton John recording the album of the same name with Leon Russell, and Pearl Jam Twenty served up an extensive history of the grunge band to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. He returned to fiction in 2011 with We Bought a Zoo and Aloha in 2015.(fandango.com)
It’s All Happening
While the film, has long been considered a nostalgic look at Crowe’s own experiences as a journalist at Rolling Stone in the 1970s, he has now shared the original story that inspired the film: an unpublished piece he wrote for Live! Magazine in 1996.
According to TheWrap, the article was originally meant as a short account on a live event for the magazine’s “Performance Past” section. But when Crowe submitted 3,000 words instead of the requested 750, the magazine began discussing whether they should edit the piece down to fit its allocated spot.
Steve Pond, former editor of Live! told TheWrap: “Cameron politely but firmly said that if the piece was going to be cut, he’d rather it didn’t run. And he insisted that if we didn’t run it, that was fine with him. Writing about his relationship with his mother and with rock ‘n’ roll had given him an idea for a screenplay he wanted to write.”
Crowe has shared the full article with TheWrap, which begins: “‘There will be absolutely no rock music in our house.’ With those epic words, my mother and father ushered in 1968. My mom was an English teacher, and early on she spotted the threat that rock posed to all those finely-bound books lining our cabinets. My sister and I lobbied hard, assuring them that drugs and promiscuous sex were not what our music was about. Rock was our poetry. Yes, came her reply, but ‘it’s the poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex!’ Of course she was right, but few were as good at feigning outrage as my sister and me.” (dazeddigital.com)
I Am a Golden God!
The band at the center of the film is Stillwater and, though they are a fictional band, they did have some notable musical talents involved in their creation.
Crowe states, “The true inspiration of the movie is music. It’s about that feeling you have when you’ve just discovered a song, and you listen to it ten times in a row. You might eventually get sick of the song, but for that moment, you’re ageless, you’re timeless, you’re in your own private universe. That’s a feeling I think only music can give you. I wanted to do a movie that tapped you on the shoulder and said, ‘I’ve felt that way too.’ But if you’re going to declare so openly that you love music, you should show why you love it so much, so the goal was to write a love letter back to music.”
Collaborating with composer Nancy Wilson and music supervisor Danny Bramson, Crowe incorporated both score and songs to evoke the period as well as the emotions of Almost Famous. Fans of 1970s music will recognize the music of some of the most influential artists of the day, including Led Zeppelin, The Who, Elton John, Black Sabbath, Joni Mitchell, The Allman Brothers, and more.
In addition, Crowe and Wilson collaborated pseudonymously to write several of the original songs performed by Stillwater in the movie, including ‘Fever Dog,” and ‘Love Thing,” while Wilson’s sister, Ann, joined the songwriting team on “Chance Upon You.” Peter Frampton also contributed to Stillwater’s discography,” co-writing the songs “Hour of Need” and “You Had to Be There.”
Wilson offers, “Music has the power to transport you. The songs from that era can bring you back to that time and can even make you remember what you were feeling when you first heard them. Creating an original score to complement and work around the songs in the film was a delicate balance.” (cinemareview.com)