THX Plates: Codecs and Cognitions of AmGraf

The black-American doo-wop group, the Monotones, narrate:

♫ I wonder, wonder who-badoohaoop, who wrote the book of love!

I wonder, wonder who-badoohaoop, who wrote the book of love! ♫

It's John Milner's inner subconscious monologue. Stuck with babysitting the young adolescent Carrol Morrison during an otherwise opportune night of cruising spills over into blindsided, confused and chagrined affection. The love that blossoms is not sexual (yet) but nostalgic. George Lucas with his two lady editors in hand, Verna Fields and wife Marcia, stream together a fixed-speed motion montage of Carol self-dejecting herself from Milner's cab into the night streets and back again that is some kinda perfection of audiovisual hieroglyphs. Milner first mocks her openly fearing status, she bails. The visiting couple walks off and Milner is left to his own immediate regret. Carrol is then targeted by lettermen jackets in a '57 Chevy, whistles and catcalls; Milner drives and searches in an odd act of chivalry. Carrol is backdropped by panning storefront windows with mannequins; small town American commerce lighting a path for this babe in the woods. Note a quantum smile she quickly tucks away at the sight of Milner to her rescue. When he opens the passenger door, her decision is cut exactly to the drumbeat pause of The Monotone's chorus.

Then the song ends: a sarcastic "Hi, cousin, hows your bod?" cues the radio jingle.

It's one of the sweetest moments in American cinema—screw anyone who says otherwise.

It's not just innocence, though, American Graffiti. There's edge in its nuances. Rape and orgies are thrown around in jest and a silhouetted middle-aged teacher is observed in intimate proxy with a high school girl. A moment of perversion comes out of nowhere when amid a couples' argument Steve shames Laurie for spying on her brother, Kurt, during some unspecified sex act. Tragic fatalism that epilogues the film -- Milner is snuffed by a drunk drive in 1964, a year later Terry's reported MIA near An Lộc -- is setup earlier with black ironies: Milner laments the demise of rock'n'roll "ever since Buddy Holly died," and later prides "I managed to stay outta this graveyard," when strolling with Carrol through a scrap heap of mangled hot rods, and a spooky-comedic scene with Terry and Debbie hiding in shadowy bushes from silly rumors of the "Goat Killer" presages the notion of Terry hiding in desperation from a very real enemy, forever swallowed whole by the jungles of Vietnam. Tragic, too, is a moment of hollowed victory shared between Terry and Milner, in the morning sun, at the end of the drag race climax where one reassures the other: "You'll always be number one, John, you're the greatest." Milner halfheartedly concedes: "Okay, Toad, we'll take 'em all. We'll take 'em all."

Only about 10% of American Graffiti is afforded daylight hours. This means the bulk of its depicted universe is bathed in incandescent light that struggles against the heavy 35mm grain of a night shoot, and the movie's vintage technicolor process without artificial sets or backlots pulls from yesteryear San Rafael (doubling for Modesto) a beautiful array of primaries that bloom out from perpetual darkness. Yellow hounds the catalogue. Even Wolfman Jack's goddamn popsicle is yellow, as if the color anointed itself as a steady reminder for audiences the story's idyllic era a thing both present and fleeting. All three of Lucas' '70s directorial efforts share the aesthetic characteristic of his 'B-roll' approach to capturing worlds, but American Graffiti among them being the most documentric is virtually zoological...until you realize the expressionism and dramatic accuracy of his shots.