🔊 - From 'American Graffiti' to 'Star Wars' w/ Connor Ratliff (S1/E10)
American Graffiti, MORE American Graffiti, Quintin Tarantino, & more!
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Jim chats with return guest Connor Ratliff about George Lucas’ second feature length film, American Graffiti — and how it gave him the momentum to create Star Wars.
Episode Credits:
Hosts: Tim Barnes, Jim Fagan
Guest: Connor Ratliff
Theme Song: Matt Maher
Announcer: Carolina Ravassa
Podcast Art:Joel Jackson
IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
Connor Ratliff: A Star Wars Story
Connor hosts The George Lucas Talk Show and stars in the new documentary I’m “George Lucas” which follows his experiences behind the scenes and on stage.
This is also Connor’s second appearance on the show since our season premiere! Check out that first episode here:
Discussion Highlights:
Comparing American Graffiti to THX-1138
With American Graffiti being George Lucas’ second feature-length film, it’s incredible to compare it to his first feature film, THX-1138. As Connor points out, the starkest difference is the tone…
“I'm hard pressed to think of a film more humorless than THX-1138.”
- Connor Ratliff (Yub Nub, 2024)
It’s amazing how swiftly George moves from one tone and genre to the next with American Graffiti.
“But American Graffiti, this film that sits right there in the middle, and it's a comedy. It's got a lot of dramatic things to it, but it's a comedy. And it's greatt”
- Connor Ratliff (Yub Nub, 2024)
American Graffiti is an interesting bridge between two sides of Lucas, that arguably begin to fuse in his third major motion picture, Star Wars. We’ve got the seriousness and technobabble of THX poured into the ominous Darth Vader and the humor and sense of nostalgic hope from American Graffiti funneled into his son, Luke.
A surprising connection American Graffiti and Quintin Tarantino
Connor points out that many filmmakers have their own version of American Graffiti — a film that captures their own coming of age nostalgia. He even finds a point of connection between Lucas’ Graffiti and Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…
I remember when ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ came out thinking that — Oh, I can talk about that this month because this is essentially Quentin Tarantino's American Graffiti in a lot of ways in the sense of it's his film going back to the nostalgic time of when he was a kid. And the time and place and the music and everything…
- Connor Ratliff (Yub Nub, 2024)
Over at the website for the Beverly Cinema, which Quintin Tarantino owns and operates, he wrote this piece about American Graffiti.
Excerpt:
While the movie has a great cast of girls, director Lucas makes it abundantly clear, when it comes to narrative, he’s only following the boys (Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith, and Paul Le Mat). Best buddies Curt (Dreyfuss) and Steve (Howard) are leaving their small hometown of Modesto California in the morning to fly to college back east. So the college that Curt and Steve are supposed to fly off to represents more than just a normal rite of passage for the two young men. The college represents the growing consciousness of the sixties that exists beyond the Brigadoon-ish town they’re escaping.
But Curt (who is Lucas’ stand-in, he wants to be a writer, and when he grows up he will write American Graffiti) is ambivalent about getting on the plane in the morning.
He’s starting to think he might not go.- Quintin Tarantino on American Graffiti - (1973)
MORE American Graffiti
And how could we forget about the 1979 sequel to American Graffiti, titled, More American Graffiti. Lucas didn’t direct it, but was highly involved behind the scenes — likely the testing ground for his hands-on producer approach from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi which he also didn’t direct.
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