Movie Details
| Title: | Saturday Night Fever | |
| Director: | John Badham | |
| Year: | 1977 | |
| Genre: | Drama | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.15.25 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- Stakeout
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.15.25 | Internet | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2025 "one pork chop!" "You know, I work on my hair a long time, and you hit it. He hits my hair." I last saw this movie, i dunno, pre-journal so maybe 24 years ago? It's crazy to think that it's been as long since I last saw this as it was since the movie was made. Our culture really hit the shitter in 2001. Maybe just as an adult I don't notice things anymore but this world of the mid 70s was so completely foreign to me, but I have shirts from 2000 that are still good. They're plain black shirts, but that's beside the point. Anyway, I've been meaning to watch this again because of a book I read called Love Saves the Day which chronicles NYC dance culture in the 70s. It talks a decent amount about this movie and its origins as a magazine article that was largely made up and how the author of the book felt it grossly misrepresented dance culture of its time. Stuff like dance clubs as meet markets, horny italian young men on the prowl, and solo-ing the dance floor showing off with fancy moves did not match any of the extensive research that he did for his book. From what he wrote, he not only didn't like the movie but felt it hurt the culture and pretty much brought about the "disco sucks" movement and the end of the genre. Well, I can see that. I mean, they shot at a real club from what I've read. that 2001 Odyssey was a real place, and Travolta said he spent time there watching the regulars and modelled a lot of his behavior on what he saw so even if the source material was a fraud, it's not like places and people like that didn't exist. But also, and I think this is a big point, the movie is not ABOUT dancing. Just like so many other movies, that scene is just used as a hip novel setting to tell a story about a fuckup kid with just a glimmer of hope of pulling himself out of a stuck life. The marketing of the movie and mostly the soundtrack MADE it a dance movie, and there are dance scenes to be sure, but the movie is not in service to that culture. So I can see why Tim Lawrence (the author of the book) doesn't care for it because it gets stuff wrong, but most movies get stuff wrong because they're not documentaries. Disco is just the setting for Travolta's character's story. Arguably a more disco-centric movie, Skatetown USA is only about disco. Well, roller disco. The story there exists just to play music and show people skating. It's also a much cheaper movie made to exploit the popularity of that music and not as good of a movie as this, but I suspect Lawrence would have a better time with it. So what starts to sink in here is that, yes this movie was massively popular and the soundtrack sold millions - the Bee Gee's biggest hit I believe - and even though it may have gotten the NYC disco scene wrong, so many people in so many places saw this movie that it MADE disco culture INTO what was in the movie. Everyone wants to be Travolta. His poster's on the wall just like his character had Serpico. Then record labels threw the term "disco" on a bunch of shit, flooded the market, and killed it. It's a weird journey that way. You can't call this NOT disco because in many ways it's the quintessential piece of disco media. Never mind that it enjoyed five or so years of underground status incubating and innovating until this point. Three years after this movie, the genre would be so dead and so un-cool that people would joke about it for 20 years. Disco Stu doesn't advertise. But enough about the soundtrack. How's the movie? It's good. I would've liked to have had a hot take and be able to say I prefer Skatetown USA *sniffs snootily* but this is a good movie. Travolta's great in it, Badham directs the hell out of it, it's shot well (all those iconic hazy dance floor scenes spoofed a thousand times), the music elevates it to the point where even though you hear some songs more than once you don't mind, and the script is surprisingly deep with pathos. I mean, it's such a 70s movie that Travolta gives away the trophy he won then there's a gang rape in the backseat of a car followed by a kid dying. Nothing joyous about that shit, but you do get moments of watching Travolta do his thing that are objectively fun to watch. Everyone's smoking cigarettes and taking speed with 3% body fat, what's not to like? So yeah, all the good shit people say about this movie, they're right. I'm on board. I seriously don't know where the time went this week. It's already past midnight and I'm just two movies down. wtf. |
