American Graffiti

Or how George Lucas introduced himself so that regular audience could bear it. It must be said that I didn't really expect much from the movie, it's still essentially just a film about American youth, but it's a surprisingly good film that shows how the youth lived and what they wanted or didn't want. It's human, it's very well tolerable, and you wouldn't even think that this person will later direct "Star Wars". (09/03/2015)

Youth, fun, hormones, cars, the life ahead. American Graffiti is an endearing look into American youth culture in the 1970s. Practically the whole movie is made up of a few guys and girls cruising in a small town. It is not only nostalgically naïve, refined and pleasant, but also historically valuable. In how many films can we see the now-great director Ron Howard in one of the lead roles or the young rookie Harrison Ford as a rakish redneck? (05/21/2005)

To fully enjoy Lucas's film, I would have to be a few years younger, or a few years older. It is a film about American teenagers for American teenagers. There is no sensitive exploration into their lives. Fast cars, aimless wandering, first love experiences, and boys' rivalry - in short, the usual offer for this age category. This piece from overseas really doesn't have a lot of depth. If I give it 3 stars, it's only because of the enjoyable soundtrack, which features quite famous tracks, some of which can be considered part of the golden age of pop music. Overall impression: 60%. (11/18/2014)

A time period I don't particularly like and films that tell its stories don't resonate well with me either. However, there was a filmmaker, from whom I least expected it, who presented it to me in an absolutely unique way, and I wanted to immerse myself in that vision for the entire 110 minutes to witness the extraordinary events that were unfolding. George Lucas uniquely captured a generational testimony, narrated with the lightness of a young enthusiast, skillfully intertwining various characters - from the nerdy geek to partners in crisis, to all-around cool dudes - without flowers and marijuana smoke. Of course, occasionally, one needs to overlook the credibility of certain dialogues and situations, just as one may overlook the fact that the night during which the story unfolds sometimes appears to be the early dawn in one shot and a few minutes after midnight in the next. One might then suspect that it's not just an unexpected surge in moonlight. Of course, sometimes it's easy to overlook these shortcomings, and when even I - an absolute musical illiterate - found myself humming half of the songs during the film, there must be something to it, both in the film itself and in the representation of the 1970s as a whole. (07/15/2005)

Lucas is awesome. A film that encapsulates exactly the wonderful atmospheric feeling I imagine when talking about the American sixties. Of course, the incredibly packed soundtrack, which can be heard almost continuously from the radio or during live performances, plays an important role, but the depiction of the youthful mood of the time, the haphazard search for oneself, the hesitation between the unbound enjoyment of life and the movement towards adult responsibility, between superficial foolishness and real experience, is also palpably real. I can't think of any other film I've seen that has left me depressed at not being able to experience the era it describes – endless evenings in drive-ins, on lively big-city streets with a James Dean-like hairdo (more like Yul Brynner in my case :), or on arid country roads, toting my father's old Trabant with a cowboy hat. A work much more nostalgic and naive than progressive, but nevertheless ageless and beautiful. And it's interesting to see that Richard Dreyfuss looked fifteen years younger in 1973 than he did two years later on the set of Jaws… (01/28/2017)