Reflected Glory
FILM: Almost Famous
DIRECTOR: Cameron Crowe
STARRING: Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson
GRADE: A
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WHO'S THE BIGGER FAN? ASPIRING ROCK WRITER WILLIAM MILLER (PATRICK FUGIT) AND 'BAND AIDE' PENNY LANE (KATE HUDSON) BOTH DIG THE MUSIC IN ALMOST
FAMOUS.
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A precocious 15 year old dares to send music articles he's written for his
school newspaper to the rock magazine Creem. Impressed, the editor asks
for a meeting, gives the kid a lot of advice about journalism and a genuine
assignment. The work is good, and the youngster is published before he's old
enough to drive. Remarkably, he's contacted by a Rolling Stone editor
who thinks he's a conventional professional rather than a high school student.
Rolling Stone wants to give him an assignment, and he recommends a
profile of Stillwater, an emerging band of some considerable promise. If the
article is good enough, it becomes the cover story, an obvious boon for writer
and subject both. So begins Cameron Crowe's terrific Almost Famous, the
writer/director's autobiographical story about coming of age aboard the tour
bus of a rock band.
Set in 1973, Almost Famous is the story of William Miller
(Patrick Fugit), a prodigy from a loving but entirely wacky home. William's
mother, Elaine (Frances McDormand), is a college professor who opposes sex,
drugs, rock 'n' roll and the commercialization of Christmas, which she demands
that her children celebrate in the summer. Mom has always lied about William's
age, leading him to believe he's older than he is (he will ultimately graduate
from high school before his 16th birthday) and leaving him bewildered about why
his classmates are all so much more physically mature than he is. Mom presumes
that William will become a successful lawyer some day, but she eventually
relents when he wants to indulge his passion for journalism. So that William
can collect material for his Rolling Stone essay on Stillwater, Elaine
even allows William to accompany the band on the road. Boy, is she sorry.
On the road, William becomes Stillwater's mascot, the particular
protege of lead guitarist and songwriter Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup). In
part, the band members can't believe that angel-faced William could possibly be
a hard-hitting journalist. As Russell tells William, ushering him into the
band's inner sanctum, "Just make us look cool." And in part, the band members
think they can seduce William with their own glamour. If they let him be their
friend, then he will deliver them the kind of publicity that might give their
careers a boost.
Stillwater treats the group of four young women who travel with
them in a comparable way, although the goal with the women is sex rather than
publicity. For their part, the girls, especially their frizzy-haired blond
leader, Penny Lane (the absolutely scrumptious Kate Hudson), maintain that they
aren't groupies. They call themselves Band Aides and claim that "we inspire the
music." They also deny that they are groupies because they limit carnal contact
with the band members to oral sex. Bill Clinton did, after all, emerge from
a cultural context.
Almost Famous is about so many different things, many of
them quite serious, that it's a real literary achievement that Crowe manages to
keep the tone so casual and light. In the foreground, the film is about the
relationship between a journalist and his subject, about the line between a
writer and his story. If William is to capture the personalities and styles of
the members of Stillwater, he has to be allowed access to their private lives.
He has to get close. On the other hand, if he's ultimately to write about them
with the proper objectivity, he must be able to achieve distance. William
starts out being a fan. He's drawn to rock reporting because he loves the music
and idolizes the musicians. Like Penny Lane, he believes that "famous people
are just more interesting." But then, being a fan is one thing, being a
friend something else. And at some level, being a journalist demands being
neither.
The film is also a canny study of band (or perhaps any team)
dynamics. The Beatles were the best of all time primarily because Paul
McCartney and John Lennon were both great songwriters and because they each
tended to dilute the worst artistic tendencies of the other. George Harrison
was an excellent guitarist, but his songwriting talents were insignificant
compared to Lennon and McCartney. Ringo Starr, of course, was lucky enough to
be in the right spot at the right time and likable enough to get along with
everybody. In the end, of course, the McCartney-Lennon partnership would fray
from the rough edges of disparate egos. One naturally thinks of the Beatles
when watching the members of Stillwater interact. Lead singer Jeff Bebe (Jason
Lee) is a charismatic performer, but he's not nearly the musician that Russell
is. Both of them know it, and it's a constant source of friction between them.
Jeff resents Russell for feeling superior, which he does, and Russell resents
Jeff for being both inferior and resentful. In a passage that's
either lifted directly from Crowe's journalism experience or else
masterfully invented, Russell and Jeff fight over the band's image on T-shirts
they plan to sell at their concerts. Jeff thinks Russell is featured too
prominently; Russell thinks he deserves to be featured more prominently and
all at once that Jeff is being picky.
The film also examines the various business and psychological
dynamics of earning a living performing music. Playing concerts is a gypsy's
life, a new town every day, a string of fast-food joints and service station
restrooms. Home is a bus even more than it is a series of charmless motel
rooms. Privacy is scarce. Ambition is daunted by fiscal reality. Promoters can
fail to deliver. Weather can wreck the audience for a good show. And inevitably
there's doubt. Are we good enough? Are the other guys as good as I am? If we
changed a bass player or a drummer, would that make a critical difference? Is
our longtime manager the right guy or ought we to sign with someone who has an
established track record? Is that fast-talking slick guy our ticket to the big
time as he claims, or is he a con artist?
Almost Famous has a great soundtrack, and though it shows us
only fleeting snatches of the fictitious Stillwater's performances, it captures
the electric connection between musician and live audience as well as any
picture ever made about rock 'n' roll. And it portrays the thrill of group
performance, the bond of a band making music together, doing it well and
savoring together the energy of the listeners' adulation. In short, the film
captures the high of performing and the way in which its elixir is so potent it
can be shared with those special ones who merely watch. To be part of the
band is intoxicating; to be part of the band's entourage only slightly less so.
When William says he can't travel with Stillwater forever, that eventually
he has to go home, Penny Lane responds, "You are home." And we know exactly
what she means.
For all its magic, however, years from now, Almost Famous
may well be remembered for Kate Hudson's breakthrough performance. She has
appeared earlier on television and in Risa Garcia's 200 Cigarettes,
but here
she's just captivating. The daughter of Goldie Hawn, she has her
mother's mischievous, spritely eyes that suggest both a delicious sense of
humor and a keen intelligence. Kate is more voluptuous than Goldie, though,
more classically beautiful. Moreover, Kate's manner lacks her mother's
trademark giddiness and projects a mystery, a wisdom, a certain resignation and
the hint of having suffered and already surrendered the illusions of other
young women her age. I liked Almost Famous more than any film I've seen
in months, but I might go see it again just to get another chance to watch Kate
Hudson work.
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