3. Almost Famous
• Directed by Cameron Crowe
• Written by Cameron Crowe
• Based on the life of Cameron Crowe
4. Cameron Crowe
• Also directed Jerry Maguire
• and more recently We Bought a Zoo
• But actually started off as a magazine writer
5. • The film follows the fictionalWilliam Miller,
based on Cameron Crowe, through his
adolescence, as he follows the equally
fictional band Stillwater on their “Almost
Famous” tour, and attempts to write a story
about it for Rolling Stone.
6. Anachronism!
…so how did Crowe
But wait! Cameron
…and the movie was make the film and
Crowe grew up in
made in 2000… his audience feel like
the 1970’s…
it was 30 years ago?
7. Second: the
correct
vocabulary and
technology for
the time
First: the visual Finally: the
cues, such as overall sentiment,
costuming and feeling, and
set design. atmosphere.
1970s
8. Vital Visuals
• When Anita Miller, William’s sister, decides to
leave home to become a flight attendant she
leaves with rollers in her hair.
• Most people in the year 2000 did not leave
the house like this, and they definitely did not
leave it like this if they were never planning on
returning home.
9. Vital Visuals
A portion of the film takes And this authenticity comes
But Crowe wanted
place in the Riot House, or across via the actors’
authenticity
Riot Hyatt. performances.
As evidenced by behind-the-
scenes footage, and the film
This part of the film was And the average viewer would
itself, one can see the actors
actually shot on location. probably not have realized
feeling like they have been
transported somewhere.
However the hotel’s décor
It might have been easier for They were immersed in the
was circa 2000, so it had to be
Cameron Crowe to shoot this 70s, and they took this fact,
redecorated to fit the era of
in the studio and ran with it.
the 1970’s
10. Technology
• The title sequence features a pencil writing on
yellow paper, creating a feeling of long ago
definitely different from the increasingly typed
everything of 2000
• Then there are also the more obvious things
like record players, etc., and the way a
magazine writer had to send his story to the
magazine editors when e-mail did not exist.
12. But what I’m going to be delving
into are the themes evoked in the
film that are very representative of
the 70s
13. Unfortunately I was not alive in the
1970s
So I did what any adolescent of the
21st century would do.
Look on the internet.
14. • The way our society splits up time into
decades sometimes can get a bit arbitrary, as
time does not always fit perfectly into ten year
periods.
15. But I will go along with this societal convention,
and look at the 70’s as a decade, and examine
how Cameron Crowe brings this decade back
to life.
16. The 70s were a lot of different
things to a lot of different people.
But I have decided to focus on the
70s as the “Me Decade”
17. The “Me Decade The phrase first Though Tom Wolfe So I will examine
was a term coined came into being in does not have how the themes
in the 1970s by Wolfe’s Article authority on the Wolfe talks about
Tom Wolfe, as a “The Me Decade decade, the piece in the article are
phrase and the Third had a pretty large similarly expressed
representative of Great Awakening,” impact, and the by Crowe
the decade. published in 1976 term has stuck
in New York around.
Magazine
19. However Wolfe is not directly critical, and
Crowe, not directly praiseworthy. Instead they
both examine the time period, in an attempt
to bring to light their views.
20. How the rise of the middle class Before, this was largely an upper-
led to this new large group of class undertaking. But now there
people who could now afford was this whole group of people
leisure time, and time devoted who had the resources to strive,
solely to themselves and something to strive for
Wolfe talks about:
The use of psychedelics and other
How the field of psychoanalysis
stimuli in this search for self, and
really grew, which led more
the transformation of many
people to spend time thinking
religions to be about the self and
about themselves.
self-examination.
21. Wolfe writes:
“The old alchemical dream was changing base
metals into gold. The new alchemical dream
is: changing one’s personality—
remaking, remodeling, elevating, and
polishing one’s very self . . . and
observing, studying, and doting on it. (Me!)”
22. • And this idea of “Me” can be seen through
almost every character of the film. They are
largely not concerned with the welfare of
society in general, but rather with themselves,
and how they are perceived by and relate to
others.
23. Anita Miller
(portrayed by ZooeyDeschanel)
William Miller’s
sister is focused on
her “Me”
She leaves home to become a
flight attendant.
This is her goal, and she really just goes
for it.
24. William Miller
(portrayed by Patrick Fugit)
Is focused on his
“Me”
He loves rock & roll, and
he loves writing
So he goes on tour with the band
Stillwater to write for Rolling Stone.
This is his dream, and he follows it.
25. Wolfe Writes:
“Most people, historically, have not lived their
lives as if thinking, ‘I have only one life to
live.’”
27. Wolfe also writes:
“The various movements of the current religious wave attempt very nearly
the opposite. They begin with . . . ‘Let’s talk about Me.’ They begin with
the most delicious look inward; with considerable narcissism, in short.
When the believers bind together into religions, it is always with a sense
of splitting off from the rest of society. We, the enlightened (lit by the
sparks at the apexes of our souls), hereby separate ourselves from the lost
souls around us. Like all religions before them, they proselytize—but
always on promising the opposite of nationalism: a City of Light that is
above it all. There is no ecumenical spirit within this Third Great
Awakening. If anything, there is a spirit of schism. The contempt the
various seers have for one another is breathtaking. One has only to ask,
say, Oscar Ichazo of Arica about Carlos Castaneda or Werner Erhard of est
to learn that Castaneda is a fake and Erhard is a shallow sloganeer. It’s
exhilarating!—to watch the faithful split off from one another to seek ever
more perfect and refined crucibles in which to fan the Divine spark . . . and
to talk about Me.”
28. To me, Wolfe’s description seemed
very in tune with rock & roll.
Though not a traditional religion,
many would consider it
tantamount to such.
29. Penny Lane
(portrayed by Kate Hudson)
Penny Lane is William
Miller’s love interest.
He has a crush on her, but she is too
preoccupied with Russell Hammond, a
member of Stillwater.
“We are not Groupies. Groupies sleep with rock stars
because they want to be near someone famous. We
are here because of the music, we inspire the music.
We are Band Aids.”
Here again, is this idea of breaking apart, and being better than
others, in search of this esoteric ideal, while still focusing on the
“me.”
30. Jeff Bebe
(portrayed by Jason Lee)
The lead singer of still water.
“Some people have a hard time explaining rock 'n' roll. I don't think anyone can really
explain rock 'n' roll. Maybe Pete Townshend, but that's okay. Rock 'n' roll is a lifestyle
and a way of thinking... and it's not about money and popularity. Although, some
money would be nice. But it's a voice that says, ‘Here I am... and fuck you if you can't
understand me.’ And one of these people is gonna save the world. And that means
that rock 'n' roll can save the world... all of us together. And the chicks are great. But
what it all comes down to is that thing. The indefinable thing when people catch
something in your music.”
This, again, also seems very evocative of the spirit of the “Third Great Awakening”
31. Back to Tom Wolfe again:
“We are now—in the Me Decade—seeing the upward roll
(and not yet the crest, by any means) of the third great
religious wave in American history, one that historians
will very likely term the Third Great Awakening. Like
the others it has begun in a flood of ecstasy, achieved
through LSD and other psychedelics, orgy, dancing (the
New Sufi and the Hare Krishna), meditation, and
psychic frenzy (the marathon encounter). This third
wave has built up from more diverse and exotic sources
than the first two, from therapeutic movements as well
as overtly religious movements, from hippies and
students of “psi phenomena” and Flying Saucerites as
well as charismatic Christians.”
32. Russell Hammond
(portrayed by Billy Crudup)
The guitarist of Stillwater.
He evokes Wolfe’s point about how the
Third Great Awakening, like others
before it, was ushered in with the use of
psychedelics.
After he uses these substances he stands on a roof
and yells, “I am a Golden god…. And you can tell
Rolling Stone magazine that my last words were... I'm
on drugs!”
33. The “deflowering of William
Miller”
Penny Lane’s group of
Band-Aids , minus Penny
Lane, devirginizes William
by means of an orgy.
This is also one of the
things Wolfe points out as
a beginning of the Third
Great Awakening.
34. Wolfe:
• “Where the Third Great Awakening will lead—
who can presume to say? One only knows that
the great religious waves have a momentum
all their own. Neither arguments nor policies
nor acts of the legislature have been any
match for them in the past. And this one has
the mightiest, holiest roll of all, the beat that
goes . . . Me . . . Me . . . . Me . . . Me . . .”
35. • And I think Crowe really shows through the
film how it turned out for him. Yes, there was
this focus on “Me.” But I think even though
many of the characters start out focused on
themselves this focus leads them to much
self-discovery in a way that ultimately
improves their relationships and brings Truth
to the world.
36. Though William has had a hard time
getting the interviews he needs
throughout the film, he finally gets
These people have only one
a great story when then plane he is
life to live, so they’re not
traveling on with the band
going to hold anything back.
experiences severe turbulence
causing everyone to reveal their
inner secrets.
When the plane returns to normal
conditions and lands safely
It’s a great story, says Roling
however, these revelations, along
Stone, but the band denies its
with the rest of the truths collected
truth.
by William throughout the movie
cause some problems.
William Miller ends up a star
writer, and Penny Lane ends
Ultimately, with the help of Penny
up flying to Morroco, a place
Lane, Hammond confirms the truth
she has dreamed about, a
of the story.
place where she can live, for
a time at least, this one life.
37. So here is what we end up with
Truth.
So though we were focused on ourselves, maybe
this was what we were supposed to be doing all
along. If everyone came to terms with their own
person, then maybe we could all just be people.
38. • “Imagine all the people living for today… You
may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only
one I hope someday you'll join us And the
world will live as one.”
- Imagine, by John Lennon(1971)
