1970s style film vert dance club mixer

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2020)

An uneducated Brooklyn teen (John Travolta, in an Oscar-nominated role) lives in a dream world over the weekends as the king of a disco dance floor. Disillusioned, quietly upset with where his life is, Travolta finds solace by dancing in public to Bee Gee's music and finds love with his newest dance partner (Karen Lynn Gorney). The duo practice for an upcoming contest that could mean total success at last for Travolta and the opportunity to get discovered doing what he really loves. Travolta and his friends seem destined to go down a path of destruction though as a soap opera develops for all the key people found within. "Saturday Night Fever" is a total over-achiever as it could have fallen to exploitation tactics of the 1970s, but becomes one of those iconic films that still stands the test of time.
The film is made in film vert: grounded, edgy, & realistic. Camera lenses are used that the film's urban ambience & attitude. The script has infinitely indefinable coarse & cuss verbosity. There are some realistic & graphic rape & fight scenes. But its all to not stop the film's panacea Brooklyn flair m& atmosphere.
While the movie is more apt to be recalled for its impact on American pop culture, few who watch the movie will ever see beyond the admittedly fantastic dance sequences. As a result, many people might never recognize Saturday Night Fever as perhaps one of the best movies ever made about class struggles among white ethnics.
While Tony's friends idolize him, the movie never really does, but it does allow empathy for his plight, because even Tony realizes that he is virtually trapped by the current conditions of his existence. While much might be made of the homophobia, racism, and misogyny of the protagonist and his friends, these things are never excused and the movie goes to some lengths to express Tony's own recognition that these are shortcomings in not only his character, but those borne of a provincial mentality which he desperately longs to escape.
We meet Tony's friends and the girls that hang around them, and we are reminded that feminism has not yet conquered Brooklyn. Some of the girls, especially a spunky little number named Annette (Donna Pescow), worship Tony. He dances with Annette because she's a good dancer, but he tries to keep her at arm's length otherwise. He's caught in a sexist vise: Because he likes her, he doesn't want to sleep with her, because then how could he respect her? The female world is divided, he explains, between nice girls and tramps. She accepts his reasoning and makes her choice.
The Brooklyn we see in "Saturday Night Fever"reminds us a lot of New York's Little Italy as Martin Scorsese saw it in "Who's That Knocking at My Door?" and "Mean Streets." The characters are similar: They have few aims or ambitions and little hope of breaking out to the larger world of success -- a world symbolized for them by Manhattan, and the Brooklyn Bridge reaching out powerfully toward it.
But "Saturday Night Fever" isn't as serious as the Scorsese films. It does, after all, have almost wall-to-wall music in it (mostly by the Bee Gees, but including even "Disco Duck"). And there are the funny scenes (like the one where Travolta shouts at his father: "You hit my hair!") to balance the tragic and sel
John Travolta dedicates himself to his dancing and character, fitting the role with a graceful ease. The film goes into depth at studying characters too, it shows how desperate everyone is to fit in and be able to make an impressive image. The fantastic shots on character's feet show the "strut" in their walk, representing their desire to maintain their reputation of being "cool". All the characters want to be something, while a lot of them will never add up to anything due to their working-class backgrounds. There are a fair amount of American social-comments scattered throughout the film and retaining a surprising amount of intelligent value.
The gloriously groovy and funky soundtrack is possibly the film's finest element. The music accompanies the dance sequences with an amazing amount of memorably robust imagery. The use of The Bee Gees' music is wonderful to listen to and also for helping to create an ambiguous atmosphere of love, drugs and sex. The shooting techniques in the disco are magnificent for filming the dance scenes and fit perfectly alongside the other technical elements.
Saturday Night Fever is a far more professional film than one might expect, it has intelligence as well as entertainment, which is something that makes a more than just admirable achievement. It is a truly remarkable triumph and a film that deserves more appreciation than it gets.