Heavy Traffic

Plot synopsis:
The film starts out in live action, introducing the protagonist Michael Corleone, a 22-year-old virgin (inaccurately referred to as 24 in the movie's trailer) playing pinball in New York City. The scene then transitions into animation. New York has a diseased, rotten, tough, and violent atmosphere. Michael's Italian father, Angelo "Angie" Corleone, is a struggling mafioso who frequently cheats on Michael's Jewish mother, Ida. The couple constantly bicker and try to kill each other. Michael ambles through a catalog of freaks, greasers, and dopers. Unemployed, he dabbles with cartoons, artistically feeding off the grubbiness of his environment. He regularly hangs out at a local bar where he gets free drinks from the female black bartender, Carole, in exchange for sketches of the somewhat annoying Shorty, Carole's violent, legless bouncer devotee. One of the regular customers at the bar named Snowflake, a nymphomaniac transvestite, gets beaten up by a tough drunk hard-hat who has only just realized that Snowflake is a man in drag and not a beautiful woman. Snowflake loves it, but the drunk causes property damage Shorty throws the drunk out and the bar's white manager abusively confronts Carole over this. Fed up with her manager, Carole quits.
Shorty offers to let Carole stay at his place, but not wanting to get involved with him, Carole tells Shorty that she's staying with Michael, and that they've been "secretly tight for a long time." Michael is turned on by her no-nonsense attitude and strong sense of self-reliance. This relationship also arouses his father's racist fury, as well as the jealousy of Shorty. But Rosa comes over to have sexual intercourse with Michael while Angie slaps Ida in the face with a gun. Michael and Carole decide to move out of Michael's parents' house and try to earn enough money to move to California, in order to avoid Shorty. Michael gets a chance to pitch a comic strip idea to an old executive lying on his death bed, who seems enthusiastic enough to listen to the idea.
Michael's story is too much for the mogul and he dies during the pitch. Meanwhile, Carole tries to work as a taxi dancer. Michael, acting as her manager, tries to pass her off as "the fourth Andrews Sister" ("'cause she was black, they kept her in the background"). A quick flash of her panties gives an old man a heart attack, and Carole gets fired. Meanwhile, Angie tries to use his Mafia connections to put a murder contract out on his son for "disgracing the family" by dating a black woman. The Godfather refuses to do this, because the hit is "personal, not business". However, Shorty eventually meets up with Angie, and agrees to do the contract.
Michael and Carole turn to crime as a means of getting by, with Carole taking the role of a prostitute. Carole flirts with a sleazy businessman and brings him to a hotel room, where Michael beats him to death with a lead pipe. The two walk out into a pinball background with the dead man's cash. Just then, Shorty shows up and shoots Michael in the head with a gun that Angie gave him to finish the job before Ida chases him; the bullet is seen going through Michael's skull in slow motion. Many of the movie's characters run around in a circle and a kaleidoscope of shocking images and horrifying events proceeds before reverting to the live action story. The "real" Michael destroys a pinball machine after it tilts and walks out onto the street, bumps into the "real" Carole, and follows her into a park. The two are seen briefly arguing before they finally take each other's hands and begin dancing in the park.

Tags: pornographic, cult, violence, psychedelic, humor, satire

Review:
Bakshi's most personal work is a completely outlandish, crude, overtly abstract New York satire.
Heavy Traffic is, like many of Ralph Bakshi's films, a like it or hate it affair, but for those that respond to it, the film provides many a surprising attack on sensibility, decency, and what it means to get by in urban sprawl.
It's almost too personal; one can see Bakshi or friends of his having gone through some of the little things in the lower ranks of New York City's daily life (particularly Brooklyn life) as depicted here.
But it's this connection to a personal reality- and then a TOTAL adherence to turning this reality on its head and making it as wild, violent, and sexually deviant as possible- that is the key to the success of Bakshi's film, the best of his I've seen so far.
His main character, Michael, is probably loosely based on himself; a young, would-be underground cartoonist who lives with insanely irate parents (Italian father and Jewish mother), and interacts with the neighborhood he's in with a casual attitude and a little reluctance to join in the mayhem that goes on with such kooky cats.
It all leads up to an ending that isn't expected, though a sort of double-piling of shock and pleasant surprise.Heavy Traffic outlays Bakshi's outlook on life in a skill that could be called animated exploitation film-making.
However, it's through this overloading of characters *meant* to be unattractive, sexually piggish, wretchedly racist (and, on the other side of the coin, sexist), and violent in the tradition of the Looney Tunes cartoons with the worst taste, that the film gets to the guts of the matter.
Scenes like Michael being pressured to get it on with the girl on the mattress on the roof, and the outcome as a sort of running gag; the scene with the song Mabeline playing, as Baskhi puts out drawings that are without much color, and look incredible for the reason that there's seemingly little effort put into the animation with the random over-the-top sexual positions; the little bits in the feuding with Michael's parents, the mother with her Jewish-star knife-holster and the father with his dedication to the "Godfather", who eats little people in his pasta, over anything really with his family; and when Michael presents "religious" cartoons to a dying old man, which to any prurient Christian taste is hilariously offensive and, well, cool.Bakshi is so personal at times, with his taste in color schemes, in over-lapping images with film clips, combining live-action and animation (usually with dancing ladies on one side and a lurid little twerp gawking on the other), and even likely real family photos from his own family laid in, that it levels going too far.
But deep down, past the creative madman in Bakshi, is also a heart; his film ends on a touching note, as abstraction turns real and a totally live scene reveals another level to Michael and Carol, as real outcasts who are both totally stubborn, and somehow meant for each other.
A few previous critics of this work by Bakshi slam it for being "stereotypical" and thereby negative as a whole by implementing foul humor, language and at times even suggest that because it's a cartoon that it owes something to child-oriented animation.
Bakshi's vision in Heavy Traffic is to present life on the streets as he knows it.
By using animation, Bakshi is exercising his artistic abilities while setting it in times and themes he is familiar with.
An "underground" cartoonist contends with life in the inner city, where various unsavory characters serve as inspiration for his artwork.Another reviewer said that people who review this film poorly are either offended by the nudity or just do not get it.
On the second point, it is possible I do not get it.While I understand the animation was innovative for its time and that the film shows urban decay -- both with cartoons and actual locations -- I cannot help but think that it just has not aged very well.
It balanced out to be average at best.The New York Times called it the "most original American film of the year." Could they look back now and say that again?
A Lost Animated Gem. Heavy Traffic is only known by the hardcore Ralph Bakshi fan base and the occasional art house folk, but not by much else.
From the music, to the animation, Heavy Traffic proves that its more than a cartoon, but a microcosm of urban life in the cruelest decade to live in it.
laced with some kind of bizzare sexual reference every other second (it seems) as well as totally insane violence, this brutal, bizarre and strangely sad film is worth one viewing, if for no other reason that to show that in the early '70's, Bakshi was pointing towards a concept of animated film that is only now hinted at.I would suggest (okay, I AM suggesting) that a lot of Anime, and the useage of animated clips in both Natural Born Killers and Kill Bill (vol.
I) point back to this particular film.My take: watching the hero in "real time" is what the film is showing, with the animated bits being more inside of his head, until the end, where he is blown off by the beautiful woman that he dreams of, where we see one event that exists in his head (notice that it fails, but begins with an act of violence against the pinball machine, and also notice that the man playing with the artificial gunfighter is gunned down while a man >?< is getting naked in the photo booth) and another that ends with a sense that in a few seconds the Mary Tyler Moore theme song is going to begin.What is real?
Made after the X-Rated animated film, "Fritz the Cat," Ralph Bakshi's "Heavy Traffic" is considered to be his greatest work.
Like all of Bakshi's films, it emerged amidst a storm of controversy due to its sexual and violent animated content.
However, once the viewer gets beyond the shock of seeing an animated film with adult attitude, the symbolic details and creative genius of the work becomes apparent.The film follows a young animator as he struggles to get out of his domestic situation, and to sell his films.
The film is an extremely personal account of director Bakshi's own early life.
This is all a symbolic representation of Bakshi's own struggle to have his bold and adult natured animated films accepted among critics and the film world.As for the creative efforts of the film, it is incredible and fascinating.
Bakshi brilliantly meshes a wonderful musical soundtrack with all styles of creative animated symbolism, without losing its personal human touch.
This is the second adult-oriented animated movie I've seen with "heavy" as the first word in the title and which is also chock full of gratuitous sex and violence.
I'd read Bakshi was lead animator for Paramount and worked for many years at Terrytoons.
"Heavy Traffic" certainly seems to draw inspiration from the old Paramount toons in terms of style, though he cartoon characters are deliberately cruder.
Made in the mid-70s, it's a West Side story told mostly in animation from the imagination of the lead character, Michael.
While not my favorite style of animation, Ralph Bakshi does a pretty good job of conveying confusion and an overwhelmed sense of trying to fit in.
The live action sequences and old film mesh with the cartoon aspects to give a visual punch to this.
Though, I usually watched family-oriented animated films; but I guess, I am like wholesome vs taboo.
I first encountered Ralph Bakshi's films when I was a teenager; I don't know how old.
And I watched on YouTube: "Fire & Ice," "Cool World" (live action/animated) and this film "Heavy Traffic." Well anyway, Heavy Traffic is a film which begins, ends, and occasionally combines with live-action, explores the often surreal fantasies of a young New York cartoonist named Michael Corleone, using pinball imagery as a metaphor for inner-city life.
Is there anything that separates Bakshi's Jewish mother from any other stereotype of a Jewish mother that you've ever seen?I found this film a complete waste of time..
Heavy Traffic(not to be confused with the title of the animated film Heavy Metal) is a visual journey that contains plenty of sex and violence.
This is considered by many Ralph Bakshi's(Fritz the Cat) best work.
Although he seems to dislike many of them, they're so broad and colorful and wired, they translate easily to caricatures.Bakshi takes us to all the usual haunts we visit in his movies--trashy ghetto neighborhoods with buildings that look condemned, dirt-cheap apartments, behind the wheel of cars, rooftops, nightclubs, bars, brothels.The lives of all of the Bronx inhabitants: Jews, Itallians, blacks, drag queens, junkies, vagrants, hookers, cops, thugs and the like.
And by using animation, Bakshi (and Michael) sort of illustrate their world and their eccentricity, which is so dangerous, it borderlines on insanity.I wasn't particularly crazy about the disco remix of "Scarlbrough Fair." What can I say?
Bakshi uses a lot of shots of Michael playing pinball.
She's not just an ethnic joke.Like all bars, there are lots of colorful locals there, plenty of dangerous ones to be sure.Michael tries to score free drinks with his art.
Now there's a true loving father for you.Michael has an eye for Carol (many people at the bar she tends do), not because he's dying to get laid like nearly every other male.
Angelo wants his son to be more of a "man's man." Like all of Bakshi's films, this contains a lot of graphic violence and sexual images, as well as caricatures in the ethnic vein.But surprisingly, in the strangest way, it contains real heart, as well as some sweetness.
Just like Michael's life is up to him.The characters in the city are so damn cartoonish and erratic already, they transfer them into cartoon characters without losing anything in the translation.Bakshi doesn't paint a pretty picture of the city and it's locals.
but of the best.--For Ralph Bakshi, for film, forever, Dane Youssef.
It is jammed pack with a confusing story about sleazy city dwellers.The movie combines live action and animation, though the majority of the film is animation.
It opens with a scene at an arcade, and Mike, the main character (both in the live action and animated segments) is playing a pinball game.
Bakshi cartoons are known for excellent animation, especially as you see it in American Pop, but Heavy Traffic, while fitting for it's day, doesn't have that same beautiful artistry as American Pop (even though there is about a twenty-five year difference between the release dates of the two films).
Heavy Traffic is Ralph Bakshi's second animated feature film.
Rather than a feature film, it comes off more like an animation student's demo reel.
The characters you could care less about, but there was one sequence that I thought was absolutely brilliant.A black and white animated strip (like watching a flip book) set to the tune of Chuck Berry's "Maybelline"My advice- check out Fritz instead and "American Pop" is definitely the best..
Ties with American Pop as Bakshi's best film.
In fact it ties with American Pop as my personal favourite of Ralph Bakshi's films, with Hey Good Lookin' and Coonskin not far off.
The soundtrack always has been one of my things-to-look-for in animated movies and here it is wonderful, beautiful but also moody and atmospheric.
Animation always at its dirtiest, complete with full frontal nudity, endless foul language, poor stereotyping of Jews, Italians, blacks, the handicapped, gays, the homeless and other sorts of street people, a dizzying melange of live action and animation (none of it coherent), and all this contributed to the X-rating 30 years ago when it was released, as did his debut feature, "Fritz the Cat."   This is the story of Michael, both shown live action and animated.
Escaping from his feuding parents, a cheating Italian gangster father and domineering Jewish mother, Michael sets out to make a life of his own, and falls for a black woman who works at the local black bar, and more trouble awaits them.
The movie, like Bakshi's latter projects "Wizards" and "Lord of the Rings," makes too many shifts in animation styles without any sense of coherency, unlike the better "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," a cartoon for adults and kids, where everything links together without any gimmicks, something Bakshi does all too well, let alone his crude animation and story styles.
This is the best adult cartoon I've ever seen, though also what I like here, is our main character Michael and his girl are also seen a little in human form as well.
22 year old virginal Michael (there's a few floating around) is a gifted cartoonist, who's just ain't cutting it with the ladies, and I could identify with that too, watching the character in human form, in what little screen time, here was offered.
Michael is a likable character, and it's the well devised characters that really make Heavy Traffic work.
There's just a lot more here than the other adult cartoon films.
Ralph Bakshi's Heavy Traffic almost manages to beat his earlier 'Fritz the Cat' with its downbeat, very dark urban look and outrageous humor about different sides of life.
It combines animation of different techniques and real-life footage with snippets of pop art, comics, advertisements and classic old movies.
The main character Michael gets to know some hard facts of life while pin-balling between crazy home life and even crazier city life.
Bakshi's handling of the rather short but winding story and his technical ability to create memorable adult animation deserves repeated viewings in my eyes..
Originally X rated this animated film follows a half-Jewish/half-Italian 22 year old man dealing with his battling parents and growing up in a tough section of NYC.
He gets a black girlfriend and things go totally out of control.Probably writer/director Ralph Bakshi's best work.
Second, I grew up in the inner city so no points off for grittiness.However, I do want to watch a movie with something interesting to say other than people are mean to each other and out for their own self-interest.
No real plot, basically a collection of events from the life of an angry young Italian-Jewish man named Michael inter-spliced with him playing pinball in an arcade, the one bright spot in his life being a black hooker named Carole.This is one mean, nasty, disgusting little film that is so relentlessly bleak and uncompromising in telling the viewer that life is a hopeless Hell that it's unbearable, and the incredibly bad animation does not help.
Some genuinely funny dark humor isn't enough to relieve the strain.While I applaud Ralph Bakshi's efforts & desire to use animation for adults and show it could be used for more than just entertaining kids, he really drops the ball with this one, allegedly his personal favorite.
Michael is an underground artist in New York City who draws strips of the people he sees around him.
He hooks up with the beautiful Carol, but she loses her job in a bar and so the two go searching for the high life.Bakshi's films are hard to find, but it's more than worth the effort.
Outside of Japan, he's really the only director in the world who has managed to make adult-oriented animation features, and his films are completely unique.
It's really just a slice-of-life series of observations; some satirical, some gross, some tragic and all rendered in a wild array of visual styles - traditional cell animation, live action, multiple composites, filters and negatives, pencil-tests (the Maybellene sequence), near-subliminal stills, real movie clips (the film Michael watches in the empty cinema is Red Dust, with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow), stock shots, what have you.
An acquired taste, for sure, but a must for real fans of animation, and check out any of Bakshi's other films (particularly Wizards and Cool World)..
Seemingly underseen underground animation; Bakshi's best film.
The moral disconnect here and the many undercurrent conflicts, (like the conflict of Michael's parents in their guiding their son) disorient the viewer but provide an ample amount of thought-provoking messages, many of them subliminal in the visuals.The look of the film is tremendous, perfectly capturing a grubby city, but also giving a stylized verve to the characters.
Good Bakshi film but not his best.
Rated R for Graphic Violence,Nudity,Language and Brief Drug Use Heavy Traffic is another adult animated film from Ralph Bakshi.I have seen plenty of Bakshi films.I first got interested in Bakshi when I saw Fritz The Cat.I really enjoyed that movie and it is still Bakshi's best in my opinion.Coonskin was good but nowhere near as good as Fritz.Hey Good Lookin is another great Bakshi film as well.I plan on viewing American Pop next(if I can find it) and then Bakshi's fantasy films like Wizards,Lord Of The Rings and Fire and Ice.Heavy Traffic has a decent enough story and some funny scenes.
and if you like Bakshi's other films, you should check this one out.The film is about Michael, a pinball playing virgin with an Italian father and a Jewish mother.His mother and father are always fighting and trying to kill each other.Michael is friends with a black bartender named Carol who gives him drinks in return for his sketches.After Carol gets fired, she stays at Michael's place where his father dislikes carol.So Michael and Carol leave and Carol becomes a prostitute.They end up robbing and killing a man for cash and then Michael gets shot.The film mixes live action and animation.The ending is fairly weird and does not make much sense but Heavy Traffic is a fun animated film that you should check out if you can find it.