Seeing American Gaffitti now is a curious experience. It was set in 1962 but made in 1973 with several future stars in their early roles. If you look carefully, you can see that many of the boys have struggled to turn their 70s hairstyle to match those over a decade earlier. But overall, AG is a dazzling and memorable nostalgic drama superbly written and directed, falling just short of a masterpiece.
The editing is particularly good, depicting the experiences of all main characters as they go through the last night of celebration before going off to college. I liked the idea of using the local haunt - Mel's Drive-in - as the focal point for the gang's fun even though they actually spend very little time inside it during that night. Also interesting and nostalgic is the all night 'cruising around' by the kids looking for fun and mostly getting it. One possible complaint that I have is that there should have been an attempt at introduction of the characters at the start. Ideally, it could have been by way of a nostalgic voice-over by Curt Henderson (Dreyfuss) looking back at that night and introducing various characters as they arrived at Mel's.
The editing is particularly good, depicting the experiences of all main characters as they go through the last night of celebration before going off to college. I liked the idea of using the local haunt - Mel's Drive-in - as the focal point for the gang's fun even though they actually spend very little time inside it during that night. Also interesting and nostalgic is the all night 'cruising around' by the kids looking for fun and mostly getting it. One possible complaint that I have is that there should have been an attempt at introduction of the characters at the start. Ideally, it could have been by way of a nostalgic voice-over by Curt Henderson (Dreyfuss) looking back at that night and introducing various characters as they arrived at Mel's.