‘Almost Famous’: How Cameron Crowe captured the glibness of the 1970s
Almost Famous didn’t exactly set the box office alight when it debuted in 2000, but it was a hit with the critics and is now firmly regarded as a cult classic. Cameron Crowe‘s indulgent and, at times, hilariously sharp take on the 1970s is noteworthy for its authenticity, but how exactly did the director approach capturing such an iconic decade?
The 1970s was an extraordinary decade for art, music, and cinema, but unlike other works depicting that decade, Almost Famous chooses to focus more on what Crowe felt we weren’t seeing on screen when asked to explain what he felt had been missing from previous attempts.
“What was always missing for me was a lack of glibness,” he explained. “And on a real basic level, if you look at the movies set in the ’70s, you’d think at the stroke of midnight on 1970, everybody had a mirror ball. That was the Seventies. But it wasn’t. Disco didn’t come along until 1976. Glitter rock came along in 1972, and then glitter rock faded, and there was a period between that and disco that was equally passionate and beautifully naive in a way.”
It’s not uncommon for period films to portray inventions or significant events from history as just happening overnight or missing key stages in their development. Naturally, while we understand the filmmaker is pushed for time, it can lead to certain films feeling like slightly hollowed-out shells rather than the powerhouse pictures we would like them to be.
Exploring more of what influenced his decisions to focus on the wider picture of life on the scene in the ’70s, Crowe commented: “Mick Ronson, David Bowie’s guitarist, died before we made the movie, and somebody got a deathbed interview with him and asked, ‘How did it feel to be at the ground zero of decadence in rock?’ And he said, ‘It was a very loving time and a very naive time, or at least it was to me’. And I just thought that was profound. Even the guys who were playing glitter rock, which was so subversive, had a lack of irony and cynicism about it that today would be quaint. But the whole global change in rock, cool being a mass concept, was still around the corner, so it was still a little more personal, and all I can say is passionately naive. And I really wanted to catch that.”
The themes of naivety amid the reckless abandon that the 1970s have long been associated with are a common theme throughout Almost Famous. This perfectly encapsulates how the decade was both an incredibly inspiring time for many budding performers and ultimately filled with crushing disappointment for those who got caught on the wrong side of its descent into decadence.
Kate Hudson, in particular, best sums this up through her portrayal of Penny Lane (which won her a Golden Globe). As a young woman whose very existence is continuously undermined by her devotion to the band she follows religiously wherever they go, Penny’s experience of both the toxicity of the music scene she tries to embed herself in and, ultimately, its rejection of her perfectly underlines the naivety that many would have experienced during the 1970s.
Almost Famous is a magnificent tale of the trials and tribulations of rock through one of its most iconic decades, through the eyes of those who were on the scene but ultimately fell behind it. It perfectly captures the transformation of many young performers and their followers from glib and gullible to destructive and damaged.
