Like a door that I had left unopened

Each Day, A Film
January 7th 2012

So, then. Saturday Night Fever.



Le Sigh.

Let's do something funny; let's take a quote in complete isolation, shorn of context, and present it as if it means something. This is a favourite tactic of internet debaters, but it's not something I've really indulged in before. Without further ado;

Tony Manero: If you put your dick in a spic, does it get bigger than a nigger?

I'm not claiming that this says anything about the film in particular or in any broader sense, or that it's a searing portrayal of the racial tensions of the time, or a realistic depiction of Italian-American values circa 1977. It's just... When it came up in the film, it made me stop, and think. It's arguably realistic dialogue - the kind of thing people say when they're surrounded by friends who won't challenge them - but that's just the point; for the majority of the film, nobody challenges them. The New York of 1977 is the kind of place where sex in a car on a pubic street by a club with lots of people milling around is just normal, somehow. And why not? After all, I don't know what New York was like pre-Giuliani. Or at all, in fact. I know a little of Manhattan, a little of Coney Island and Little Odessa, and that's about it, so who am I to judge?

Tony Manero: Are you a nice girl, or are you a cunt?
Annette: Can't I be both?
Tony Manero: No, it's a decision a girl's gotta make early in life, if she's gonna be a nice girl or a cunt.

There I go again, quoting out of context.

Connie: So are you as good in bed as you are on the dance floor?
Tony Manero: You know, Connie, if you're as good in bed as you are on the dance floor, you're one lousy fuck.
Connie: So how come they always send me flowers in the morning?
Tony Manero: I dunno. Maybe they thought you was dead?

A funny thing; the first ever short film I made - at least, the first ever short film I completed, because Dusk was a clusterfuck from start to finish - was about Disco. In more detail, it was supposed to be about a man whose father used to run an all-night kitchen that people used to stop at after a hard evening's you should be dancing for a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich. It was kind of a mockumentary, although in reality it probably should just be mocked because it was someone talking followed by two tits in afro wigs, stick-on mustaches, fake bling dancing in front of a camera with low-light mode engaged.

Then again, I learnt a lot from that film. Mostly the value of afro wigs - disproportionately cheap in comparison to their usefulness, but by god don't get them near an open flame - and the kind of fun you can have making silly films.

But anyway, all I knew about disco was from compilations and cheesy, kitch-y portrayals on television, but even with out-of-context quotes, I feel the same kind of thing about Saturday Night Fever; I've learnt a fair amount from it.

Just not necessarily things I needed to learn, that's all.