Fiebre del sábado noche

I first watched this as a teenager and I just thought Tony was a cool guy doing cool things, Annette was a stupid piece of ass and Stephanie was classy. I realized there were subplots like Frank and Bobby C's story but most of that went over my head.

As I've been rewatching this from time to time over the decades, I now see there is a lot more there. It's actually pretty nihilistic, the family drama is reasonably intricate, as is the love story. On top of that, it's an interesting view on 1970's NYC, perhaps not in the same league as Midnight Cowboy or Taxi Driver, but nevertheless sharing an origin. At times, it's as gritty and dark as these two films.

The music is stellar and the disco scenes are iconic. Not a masterpiece as it sometimes is cringeworthy and shallow, but on the whole it's a culturally important piece of film history.

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. Travolta is a revelation in arguably his greatest role. The other players are adequate and the screenplay is deceptively smarter than it appears on the surface. The movie also works as a time capsule to a part of contemporary American history where discos and bell-bottoms were all the rage. Still one of the finer films of the time period. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

It's funny how people remember a film they are reminiscing about. An example would be "Muriel's Wedding" - a film that is labeled as a comedy. And yet it is one of the saddest & most realistic films about family life that has been made. When you remember the film, its moments of humour are so clever, that they hide the dark undercurrents explored.

The same goes for "Saturday Night Fever" (SNF), a film that showcases disco in its most perfect form. And yet the true theme of the movie is about wanting more out of your life but just existing, until something affects you so much that you decide to start living.

John Travolta's character is so well played against his friends who are, quite simply, cruel no hopers who disrespect the opposite sex & treat them as fifth best against the car they all share to have 'mobile' sex in.

The female character that eventually shifts Travolta's character appears at a time when horrific events really force him to reassess where he is going – something that his friends will never be unable to ever do.

It is easy to label a movie a certain way. There are films with similar themes such as 'Good Will Hunting', which is noted for its themes & dialogue rather than being a kitsch memory, and we should remember SNF for the same reasons.

... this is a product of my generation. I was the age that Travolta's character Tony was in 1977, although in a completely different part of the US. Probably the disco era is the only one in the history of film in which people in street clothes look like they are going to a costume party. The pointy collars, the shoes, the hair so full of hairspray that it looks like it would shatter if it brushed up against something, and those jackets that are so full of holes - big ones - they look like they were attacked by moths and why are we calling them jackets anyways?

So Tony (Travolta) is a New York City born and bred Italian American with only a high school education, an employee at a dead end job - selling and mixing paint - in a store that is now extinct - the neighborhood hardware store that is about to get replaced by the big box hardware stores such as Harbor Freight. Dad is used to being the head of the family, but now he has been laid off in middle age. Suddenly Edith is talking back and disrespecting Archie and he doesn't like it one bit. And the only thing that makes Tony feel alive is Saturday nights on the dance floor of the local disco where he is the best.

And then he meets a girl - Stephanie. She is everything that I, a Texan, was told that New Yorkers are - loud mouthed, self important, snooty. And yet Tony follows her around like a puppy because he is in love. Annette (Donna Pescow) follows Tony around like a puppy because she is in love. It's funny how Tony doesn't like how Stephanie treats him, yet he turns around and treats Annette the same way. But Tony turns out to be much more self aware than you would think. And Stephanie - there is much more to her story than her being just another stuck up Manhattanite.

There is so much casual sex going on here that it answers the question "Where did herpes come from?". But it is so much more than glittering disco balls. it is a love story. A story of a guy learning about the friendship component of love. It is a tragedy. It is a story of young people at a crossroads. And last but not least, it has probably one of the great soundtracks in motion picture history and gave the Bee Gees a second act. I'd highly recommend it. Just try to ignore your probable first reaction "Yikes those clothes!!!!"".

1977 was the year in which iconoclastic punk and hedonistic disco dominated the music scene. How ironic then that the final number one single in the U.S. of that year was Debbie Boone's "You light up my life". While I think that the punk movement has never been well documented in film fiction, the more popular and mainstream disco culture had several major films dedicated to it. The best of these was Saturday Night Fever (SNF).

The snag is that SNF was NOT a disco movie. Yes, it had dazzling dance sequences, yes, it had a pulsating soundtrack, and, yes, many of the scenes were shot in a disocteque, but I have always felt that the disco theme was peripheral to the real story; the alienation of youth and the acceptance and sanctuary they find in each other and their chosen surroundings. In fact, Nik Cohn's article on which the film was based (and which he later admitted was faked), "Tribal rites of the new Saturday night" would have been a more apposite title. John Travolta perfectly captures this. As Tony Manero he almost ritually prepares himself for his night out, preening himself in front of the mirror, donning his warrior's uniform, and then escaping the drudgery of his existence to his battleground, the local disco where he is the tribal chief.

Gritty, foulmouthed and somewhat downbeat, SNF starkly presented the darker underbelly of the disco subculture.