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Steph Spams: Why The Radio Is Important In American Graffiti


What a surprisingly good “coming of age” story.

I watched American Graffiti recently, a movie set in 1962 following multiple interlocking subplots with the various characters. It’s more character driven than anything. The group splits off into their own plot lines for development during what has to be the longest night to ever sit through. In fact, the entire movie is comprised of these splitting subplots. Sometimes they overlap, influencing each other by causing some minor conflict, or moving another character’s story forward by showing up just at the right time. But, other than what feels like the occasional cameo, each character’s story seems to function independently.
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So, what connects them, if it isn’t exactly the plot tying them together?

What seemed at first to me as the most annoying, static-blasting quality of the movie turned out to be my favorite part. The subplots can all influence each other, but outside of those quick instances, the stories tell separately. Sure, they all come together at the end, but what makes the movie feel whole throughout? What’s needed is some element that connects all the characters from start to finish no matter where they are in the story. And that’s what’s so fun to analyze.

The use of the radio audio in American Graffiti is to narrate both the situation with supporting tracks, move the plot forward, and provide a sense of unity to the various subplots. Throughout the film, we hear a mix of diegetic and non-diegetic music. Diegetic is seen when the characters are talking over the music of the radio, or when transitioning from an extreme long take type shot to a scene with dialogue. Non-diegetic audio is seen when the characters are driving around, when setting is being established, notably during extreme long-shots, and when the music the characters are listening to drowns out all other audio, where it then switches from originating in the film to being heard outside of the film.

The plot is moved forward by the radio’s talk show host, the Wolfman Jack, as he narrates thematically what is going on with the characters, as well as functioning as a plot device when the protagonist wants to send a message to a girl he saw on the street but knew nothing about. Because of the radio advertisement, they were able to meet via a phone call. The Wolfman also served as a character whom the other characters all looked up to in various ways, the climax of the film being when the protagonist meets the host in the radio station, and a red herring is given that the man isn’t actually the host, that the segments are all pre-recorded on tapes. They do turn out to be pre-recorded, but we soon after learn that the man is also the host they had all been looking for.

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The radio music and narration, specifically when its diegetic, is needed to unite the different subplots of the movie. So many different stories are going on at once that at times the only similarity between them is that they are all listening to the same radio show. This helps unify the plot in the development of each character over the course of the movie through the use of diegetic and non-diegetic techniques.
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