The Power of Nostalgia
AKA The Power of Foul-Mouthed Children Riding Bikes
One of the most memorable scenes of The Sandlot ('93), if only for the humor of it, is the bit where the rival group rides in on their bikes to the sound of Green Onions and the leader of the opposing gang has a mouthing-off competition with Porter AKA 'Ham.' Names fly back and forth such as 'crap face' and 'fart-sniffer' cutting through the air with Ham's final blow "You play ball like a girl;" a moment that shatters the dispute with a long period of degrading silence. It's a juvenile moment that's played entirely for laughs and it's important to remember that it's memorable because it's juvenile.
Porter is also one of the best child-characters in any movie
One can't help but feel wrapped up in the idea of nostalgia; an inevitable looking glass to the past that will always feel far away and yet warmly familiar and reminiscent of the very essence as to what makes us feel connected with our childhood; a world that seemed much more simplistic and innocent through the eyes of a child. There's a reason 90s kids who grew up with The Sandlot continue to revisit and reminisce on what is essentially a silly occurrence of kids getting into trouble, trying to consistently spend their summer vacation playing baseball; it's purely built on nostalgia. We who grew up with it will always get "that feeling" when we hear names like Squints, Wendy Peffercorn or even 'The Great Bambino.' Scenes have created catchy phrases, even as simple as exaggerating the word 'For-ev-er' and there's something in our hearts that makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside when we hear it (truly precious stuff). But what it boils down to is that out of context (if you didn't grow up with it) The Sandlot is not by any means a great movie. It works as a memorable kids movie that still feels special when watching as an adult because it allows adults to feel like they grew up with these kids and watching them now almost feels like watching a home video; a moment frozen in time when life felt simpler. And it is the power of these juvenile children who ride bikes and get into trouble that feels so relatable because that's an astronomical part of what childhood felt like. It's the very notion that makes E.T. and the whole decade of the 80s feel REALLY special and why we resonate so much with the era no matter what age we are.
I think we're starting to see a trend, here.
The 80s especially feels remarkably nostalgic if only for the fact that it's arguably the most 'transitional' decade of our time. Technology was exploding into our world, giving a mountain of leeway to creative freedom in film narrative. Suddenly the idea of computers, robots and A.I. felt overwhelmingly futuristic. Films like The Terminator created a staple on the sci-fi genre fusing both time travel and robots in our modern day American film-going society and everything all at once felt very ahead of its time and yet exceptionally stuck in an unfathomable outdated period. Music had rapidly changed; Real, authentic instruments were substituted for synthesizers and the sound of lasers could be incorporated into some really funky soundtracks. The future became everything; our clothes started to change - Tight jeans, large white sneakers, puffy vests, vibrant baseball caps, glasses with shutters that you could barely see through. It was like being on a different planet where Back to the Future Part II arguably felt like the most defining 80s movie of all time. Everything had transformed; The entire definition of the word 'cool' had morphed into some hip, futuristic beast and once we reached the 90s, it was gone.
The 90s completely gave leeway to the present day and without the 80s we wouldn't have had that literal transition, but because technology grew so much more rapidly, pop culture immediately evolved leaving 80s culture lost in a time warp that is arguably the most far-out, wacky and outdated decade in history. The fact that 70s and 60s culture is making a comeback makes the 80s feel even more out of place than it already does and yet this is the very reason the 80s is the most nostalgic decade we've ever had. It's so nostalgic that present day filmmakers who grew up in that era know just how to capture the decade and make it feel like a relatable time machine for audiences who were never alive during the time and never even experienced it for themselves. This, folks, is why the power of film is such a magical story-telling mechanism.
We 90s kids remember The Sandlot because it feels nostalgic but the whole narrative of the film is based entirely around nostalgia. It starts in the present day (1993 at the time) and flashes back to the 1950s; the whole film is an ode to the past. The Sandlot works because it's playing the past as much as it plays its characters but more importantly than playing the past it's playing the characters that makes the film what it is. Sure the backbones of the script create a memorable story filled with humorous and juvenile events that us 90s kids will revisit time and again, because time will allow the film to feel like it's growing old with us, but without those carved out characters; Benny, Smalls, Squints, Ham; the film just doesn't work. This method to story-telling, with trouble-making kids as good as these, is a filmmaking experiment of character development that truly started with The Goonies ('85) and has evolved into a present-day time machine of past-storytelling knockout hits like Netflix's Stranger Things and the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King's IT and if there's anything the 80s has proved it's that modern day audiences crave the lost era of our past; the childlike innocence which has carved our present.
If there's one movie to thank for kick-starting a chain reaction to the present day gems we have today that are baked in such a nostalgic era, it's definitely The Goonies and what makes it special is that it's a film that unknowingly gave birth to this type of filmmaking we never knew we wanted.
Much like The Sandlot, The Goonies truly isn't a great movie (HEAR ME OUT, KIDS). It's an adoring picture filled with adventure, humor and all the characteristics we're discussing today, and those who grew up with it continue to flourish in the child-like antics that give it that wonderful sense of replay value. But if we're being honest, once the Goon squad reach their designated cave of mystery and meet the lovable mutant Sloth the story continues to fall down the silly rabbit hole that began with kids looking for pirates' gold in the first place. It works because it creates a sense of wonder but again what makes the film stand and what even allows it worth a revisit as an adult is the characters, even more so than The Sandlot. Again, we hear names like Mikey, Brand, Mouth, Data, Chunk; we hear the term 'truffle-shuffle' and the film immediately becomes a pop-icon in our young minds. The kids are just so damn good because they're relatable and more importantly likable. Each kid different from the last whether a young Corey Feldman as the more heroic figure or Chunk as the chubby comic relief (every gang needs one), the group clicks like pieces of a puzzle snapping together. In the end, yes it's a kid-friendly adventure but one that resonates inside the kid in all of us.
The other film worth mentioning from the era is Rob Reiner's Stand By Me ('86); one of the most worthwhile Stephen King adaptions and an absolute predecessor for the 2017 IT, because it features the same formula of kids we've come to cherish but it's also one of the most adult stories that features kids as the center piece. More so than both The Sandlot and The Goonies, Stand By Me is a piece that will endlessly be worth revisiting because it captures the harsh coming-of-age nature that is completely absent in the PG-friendly kids' stories. Where in cherished kids' stories, the adult characters are often likable though minimal, in Stand By Me the adult figures (even the older teenage figures) are despicable, cruel or completely emotionally absent, leaving the protagonist children to truly learn how to grow up on their own. The nature of SBM is very adult, regardless of its focus on kids and it is that adult nature that creates a fusion of childlike nostalgia and cruel adult life-lessons; an undeniably working formula for this kind of storytelling that would not be captured in such a rich manner for nearly thirty years after.
The world caught a glimpse of that much desired nostalgic fusion with JJ Abram's ode to 70s Spielberg with Super 8 (2011), but even that film (which also features a remarkable cast of likable kids) creates a sense of lost tone. With its PG-13 rating it teeters between two lines; One is the part where you have memorable kids filming a homemade zombie movie in a 1970s world that feels akin to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The other is the dark atmosphere featuring a rampaging alien that brutally murders people during a climax that often feels closer to Starship Troopers than E.T. It never quite reaches that hard-R violence but it's enough of a shift in tone that can feel a bit jarring for the genre. Personally, I dig the contrast in tone but it never pushes 'adulthood' with the characters in a way that you feel like the kids are truly growing up. The kids are awesome (and that's what's important) and the tone is especially Spielbergian in its nods to the 70s, but we never resonate with the involvement of the kids going through a true metamorphosis in ways that other films do in capturing that 'coming of age' storytelling we've come to cherish so dear. This is where Stranger Things comes into play.
Even when the first trailer dropped, many people began comparing Netflix's Stranger Things (2016) to Super 8 and noting the Spielbergian tropes of good kids riding around on bikes who were up to no good. The energy and atmosphere of the show was instantly nostalgic and felt pure 80s, capturing the decade better than nearly any piece of pop-culture propaganda since the decade itself. Now to call Stranger Things propaganda sounds heavy but part of why the show works at all is because of its time period setting.
The 80s culture is as much a character as any of the cast members. Take the exact story and characters and plop them in 2016 when the show premiered and the show becomes instantly less appealing. That's not to say the Duffer Bros. haven't carved out exceptionally lovable characters and a remarkably compelling story but with just eight episodes the Duffer Bros. have also arguably mastered the art of capturing the 1980s like lightning in a bottle better than almost any modern-day filmmaker.
Even the least nostalgic and most faint-of-heart audiences warm up to Stranger Things because it's a reminder of the past; it's a reminder of childhood. Even better, the show tackles that fusion of childlike sense of wonder and the cruelties of adulthood without missing a beat in the sense of adventure, mystery and all those things we adults yearned for as a child. That's not to say the show's not flawed but the way it captures the Spielbergian nature of kids being kids, while plopping these characters in a story that gets legitimately spooky, tiptoes across the horror genre and often feels very adult, the show nails exactly what it's going for. The Duffer Bros. treat their audience as if they grew up with Mike, Eleven, Lucas and Dustin and now we're watching a past glimpse of them with a more desensitized "adult" pair of eyes. This is precisely why the fusion of mild violence and major terror (involving children nonetheless) are not only tolerable but very welcome for this sort of genre.
It is also this very essence as to what gives leeway to the creative freedom in enjoying a child-abusing story as brutal as IT, as much as American moviegoers have been this past week.
Flash-forward - September 2017. Director Andy Muschietti's adaptation of Stephen King's IT (2017) has been out for only one week and it has already doubled box office numbers of the highest grossing horror movies to ever exist (pre-inflation of course). To break that down for you, this means that IT is already the most record-breaking, financially successful horror movie of all time and positive word of mouth is going to keep this movie in the #1 slot for at LEAST the next few weeks straight. Now, there are a couple reasons for this. For starters, sure it's due to the story being one of Stephen King's most recognizable novels (at 1,200+ pages) and yes, it could be due to most people being aware of the 1990 mini-series (which makes the 2017 version a direct adaptation, not a remake [which is bothersome to me for no relevant reason]) but there's a lot more to break down beneath the surface of what is essentially a problematic but a basic, well-functioning horror flick.
To get the bad out of the way, IT is filled with minor although present inconsistencies. For starters, the tone is all over the place. We get everything from well paced, authentic eeriness to conventional CGI jump scares. Scenes filled with tension and dread are followed by moments that are going for out-loud laughs. It's almost as if the film had multiple jugglers involved trying to toss up different moods and more so than not, it DOES work out for the best. The complaints are minor but existent if only to prove that there are small, minuscule parts of IT that feel no different than The Bye-Bye Man or any other garbage horror movie to plague the genre over the last two decades. The good news is that again, these occurrences are small and minuscule. In the end, the good outweighs the bad every time but more importantly, even the film's crappiest scares (like that silly, screaming painting coming to life) are washed away by the rich characters.
Granted, not all seven of 'The Losers Club' receive the much deserved spotlight. There's Stanley for example, who's reduced to nothing more than 'frightened Jewish kid.' Then there's the character of Mike who has great potential being the only non-white member of the group and having lost his family in a tragic fire. Mike starts off bitter but restrained, living on a farm being unable to kill the livestock but his character development gets lost in the second act of the film. He even brings his captive bolt pistol to the final Pennywise showdown and he doesn't even get to use it.
That being said, the group is so good with their chemistry crackling from beginning to finish that much of if not all of the film's flaws are forgiven.
That being said, the group is so good with their chemistry crackling from beginning to finish that much of if not all of the film's flaws are forgiven.
You've got Bill, the stuttering hero (if you will) who can't get over the death of his little brother; Beverly who goes from being hazed by fellow schoolmates to being interrogated by her super creepy father; Ben who struggles with with both being overweight and being new and having no friends; Richie, the foul-mouthed comedic relief who hides his insecurities behind his playful insults and really what it all boils down to is that these are REALLY rich characters. Even more so, it's the seemingly haunted town of Derry that is as much a character as any of the kids and the most terrifying aspect of the small, distraught, creepy neighborhood is not the killer-clown lurking in the sewers but it's the filthy, disgusting realistic atmosphere that looms over the innocent children. Much like Stand By Me, every adult character in the film is either emotionally opaque or mortifying in their behavior. This is where the glass ceiling between childhood and adulthood is completely shattered and is very much so the absolute essence in what makes IT a truly memorable story, regardless of whatever flaws I complain about.
Because sometimes we all just need to take a break from life and have a good old fashioned rock fight
It is the very nature of 'kids being kids' which makes the film work at all. We take many breaks from the scares to really focus on the children. In fact, Pennywise is not in the film nearly as much as he's been advertised which ultimately works because it allows the near 2.5 hour-long film to completely endeavor in the development of the characters. We follow them being bullied, hazed and terrified by not just clowns and their worst fears in the form of CGI monsters but we also see classmates, parents; real characters make these kids' lives a literal living nightmare. And through it all, we follow the kids laughing, swearing, riding bikes, jumping through creeks, taking flashlights through sewers. The children bring out a sense of mystery that feels child-like in its innocence and the fact that these said children are living in such a terrifying atmosphere makes their young adolescence that much more resonant with the adult audience who yearns for that simpler time of life, throughout all hardships and scary clowns alike.
And Lord knows ain't nobody got time for scary clowns
At the end of the day, dress up the story and universe however you want, whether it's Stranger Things' heavy inclusion of 80s culture or whether it's IT's ability to wrap you up in a nostalgic sense of wonder and terror that take you back in time to a place that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside (no matter how many children are being terrorized by a menacing clown). We relate to 80s culture and the past because it bridges this connection between our modern world of whatever horrible atrocities are currently being painted on the times, and the sense of being young and free again like we were when we were too young to see the true horrors of the world. Skilled filmmakers today are tapping into the past in a way that's kinda never been done before. Sure, filmmakers are always depicting the past through the medium of film but the astute amount of detail in not just the production value of 80s culture but in the nature of actual relatable children makes these stories instantly timeless and it's the reason we already deem projects like Stranger Things and IT as pieces of classic pop culture in film, even when those projects are only a year or even a week old.
Folks. Take It for what It is. We are children of nostalgia whether we lived through the 80s, 90s or the day of today, and it is our very sense of connection to our past that make these films and TV shows just so special in our black hearts of cheerful nihilism. These works of film are not just nostalgic; they're accurate; they're frighteningly realistic which makes us care for the helpless characters way more than we bargained for.
These kids tap in to not just who we were as children but who we as children have evolved into today (and if the gods of cinema allow, this is exactly why IT: Chapter Two should be an emotional sendoff for these characters having grown up from terrorized children to fractured adults) and it's because we relate to the very real evolution of these kids becoming adults before our very eyes that we resonate with them so much, even if these poor, victimized kids only exist in the fictitious world of a murderous clown that takes the shape of whatever it is they fear the most so it can kill them.
And that's a terrifyingly beautiful thing.
