Retro-View ‘68: Amblin’

In 1968, Jerry Lewis was on his way to becoming a filmmaker out of time. While he wanted to stretch his ambitions as director, the studios just wanted him to make funny faces. His later 60’s films like THE BIG MOUTH still made a profit but his audience had grown up and he was stuck between generations. At the same time, he was asked to teach a film course at the University of Southern California. Lewis, who had never set foot in college, was surprised but honored. And his class soon became the hottest ticket on the campus, with overflowing hippie cineastes like George Lucas basking at the feet of The Idiot. These students had grown up with his films and they loved him the way the French loved him. Lewis took his role seriously, prepping all week for the three hour class. He was humbled by the response and considers it one of his great experiences. His indispensable 1970 book, THE TOTAL FILM-MAKER also came out of these lectures. Talking about the future of motion pictures, he praised a young director whose short film he screened for his class. “Now this is what filmmaking is all about,” he said of AMBLIN’ and its 21 year-old creator, Steven Spielberg.

Young Spielberg wrote and directed the 25 minute film as a calling card, produced for 10,000 dollars by Denis Hoffman, who hoped to sell the 35 mm short to theaters in the days when they played shorts. The story is simple, a wordless, episodic travelogue about two hitch-hikers (Richard Levin and Pamela McMyler) who end up on the road together. Shot with late 60’s lens flare verite by Allen Daviau, with an appealing folksy score by October Country, AMBLIN’ represents Spielberg’s cinema psyche at its purest, hardwired directly into visuals. There’s a playful confidence in the scenes, with almost every shot going for an imagistic or emotional impact, a New Hollywood wunderkind showing off his mad movie skillz. His mastery of silhouettes is in full bloom here, especially in a long take of the hitch-hikers sharing a joint, which slowly dissolves to the director’s only full-on “trip” sequence. Who knew that Spielberg was such a head?

The short ends on an odd note, with the hitch-hikers turned lovers and ending up at the ocean. As the gleeful young man frolics in the waves, the woman discovers his guitar case contains nothing but clothes and toiletries. Not finding satisfaction in the expansive sea, she walks back up towards the road, leaving her companion to his solitudinal bliss. The End. There’s no indication that the man even notes her farewell. There’s a minor theme present in some of Spielberg’s work, the innocent adrift, evading the cares of the world — even at the expense of a beautiful woman. As presented here, it’s not an unhappy ending at all.

Although AMBLIN’ won many festival prizes, it was passed up for Academy Award consideration because of the marijuana scene, which the stuffy Old Hollywood members (minus Jerry Lewis) eschewed as distasteful. However, the film did get Spielberg a seven-year contract at Universal and the rest is movie history.

I’ve always wanted to see this seminal short and thanks to the holy magic of youtube, we can all see it for a brief time. It’s fun and exciting to watch the germination of Spielberg’s style as presented here. You can see how this filmmaking would have stood out in the radical Godard age of 1968 and it’s wistful to think back on young Steven Spielberg forging his cine-destiny on this impressionistic mood piece. I think it’s lovely.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what film AMBLIN’ opened for when it briefly played Los Angeles in December of 1968, I need only tell you one word: SKIDOO. Try to wrap that around your crystal skull.