Tribal Rites of the Old Saturday Night

S.J. Barlament | 1/15/2008 6:11 pm | Tea in the Yahara

It's not often that I recommend reading a feature-length magazine article. (Do people even still read feature-length magazine articles these days? Well, I guess I do. Anyway...) But for Madisonians planning on heading out to the Majestic a week from this coming Saturday, I'm making an exception.

You see, the Majestic will be screening Saturday Night Fever on Saturday, January 26, as the latest installment in its Brew & View film series (first mentioned in these pages right here) -- to be followed by much drinking and dancing, I'm sure.

I was seven years old when Fever came out, so it didn't really make that much of an impression on me. Aside from the Bee Gees and that dude from Welcome Back, Kotter, nothing much about the film registered whenever it was that I did finally manage to see it. (Thinking about it now, that almost had to be several years later on TV, commercials and all, and maybe even in black & white. Hmmm.)

I don't know. Maybe I was impressed by the whole "hanging underneath the bridge" thing. Or maybe I was struck, be it positively or negatively, by the pretty lights and the "street" style and all that other garbage. But I really didn't think about any of it all that much. And at seven years old -- and even eight or nine, for that matter -- I certainly didn't think it had any more cultural significance at the time than did Star Wars. (Not sure I think so now, either, of course, when it comes right down to it.)

There's no denying, though, that the film is a landmark. It represented the death of disco in some way, even as it ushered in its temporary resuscitation -- at least in the mainstream. At the hands of John Travolta, no less.

But the story of how the film came about is much more interesting than the leisure suits, bad hairstyles, and questionable music it ultimately spawned. All things considered, it's probably even more interesting than the film itself.

In a supplement to Wired in late 2007, I happened upon an article by Sam Kashner that tells the story of how the film was made, along with everything that was going on around it -- including the Brooklyn dance scene the movie was attempting to chronicle. It's fascinating stuff, and you should read it.

Even if you won't be heading out to the Majestic on the 26th.