Rock lives in 'Almost Famous'

By STEVE PERSALL

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 21, 2000

Writer-director Cameron Crowe's fond recollections of a time when rock 'n' roll mattered are done with attention to detail.

Former music critic Jon Landau caused a stir in 1974 when he wrote: "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen."

Twenty-six years later, I've seen rock 'n' roll past and its name is Almost Famous.

Writer-director Cameron Crowe fondly recalls when rock 'n' roll could save the world, free your soul or whatever hazy idealism anyone had in mind. Before the Beatles became commercial jingles. Before the word "groupie" was just another name for slut. When drugs were purely recreational because the music was intoxicating enough.

You had to be there. Thanks to Crowe's superb film, we can be there again for two hours.

Almost Famous is fairly autobiographical, since Crowe was backstage with some of the best of the 1970s, writing for Rolling Stone at the impressionable age of 15. His mentor, cranky philosopher Lester Bangs, told him that the rebellious spirit of rock 'n' roll was already dead, replaced by "an industry of cool." Through his writings, Crowe sought whatever pulse remained until rock was flat-lined by disco and beyond.

Crowe's alter ego in Almost Famous is William Miller, played with absorbent eyes by newcomer Patrick Fugit. William is an accelerated student, younger than his classmates and coddled by a well-meaning mother (Frances McDormand). His sister, Anita (Zooey Deschanel), is flying the coop when the film begins, tired of Mom's assertions that adolescence is a marketing tool and even Simon and Garfunkel promote sex and drugs.

Anita leaves, promising that someday William will be cool and leaving him the means to do it, a stash of now-classic albums. William immerses himself into the music: listening, reading Bangs' Creem magazine and writing for his school paper.

The boy arranges a meeting with Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who hires the kid to write a story on Black Sabbath. Like Tommy smashing the mirror, William has his senses and emotions tingled in a weird, wonderful way.

At a concert, William gets unofficially adopted by Sabbath's opening act, a rising band called Stillwater. Crowe's first gig for Rolling Stone was an Allman Brothers profile, and Stillwater resembles that group, with a little Led Zeppelin and Free added for good measure. Bangs warned William not to make friends with musicians ("Friendship is the booze they feed you"), but it happens.

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres (Terry Chen) reads William's article and hires him over the phone to do a piece on Stillwater. Fong-Torres doesn't know he's dealing with a child. With his mother's grudging approval, William embarks on a cross-country tour with the band.

Almost Famous becomes an engrossing series of road episodes, each revealing another layer of the power of rock 'nd' roll, the needs of people who worshiped it and the void looming on the horizon. Concert dates go well and not so well. The band's trusty bus Doris is homier than hotels. Stillwater's female muses -- not groupies, we're told, but "Band Aids" -- are as simultaneously vital and disposable as guitar picks.

Friction develops when Stillwater's guitarist, Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) becomes more popular than founder and lead singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee). Stillwater may not exist by the time Rolling Stone runs the story. William takes it all in, scratching notes on scrap paper, chasing interviews that are always postponed.

Crowe packs his film with backstage details, from catered communal meals to handwritten signs reminding everyone which city they're in. Costuming and hairdos are perfect. Yet, this authenticity isn't merely cosmetic. The film is credible because the person behind the camera knows his topic, yet remains a pragmatic romantic. It's more like his baby boomer tale Singles than the glossy love of Jerry Maguire.

The casting is impeccable, especially Crudup's multiconflicted Russell and a captivating turn by Kate Hudson as Penny Lane, wistful leader of the Band Aids. Hudson is Goldie Hawn's daughter, a bloodline obvious each time she rolls her eyes or bites her lip. This role should make her a star on her own.

McDormand keeps her nag character from becoming too cartoonish, and Lee's joy of performance makes Jeff's petulance sympathetic. Fugit's awkwardness as an actor suits his role. Everyone performs with the boisterous naivete of the era, a vibe Crowe encourages with each well-crafted scene.

Almost Famous is a terrific movie, and that's before noting the nearly ceaseless soundtrack of rock musical artifacts. In its transcendent moments, the music stops commenting on the story and becomes part of it, as adrenaline or aphrodisiac or a salve for open emotional wounds, like it used to be.

Crowe's film is a eulogy for that dear, departed spirit, although that description is much too serious for such a buoyant film. This movie splashes a toast of Jack Daniels on the grave, scribbling graffiti optimism on the tombstone: Rock is dead. Long live rock.

Almost Famous

• Grade: A
• Director: Cameron Crowe
• Cast: Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson, Patrick Fugit, Frances McDormand, Jason Lee, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Anna Paquin, Fairuza Balk
• Screenplay: Cameron Crowe
• Rating: R; profanity, sexual situations, brief nudity, drug abuse
• Running time: 122 min.

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