Almost Famous

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Movie
German title Almost Famous
Original title Almost Famous
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2000
length 118 minutes
(Director's cut) 162 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 10
Rod
Director Cameron Crowe
script Cameron Crowe
production Cameron Crowe,
Ian Bryce
music Peter Frampton ,
Nancy Wilson ,
Cameron Crowe,
Mike McCready
camera John great
cut Joe Hutshing ,
Saar Klein
occupation

Almost Famous - Almost famous is a strongly autobiographical embossed film by Cameron Crowe from the year 2000 . The film is an exaggerated portrayal of Crowe's teenage life as a journalist for Rolling Stone . Crowe's own experiences, when he was allowed to accompany the band Allman Brothers for its first cover story in Rolling Stone, also flowed into the film .

action

William Miller is a 15-year-old gifted boy who writes articles about rock music in his spare time. Although he has a good relationship with his religious mother, he still suffers from the strict upbringing. For this reason, his sister left home on her 18th birthday. William meets the music journalist Lester Bangs , for whom he is supposed to write an article about Black Sabbath giving a concert in town. There he met the groupie Penny Lane and the band Stillwater.

A little later he receives a call from the music magazine Rolling Stone . The editors who consider him to be of legal age have noticed his articles and are sending him on tour with Stillwater. Against massive concerns of his mother, he accompanies the band. The few days that the trip was originally supposed to last become weeks. The tour is extremely chaotic and William learns the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

On the tour he falls in love with Penny Lane, who in turn has a love affair with guitarist Russell Hammond. However, he is married and after his wife has announced that they will be attending the concert in New York, he wants to get rid of Penny. At a poker game he gives her up for $ 50 and a case of beer. Then the humiliated Penny leaves the tour. William and Penny meet again in New York: He saves her life when she overdoses pills in desperation over Russell's decision to stay with his wife.

At the end, William reports to Rolling Stone about his experiences on the tour. The editors are enthusiastic and the report should be the cover story. However, when the editorial staff checked it over the phone, the band denied everything. Frustrated and physically exhausted, William returns home to find out that the editorial team has rejected his story and that he is now a liar. However, he receives a surprising visit from Russell. Actually, this one wanted to visit Penny Lane. But when he asked her for her address, Penny gave him William's address because she had heard about how the band harmed him by denying the real story about the tour. Russell now realizes that he has to call the magazine to confirm Williams' statements. He tells the boy that he called Rolling Stone and said that all of his statements were true. They reconcile, and Stillwater appears on the cover of the magazine.

Almost Famous "Untitled"

On the second DVD of the “Director's Edition” you will find the long version of the film called “Untitled” (only in English with various subtitle languages), which is around 35 minutes longer than the cinema version at around 155 minutes and contains many additional scenes.

Reviews

In Rolling Stone on December 10, 2000, Peter Travers compared the direction of Cameron Crowe with the early works of François Truffaut . He wrote that the film was the most personal film to date by Crowe, who accompanied some musical groups as a teenager. Travers praised the performance of Patrick Fugit, Frances McDormand and Zooey Deschanel.

Ekkehard Knörer praised the performance of the actors in Jump Cut magazine and named the "conventional narrative style" and the "repetition of various clichés of the music film" as the only weaknesses of the film. The “fairytale” end of the “feelgood movie” is also annoying.

Awards

Cameron Crowe won an Oscar for the screenplay in 2001 ; Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand and the editing experts Joe Hutshing and Saar Klein were nominated for an Oscar. Kate Hudson and the film for Best Comedy won the 2001 Golden Globe Award , Frances McDormand and Cameron Crowe were nominated for the Golden Globe. The film won the 2001 BAFTA Award in two categories (Best Screenplay , Best Sound) and was nominated in four others (including Kate Hudson and Frances McDormand).

The film won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award in 2000 in four categories: Best Picture , Best Director , Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress (Frances McDormand). Kate Hudson and Frances McDormand won the 2001 Blockbuster Entertainment Award and the film received five other nominations for the award. The film received five MTV Movie Award nominations (including Kate Hudson and Patrick Fugit) in 2001 . The film won the 2001 Online Film Critics Society Award in five categories (including Kate Hudson and Philip Seymour Hoffman) and was nominated for this award in four other categories, and received another nomination in 2002. Kate Hudson won the 2001 Golden Satellite Award , The film was nominated for this award in five other categories (including Best Comedy , Best Director , Best Screenplay) .

In 2016, Almost Famous ranked 79th in a BBC poll of the 100 most important films of the 21st century .

Soundtrack

The soundtrack , which was released on CD and LP, features a selected mix of contemporary music, especially rock , but also songs that were written especially for the film, such as those by the band Stillwater, who only existed in the film. Responsible for this was none other than Peter Frampton , who also made a cameo in the film as the road manager of Humble Pie . Another icon of the rock business composed the film score: Nancy Wilson of the Canadian group Heart , the wife of director Cameron Crowe. She was also involved in soundtracks of other her husband's films. Numerous other pieces of music from pop and rock history are alluded to throughout the film, for example by Jimi Hendrix , Stevie Wonder and other titles by Led Zeppelin , which, however, did not make it on the published soundtrack. Almost Famous is one of the few feature films that allowed Led Zeppelin songs to be used, but Cameron Crowe did not get permission to use " Stairway to Heaven ".

Tracklist soundtrack

  1. Simon and Garfunkel - America
  2. The Who - Sparks
  3. Todd Rundgren - It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference
  4. Yes - I've Seen All Good People: Your Move
  5. Beach Boys - Feel Flows
  6. Stillwater - Fever Dog
  7. Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story
  8. The Seeds - Mr. Farmer
  9. Allman Brothers - One Way Out
  10. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Simple Man
  11. Led Zeppelin - That's the Way
  12. Elton John - Tiny Dancer
  13. Nancy Wilson - Lucky Trumble
  14. David Bowie - I'm Waiting for the Man
  15. Cat Stevens - The Wind
  16. Clarence Carter - Slip Away
  17. Thunderclap Newman - Something in the Air

As bonus tracks on the first DVD of the "Director's Edition" there are additional music contributions that do not appear in the final version of the movie and the long version:

  • three live contributions by the band Stillwater: "Love Comes and Goes", "Hour of Need" and "You Had to Be There"
  • the complete track "Small Time Blues" by Pete Droge - in a scene in which William Miller passes a room in which a man, played by Pete Droge himself, is playing the song on an acoustic guitar and a woman is singing along the harmonies.

Web links

Wikiquote: Almost Famous - Almost Famous  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Age rating for Almost Famous . Youth Media Commission .