American Pop
               
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Year: 1981
Rating: 6.0
This is my first Ralph Bakshi film and it intrigued me enough to look for some of his others. I am not a big fan of animation in general but this has some stunning images and scenes. It was his sixth feature and his films were big events back in the 1970s with Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic and Coonskin. Edgy, adult animation. Not for kids. This one reflected his love of music as it tracks four generations of sons as they move through the 20th century and the music around them. For me it became less interesting as it moved into contemporary times but I loved the scenes from back in the 20s and 30s. The work is a combination of animation using rotoscope (which he had used previously), live action and film stock.

 

It begins with a pogrom in Russia and a mother and her young son, Zalmie, escape to America. She works in a sweatshop sewing while he gets into vaudeville as a clown. He lives through the jazz era and the gangster era and has a son. The son is a piano prodigy but decides to enlist in WWI. His son leaves home early on and becomes a songwriter - animations of Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix and Joplin are within his orbit but after Joplin dies he falls apart and takes on a young boy, not knowing that it is his son from a fling years before in Kansas. He becomes a drug dealer and user as the son goes on to fame - sort of as Bob Seeger. A century of music in 96 minutes. Great scenes of war and gangster shoot-outs. It is a celebration of music if not of life. Life rarely meets your expectations.