George Lucas

by Brian Jay Jones

The film itself truly was American graffiti — a unique moment in time, preserved on celluloid, scratching its essence on the movie screen like the etchings on Egyptian monuments, to ensure its memory wouldn’t be lost forever. “It’s about a period of transition in history in America where in one year you had a President that a lot of kids admired. . . . [Y]ou had a certain kind of rock’n’roll music, a certain kind of country where you could believe in things. . . . You had a certain kind of life,” Lucas explained in 1974. “But in the next two years everything changed: no longer were you a teenager; you were an adult going to college or doing whatever you were going to do. The government changed radically, and everybody’s attitude toward it changed radically. Drugs came in. Although it had always been there, a war surfaced as an issue. The music changed completely. Graffiti is about the fact that you have to accept these changes — they were on the horizon — and if you didn’t, you had problems. . . . You try to fight it . . . and you lose.”83 Get your ass in gear.