Back to the Future (My Favorite Movies)

One can argue all day about what the best film of any given decade is, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a film that more perfectly defined its decade than Back to the Future, from 1985. It is so entirely of its time that it has become timeless. There are some real profound statements made here about the absurdity of our culture, and the ways even the most mundane things shape our lives. Most of all, it’s just a freaking great time. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love Back to the Future and I challenge you to sit through this film without cracking a smile. Not to mention it has the distinction of being Justin Long’s favorite film. No other movie can claim that.

If for some reason you were deprived and have not seen Back to the Future, the film follows Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) as he accidently travels back in time from the year 1985 to the year 1955, where he meets his parents, altering history. He must now force them to meet and fall in love or else he won’t exist. All this time he is under the guidance of the mad scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), the man who invented the time machine.

Back to the Future can be perceived as a teenage horror movie: it exposes the lives of our parents that we never knew existed. In fact, we refuse to acknowledge that our parents were young once. We weren’t there, therefore it did not happen. Verbally or externally we may admit the existence of a day before our birth, but in our mind we deny it. How often do you hear the teen snarl in the corner, aghast as to how they could be related to these two middle-aged freaks? In Back to the Future Marty must not only witness where he came from, but he must facilitate his own existence.

The universe as presented here is all so perfect, with the opening scenes presenting a form of suburban utopia where all the adults fit the usual archetypes. The principal is strict, referring to Marty as a “slacker”, and his mother preaches about how she never engaged in all those teenage shenanigans in her day, but oh how Marty learns otherwise when he visits the 50’s. Upon getting hit by a car, Marty is sheltered in his mother’s house, where she forms a sort of reverse-Oedipal attraction towards him. This is the thinnest of tightropes to walk, as this could have gone down the road of the completely icky, but instead the film plays it with the necessary touch of humor and gentility.

Obviously, when in the 50’s Marty sees just how much society has changed. One of the first conversations he has is sitting around a dinner table with his to-be family. The entire scene is an ongoing series of culture-clash, or rather future-clash. The family is shocked at the notion one could have two television sets, the very idea of “reruns”, and exactly who is this John F. Kennedy fellow? Not long after he tells Doc that in the 80’s the President of the United States is Ronald Reagan… the actor?!

In a way, though, nothing has changed. His parents, particularly his father, share many common traits. Marty has a band in the 80’s, but is afraid to send anyone his demo tapes out of the fear of rejection. His father, it turns out, writes science fiction stories but won’t let anyone read them. The McFly name is still haunted by Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), who bullies George McFly relentlessly, and continues to do so in present day. Marty is convinced he can get George some self-respect, and not only can he make things normal again, but perhaps make things better.

At the film’s kooky center is Christopher Lloyd, who not only chews the scenery in each scene but swallows it, digests it, sends it out the other end and looks for more. The result is glorious, creating an iconic character that can generate uproarious laughter with a single look. The film around him ain’t bad either, as director Robert Zemeckis makes what could have been a simple film endlessly cinematic. The music by Alan Silvestri helps as well, creating crackerjack John Williams-esque themes that give the film a sense of timelessness. The only musical element of the film that screams 80’s is the inclusion of Huey Lewis and the News, but I can more than forgive that.

As with most every blockbuster since Jaws, Back to the Future spawned sequels. Part II, I find, is slightly underrated, though it admittedly lacks the same sense of wonder and fun that the original had. It relies a bit too heavily on sci-fi elements and creates a darker and incredibly cartoonish future, while the first was more It’s a Wonderful Life than Blade Runner. However, I think it is relatively ingenious in another way: it mirrors the original nearly beat-by-beat, even taking us back to the 50’s for the climax. Matt Singer of IFC claims that the film is almost a parody of Hollywood sequels, and while I think it works from that perspective I don’t know if that was intentional.

Part III, however, works for me because it attacks its plot from the same place as the first: put the characters in one era and make of it what you will. The Old West does not provide for the same cultural implications as 50’s America, but I had fun watching it. However, I am not standing out on any limb when I call the original Back to the Future the best of the three by a country mile.

Back to the Future has experienced a bit of a resurgence of late due to its 25^th anniversary, which has led to a brief theatrical re-release as well as the film’s release on Blu-ray. I decided to write on the film when I ran across it on ABC Family. I had not seen it in a couple years or so, and I had completely forgotten how fantastic it was. This is pure filmmaking of the highest order, infested with energy, humor and excitement all delivered in a two-hour package. These days blockbusters tend to be dark, lumbering 150-minute behemoths. I’m not being pointlessly nostalgic, because a) I wasn’t born yet, b) there have been some great blockbusters in recent years, and c) that’s the very mentality that this film frowns upon. If anything, Back to the Future teaches us two things: that we are always writing our own futures, and we should never steal plutonium from Libyan nationalists.