Nostalgia Film Analysis

Firstly if we look at the nostalgic teen films way of viewing events then the perspective of the adult narrator is authoritarian. Looking at aspects of youth and freedom, in fact the link of adolescence with freedom opens up these films. Resistance to controlling authority, the coach, the principal, the family highlights the idea of psychosocial moratorium. Speed discusses how Eric H. Erikson believes that this delay in adult commitment is a vital element of this genre. Thus the teen nostalgia film jumps out of its safe, de-intellectualised, fun box and begins to comment on social issues. Speed also discusses Lawrence Grossberg’s Spatial Orientations which enable us to look at the mall, street corner, even street gangs as adolescents distancing

With the car the adolescent may move away from parental control. They have the freedom to travel away from adult prying and intrusion. The car also represents a transition from childhood to the adult state, and is often used as a private space where young people can engage in typical rebellious behaviour for example; drinking, drug taking, listening to popular music or sexual experimentation. Significant scenes of the adolescent nostalgia film often take place in or around the car.

In Dazed and Confused everyone from geeks, freaks, jocks and even the intellectuals, all attend an outside party to celebrate summers arrival (Figure 8). It shows youth as a social and a cultural phenomenon. Dazed and Confused directed by Richard Linklater is a 1993 film that follows various groups of adolescents in Texas during the last day of school in the summer of 1976. It focuses on the characters of Mitch

The film follows the lead character Gordie Lachance as he recalls a childhood journey after hearing of the death of a friend. An important trait of Stand By Me is the use of the voice over of a middle aged man, which is Gordie who is recalling an adventure from his early adolescence. Lesley Speed says “the nostalgic voice over serves to situate events in the past and emphasise a subjective point of view”. The voice over brings more significance to the events of the film, and the emphasis on sentimentality takes away from the sometimes tastelessness of adolescent acts. The adventure taken by Gordie and his three best friends of the time finds the dead body of a missing boy over the labour day weekend in a town called Castle Rock Oregon in 1956. Gordie looks back on the time when he and his three best friends set out across the outskirts of their small town to find the body of the boy before the older adolescent boys do, so they can call the newspaper and get the reward money or a photo in the newspaper. The older Gordie recalls step by step his memory of the weekend, from taking short-cuts and being covered in leeches - to tears and tantrums - to intimate friendship moments between him and the other boys. The film deals with the adolescents perception of death as well as young boys relationships, and how they deal with growing up. Stand By Me is filled with sublime moments of the four friends