Heavy Traffic

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Heavy Traffic
Style "A" theatrical release poster.
Directed by	Ralph Bakshi
Produced by	Ralph Bakshi Samuel Z. Arkoff Steve Krantz
Written by	Ralph Bakshi
Starring	Joseph Kaufmann Beverly Hope Atkinson Frank DeKova Terri Haven Mary Dean Lauria
Music by	Ed Bogas Ray Shanklin
Cinematography	Ted C. Bemiller Gregg Heschong
Editing by	Donald W. Ernst
Distributed by	American International Pictures
Release date(s)	August 8, 1973
Running time	79 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US$950,000[1]
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Heavy Traffic is a 1973 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film, which begins, ends, and occasionally combines with live-action, explores the often surreal fantasies of a young New York cartoonist named Michael Corleone, using pinball imagery as a metaphor for inner-city life. Heavy Traffic was Bakshi and producer Steve Krantz's follow-up to the successful but controversial film Fritz the Cat, the first animated feature to receive an X rating. Though producer Krantz made varied attempts to produce an R-rated film, Heavy Traffic was given an X by the MPAA, although an edited version passed with an R rating a year after its first release.^[2] The film received positive reviews and is widely considered to be Bakshi's biggest critical success.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Influences 3 Production 3.1 Music 4 Response 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

[edit] Plot

Michael Corleone (Joseph Kaufmann) is introduced as a 22-year-old virgin playing pinball in New York City, in live action. This scene is then thrown into animation. New York has a diseased, rotten, tough and violent atmosphere. Michael's Italian father, Angelo "Angie" Corleone, is a struggling mafioso who frequently cheats on Michael's Jewish mother, Ida. The couple constantly bickers and try to kill each other. Michael ambles through a catalog of freaks, greasers, and dopers. Unemployed, he dabbles with cartoons, artistically feeding off the grubbiness of his environment. He regularly hangs out at a local bar where he gets free drinks from the female black bartender, Carole (Beverly Hope Atkinson), in exchange for sketches, somewhat annoying Shorty, Carole's violent, legless barfly devotee. One of the regular customers at the bar, Snowflake, a nymphomaniac transvestite, who gets beat up by a tough drunk who has only just realized that Snowflake is a man in drag and not a beautiful woman. Shorty throws the drunk out and the bar's white manager abusively confronts Carole over this and she quits.

Shorty offers to let Carole stay at his place, but not wanting to get involved with him, Carole tells Shorty that she's staying with Michael, and that they've been "secretly tight for a long time." Michael is turned on by her no-nonsense attitude and strong sense of self-reliance. This relationship arouses his father's racist fury as well as the jealousy of Shorty. Michael moves out of his parents' house and tries to make a living, often failing. He gets a chance to pitch a film idea to an old movie mogul lying on his death bed:

In a distant future following a nuclear war, the world is covered with garbage. Most of humanity has been either destroyed or mutated. A pile of garbage comes to life, and is worshipped as a religious figure, becoming known as "Mother Pile." The last living human female, Wanda The Last becomes a sort of sideshow attraction and tours the land with her duckbilled mutant manager. One night, God speaks to Warren, asking Warren to let Him have sex with Wanda. Warren obliges, and Wanda gives birth to the new messiah. Throughout His son's life Mother Pile searches for him, and although she crucified many men, not one of them gave her his location. Meanwhile, God gives His son lessons of "The Truth." The story ends after the son spends roughly three months meditating in a cave. After a shout of "I've got the Truth, Pop!" he shoots God in the head, who in turn topples over and crushes Mother Pile.

Michael's story is too much for the mogul, and gives him a heart attack. Carole tries to work as a taxi dancer. Michael acting as her manager, tries to pass her off as "the fourth Andrews Sister" ("'cause she was black, they kept her in the background"). A quick flash of her panties gives an old man a heart attack, and Carole gets fired. Meanwhile, Angie tries to use his Mafia connections to put a murder contract out on his son for "disgracing the family" by dating a black woman, but it seems that nobody wants to be a part of this until a jealous Shorty tells Angie that he'll take the contract. Michael and Carole turn to crime as a means of getting by, with Carole taking the role of a prostitute and Michael posing as her pimp, potential customers are set up, killed and robbed. Carole flirts with a businessman, and brings him to a hotel room, where Michael beats him to death with a lead pipe. The two walk out into the street with his cash, and Michael is shot in the head by Shorty. The bullet is seen going through his skull in slow motion. We see a kaleidoscope of shocking images and horrifying events before throwing back to the live action story. The "real" Michael destroys a pinball machine after it tilts, and walks out onto the street, bumps into the "real" Carole, and follows her into the park. The two are seen briefly arguing before they finally take each others hands and begin dancing in the park.

[edit] Influences

Among the sources Bakshi credited as an influence on the film were Hubert Selby's controversial novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, Jack Kerouac's Visions of Cody, the music of John Coltrane, and the photography of Robert Frank.^[3] A recreation of Edward Hopper's 1942 painting Nighthawks is also used as a background during one of the film's animation sequences. Although it is widely rumoured that Heavy Traffic was produced after Bakshi failed to purchase the rights to Last Exit to Brooklyn,^[4][5] Bakshi actually tried to seek out the rights after Heavy Traffic was completed, intending to make a live-action film based on the material. Author Hubert Selby agreed to the adaptation and Robert De Niro accepted a role, but Bakshi never got to make the film.^[6] Last Exit to Brooklyn was finally made by director Uli Edel in 1989.^[7] Bakshi referred to Edel's film as being "like a hot dog without mustard," saying that the film "was done horribly."^[6]

[edit] Production

Since my days at Terrytoons, I had been asking: "Why do we always pick up an animated character from the story department and try to do our best on it? Why don't we just do something that we really feel?" My background was in Brooklyn—my Jewishness, my family life, my father coming from Russia. All these things had to be somehow represented on film.^[1]

– Ralph Bakshi

Production on the film began in 1972, shortly after the release of Bakshi's feature film debut, Fritz the Cat. According to animator Mark Kausler, Steve Krantz was so nervous about showing too much nudity and sexual activities that he had several versions of some sequences animated, for instance, in the animation sequence set to Chuck Berry's Maybellene. Kausler says that a sequence was animated in which the viewer sees "the key in the ignition metamorphose into a penis entering Maybelline's vagina."^[8] This sequence was replaced for the final film, but eventually the same action was repeated in the film Dirty Duck.^[8]

"I covered this scene with another one of the key changing into the fat black guy, and the ignition slot turning into Maybellene. I covered a lot more cartoony foreplay scenes with a simple close-up of the fat black man's face with his hand covering his eyes. You can get a sense of how many scenes had to be altered, by how many times this close-up drawing was used. It got used a lot! At one point the original version "A" of Maybellene existed. Ralph had a print of it, but I have not seen it since I worked on it. We did versions "A," B" and "C," with "C" being the tamest and that is what got into the so-called "X" version of Heavy Traffic. Another scene I can recall doing multiple versions of was the guy in the racing cap, pissing on the fat black guy's ass. This was completely eliminated, causing a jump in the action."^[8]

Halfway into production, Ralph Bakshi got into a fight with producer Steve Krantz over not receiving a paycheck for Fritz the Cat, and was fired from his own film.^[9] Animation legend Chuck Jones was approached to complete the film, but declined, out of respect for Bakshi.^[10] Another director was finally hired, and shot one sequence, before he was fired and Bakshi was re-hired.^[9] Despite this, Bakshi later stated that Heavy Traffic was the most enjoyable film to make.^[11]

The original screenplay had an alternate ending—a car chase scene that takes place throughout New York City. During the car chase, penny arcade war games are being flashed throughout the sky. This idea was never completed due to lack of budget and thus the current ending was used.^[9]

[edit] Music

Main article: Heavy Traffic (soundtrack)

Ed Bogas and Ray Shanklin returned to write and perform the film's score, as they had done for Bakshi's previous feature, Fritz the Cat. Other music featured in the film included the songs "Twist and Shout," performed by The Isley Brothers, "Take Five," as performed by the Dave Brubeck quartet, and Chuck Berry's "Maybellene." "Scarborough Fair" is used as a recurring musical motif, first heard in the film's opening credits and later reappearing during the end of the film as performed by Sergio Mendes and Brazil '66. Bogas also created several other arrangements of the song that appear throughout the film. A soundtrack album was released in 1973.^[12]

[edit] Response

The film is considered to be Bakshi's biggest critical success. Newsweek wrote that the film contained "black humor, powerful grotesquerie and peculiar raw beauty. Episodes of violence and sexuality are both explicit and parodies of flesh-and-blood porn [...] a celebration of urban decay."^[13] Charles Champlin wrote in The New York Times that the film was "furious energy, uncomfortable to watch as often as it is hilarious."^[14] The Hollywood Reporter called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney."^[15] Film website Rotten Tomatoes, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 91%.^[16] It is also Bakshi's favorite of his own work.^[17] However, the film was banned by the film censorship board in the province of Alberta, Canada when it was originally released.^[18]

With Heavy Traffic, Ralph Bakshi was the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful films back-to-back.^[1] After its release, he ended his partnership with Steve Krantz and set up his own studio. According to Charles Solomon's book of animation history, Enchanted Drawings, he opened it to develop a project called Harlem Nights, with producer Al Ruddy from The Godfather. That film would soon become the controversial Coonskin (1975), which Paramount eventually dropped, and independent company Bryanston would eventually acquire.^[1]

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Heavy Traffic (soundtrack)
• List of animated feature films

[edit] External links

• Heavy Traffic at the Internet Movie Database
• Heavy Traffic at Rotten Tomatoes
• Heavy Traffic at FilmSpot
• Heavy Traffic at the official Ralph Bakshi website
• Heavy Traffic at Blaxploitation.com

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