| Big Wednesday | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | John Milius |
| Produced by | Buzz Feitshans |
| Written by | John Milius Dennis Aaberg Joel Chernoff |
| Narrated by | Robert Englund |
| Starring | Jan-Michael Vincent William Katt Gary Busey Lee Purcell Darrell Fetty |
| Music by | Basil Poledouris |
| Cinematography | Bruce Surtees |
| Editing by | Carroll Timothy O'Meara Robert L. Wolfe |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | May 1978 (United States) |
| Running time | 120 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $11,000,000 |
Big Wednesday (1978) is an American coming of age film directed by John Milius. Milius co-wrote Big Wednesday with Denny Aaberg, and it is loosely based on their own experiences at Malibu and a short story Aaberg had published in a 1974 Surfer Magazine entitled "No Pants Mance."[1] The picture stars Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt and Gary Busey as California surfers facing life, the Vietnam War, and uses the ever-changing surf as a metaphor for the changes in life.[2]
Surfing aficionados consider it to be one of the best surfing-related films made, in part because of the surfing sequences produced by Greg MacGillivray and the appearance of several world champion surfers as stunt performers, plus its verisimilitude, especially when compared to the kitschy 1960s Beach Party films. The director, John Milius, had been a surfer in his youth.[3]
The film also examines the extremes which some young men went to during the Vietnam years to avoid being drafted and shipped off to war, including: faking insanity, homosexuality, and all manner of medical ailments. The picture also illustrates the tough decision some made to enlist and the effects that decision had on their friends and families.
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The film tells the story of three young friends whose passion in life is surfing. The friends include: Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent), a self-destructive type who has a devil-may-care attitude; Jack Barlowe (William Katt), the calm and responsible one of the bunch; and Leroy "The Masochist" Smith (Gary Busey), whose nickname tells a lot about his personality.
Their surfing lives are traced from the summer of 1962 to their attempts of dodging the Vietnam War draft in 1965, and to the end of their innocence in 1968 when one of their friends is killed in Vietnam. The three make the difficult transition to adulthood with parties, surf trips, marriage, and the war.
The friends reunite years later after Barlowe has served time in Vietnam for the "Great Swell of '74." With this reunion the transitions in their lives becomes the end point of what the 1960s meant to so many as they see that the times have changed and what was once a time of innocence is forever gone.
Raised in Southern California, Milius made Big Wednesday as an homage to the time he spent in Malibu during his youth.
The surfing scenes used in the finale to Big Wednesday were not filmed in California, where the film is set. The filming of large surf conditions used in Big Wednesday were actually done at the famous Sunset Beach, located at Pupukea, Hawaii.
Other locations include: El Paso, Texas; Hollister Ranch, Santa Barbara; Surfrider Beach, Malibu; Ventura, California (all in the United States), El Salvador.
The film premiered in wide release in the United States on May 26, 1978.
The picture was screened at various film festivals, including: the Davao City Film Festival, Philippines; the Turin Film Festival, Italy; and others.
Critic Janet Maslin, film critic for The New York Times, did not like the screenplay nor the performances of the actors and wrote, "The surprise is not that Mr. Milius has made such a resoundingly awful film, but rather that he's made a bland one...the movie often seems even more uneventful than material like this need make it, and Mr. Milius's attention to his actors focuses more closely on their pectorals than on their performances. He encourages such stiffness in his players that Barbara Hale, for instance, is quite unconvincing as Mr. Katt's mother. This is a faux pas of no mean eminence; after all, Miss Hale actually is Mr. Katt's mother."[4]
Dave Kehr, writing for the Chicago Reader, was not as dismissive of the film, writing, "John Milius's paean to the art and discipline of hot dog surfing is marred by pushy philosophizing and a fair number of overripe lines, but its sincerity is deep and seductive...Milius can be faulted for reviving a number of ostensibly dead macho myths, but in the context of the subculture his film deftly re-creates, they take on the aura of eternal values. The breathtaking surfing footage, rather than the slightly stunted characters, makes his most eloquent argument."[5]
The staff at Variety wrote, "A rubber stamp wouldn't do for John Milius. So he took a sledgehammer and pounded Important all over Big Wednesday. This film about three Malibu surfers in the 1960s has been branded major statement and it's got Big Ideas about adolescence, friendship and the 1960s."[6]
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 63% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on eight reviews."[7]
Nominations
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