DVD Review: Saturday Night Fever (30th Anniversary Special Collector's Edition)

If you listen to the jaded rock DJs and all the dance floor haters, disco died in 1979.

An ironic belief, as there are still a myriad of radio stations which use disco (and funk) as their primary format, and the better tunes are still spun by historically savvy DJs at many nightclubs (yes, actual clubs, I’m not just talking about hearing “YMCA” at your standard wedding reception).

Disco’s enduring legacy aside, the film that brought the genre's music, fashion, and lifestyle from the hippest clubs in New York and LA to the consciousness of suburbanites and grandparents alike was Saturday Night Fever. Unbelievably, the film is now three decades old, a fact being celebrated by the new 30th anniversary edition DVD.

While Fever gets unjustly knocked by some (mostly by those who never even bothered to actually watch the movie) for being a disco flick (as they falsely think it is in the same category as such fluff as Thank God It’s Friday or Can’t Stop The Music), as it was and is a landmark film. A time-period piece? Yes, it is. But the film so perfectly captures the angst, passion, and energy of frustrated young adulthood and searching for an identity that it resonates as well today as it did initially. If you replaced the original soundtrack and fashions with current hip-hop styles, Saturday Night Fever’s storyline would still work in 2007.

And as far as this being a “disco movie," note that John Travolta and his friends do hang at a local Bay Ridge disco (the now extinct 2001 Odyssey), but only visit the club three times throughout the entire movie. Fever is not a musical nor is it a lighthearted disco movie. It is the rough-edged and sometimes harsh story of Tony Manero (so masterfully played by John Travolta he was nominated for an Oscar) and his dead end existence in a neighborhood (the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn) that he is so obviously too big for. Yes, he is the “king” of the disco when he gets there, and that is where he shines in life, as his daily life is not so quite as optimistic. He works as a clerk in a hardware/paint store; his home life is at home with his family who is very dysfunctional (yet very real and his family actually portrays some interesting family crises most realistically); and a quartet of friends/gang (they refer to themselves as The Faces) who are loyal and in awe of Manero, but are a bad influence and so are apparently holding him back.

Article Author: John Reed

John Reed is a long time music journalist. He has been a Globe Correspondent at the Boston Globe and written for such publications as: MTV/SonicNet, DISCoveries Magazine, Hear/Say Magazine, and others.

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