Roadie (1980)
MGM / Shock DVD (region 4)

d. Alan Rudolph; pr. Carolyn Pfeiffer; exec pr. Zalman King; scr. Big Boy Medlin, Michael Ventura; ph. David Myers; m. Craig Hundley; ed. Tom Walls; cast. Meatloaf, Alice Cooper, Deborah Harry, Kaki Hunter, Art Carney, Gailard Sartain (106 mins)

 

Director Alan Rudolph forged a career as one of America’s most provocative auteurs, his films since the early 1980s regularly considered as amongst the best of American art-house movies. 

He moved from his early 1970s association with director Robert Altman to a position of respected independence, his work quirky and relatively obscure: the kind of films better suited to critical appraisal than popular acceptance.  However, he did not always attract such critical standing and his first films especially are hard for some critics to reconcile next to the “serious” qualities of such later works as Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Equinox and The Moderns.  The goofy rock movie Roadie is a particular case in point – a deliberately dopey comedy loosely concerned with the naïve joy of its characters in contrast with the American popular music culture they ironically adore.  Giving singer Meatloaf a leading role, following on from his work in the cult sensation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Roadie is perhaps at present a footnote as a still obscure cult rock movie which deliberately avoids the technical glossiness of such big-budget contemporary musicals as Grease or Can’t Stop the Music and in its own way is far more critical of the music culture it depicts.  Indeed, Roadie is immersed in the music culture of the late 1970s in order to chart its effects on characters representative of American innocence.

Roadie tells the story of a simple Texas garage hand (Meatloaf) who one day whilst driving along the varied back-roads with his buddy, decides to pull over in order to help a stranded campervan, despite his friend’s strong advice not to do so. 

There he sees a young woman (a delectably toothy Kaki Hunter, who would later star in Porky’s) through the back window and is transfixed.  The trailer, belonging to music managers on tour, contains music equipment for a concert.  Meatloaf fixes the van and agrees to drive them to their destination, though mainly because Hunter begs him to do so and he is clearly smitten by her naïve sexuality.  He talks with her and learns that she wants to be the ultimate groupie and is thus hoping to meet (and more) Alice Cooper.  At their destination, Meatloaf assembles the equipment in record time and, as word spreads, soon gets the reputation as the greatest roadie that ever lived.  He is then invited to become a regular feature with the management.  In a daze, he is led by Hunter to another state, where he helps with a rock concert, by Blondie, which is in jeopardy of being closed by locals who are not enamoured of popular music.  He becomes an unwitting hero of sorts.  However, he still longs for Hunter, still determined to give herself to Alice Cooper, and the quest continues.  Finally they meet Alice, a man quite open about the incongruity of his image and the toll it takes on him, and must face a personal choice.

There is a certain endearing charm to this rather silly rock ‘n roll road movie, essentially a romantic fable about two directionless American innocents swept along in the cultural flow around them. 

 

Indeed, although he remains a dopey big cowboy, Meatloaf manages to be the master of any predicament when he sets his mind to it.  Tellingly, however, he spends much of the film in a daze, a state of what is described in the film as “brain freeze” (it thus being all too easy to consider this the intellectual level of the movie).  What the film manages to convey quite effectively is the essential naivety of the characters and how this alone ultimately saves them from the potential exploiters around them – indeed Rudolph would return to this theme sporadically in subsequent works.  Both Meatloaf and Hunter are joyful and exuberant, almost unaware of the nature of responsibility, and the film celebrates their lowbrow courtship as a demonstration of American innocence.  In contrast, the epitome of American rock stardom in the film, Alice Cooper, is a weaselly, weary man who can only sing about pain.  On meeting them, he needs these innocents as in a way he feeds off them and the film hence reveals Hunter’s quest to give herself to Cooper a misguided mission.  For Rudolph, it is as if Hunter has been led astray from innocence by the cultural expectations of rock music and that it is thus up to Meatloaf to bring her back. 

Although the film features a throwaway gag reference to The Blues Brothers, it is closer in spirit to such rock ‘n roll fables as Get Crazy, although, rather amazingly, is totally devoid of the sardonic cynicism often found in such tales. 

It is a broad, sometimes crass comedy which addresses the intermingling of American innocence into the culture of rock ‘n roll.  Indeed, the musicians, particularly Alice Cooper, are automatically drawn to Meatloaf as if he is a beacon of some kind, a figure they need to appropriate.  If rock ‘n roll is a vital cultural force, it is only because it is propped up by the ordinary desires of American innocents who take it into their dreams, as in the case of Hunter.  The film wonders, however, if it is the proverbial “life force” or something far more debilitating and even vampiric towards the fans: hence, many of the songs are downbeat.  Thus, it is primarily because Meatloaf remains separate from this world and more concerned with family and romance that he remains untainted by its excess and its underlying despair, thus functioning as the moral centre of the film.  Rather than celebrating rock n’ roll nihilism as many cult films do, Roadie is more critical and celebrates two people who turn their back on such a scene.  Perhaps this is even a move towards a kind of social transcendence, hence the bizarre ending.  They are two people whose childish naivety finally perhaps makes them out of this world.

DVD DETAILS:

Vision
The visual transfer here is unfortunately only a 4:3 fullscreen pan-and-scan version of the film and frequently reveals a slight graininess.  It does, however, maintain that characteristic 1970s naturalistic, sun-drenched desert look so suitable to the unfolding road movie here and is thus initially well-concerned with the peculiarity of Texan roadside existence.  Black levels are, however, milky and there are some frame edge difficulties evident on occasion.  The film feels warm, with oranges, earthy colours and a physicality stressed throughout as flesh tones are very vibrant.  Likewise, the film makes telling use of a hot landscape and depicts roadside country music culture with a sense of quirky parody.  There is a well-maintained contrast here between the interiors of bars, concert halls and so forth with the bright outdoors as Rudolph locates a sense of freedom in the bright, sunny Texas heat.  The darker the image, the more entrapping it is for the characters and, the poorer the transfer quality.  Intriguingly though, the concert sequences are filmed so that there is a sense of variety to the musical numbers, a cultural progression of sorts – hence, they complement the contrast between light and dark as if stages along a moral journey of sorts.  Rudolph may be critical of rock culture but still sees its unique qualities, and dubious appeal, although human behaviour in this film and its cultural codification thereof, is decidedly peculiar.

Sound
The sound transfer is effective enough in its Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo, true to the technical limitations of the movie.  The 1970s music score seems fresh within these limits and there is a sense of radio deejay low culture to the early scenes which unfolds as if on a tour through the low and high rock scene of the day.  It is an uneven transfer though, and at times seems fuller than at other moments.  Nevertheless, what is remarkable is the sense of progression in the musical numbers, again as if they evidence a moral odyssey.  Hence, the initial country music gives way to Blondie singing a Johnny Cash number, “Ring of Fire”, the note of despair in the use of music culminating in Alice Cooper’s rendition of the hit “Pain”.  This progression makes it seem that the forces of true love between these innocents are almost thwarted by the music scene, and that Meatloaf’s decision to potentially leave is thus a moral triumph, preserving the man’s naïve integrity: he does not cheer pain but turns his back on it.  If the broader world is indicated by these musical numbers, then there is a despair out there that truly threatens to consume these people.  In this scheme of things, their triumph is that they remain joyful, even oblivious: there is much happiness in ignorance in this case and in their innocence lies their salvation and escape.  Although the transfer is effective, it is the intention of the sound design which here carries the most impact.

Special Features

In the way of special features are an original trailer and a photo gallery offering posters and stills from the movie.  Multizone collectors should note that the region 2 UK DVD is listed as being in anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 and would thus be of much more home theatre interest than the current region 4.

Copyright (C) Robert Cettl All Rights Reserved Last modified: November 25, 2009