Home > American Pop [VHS]

Browse Amazon

Apparel & Accessories

Beauty

Jewelry

see larger picture

Staring: Mews Small, Ron Thompson, Jerry Holland, Lisa Jane Persky, Jeffrey Lippa
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Average Customer Rating:

List Price: ~~$14.95~~
Our Price: $3.99

Product Details
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780800198770
Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
ISBN: 0800198778
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Release Date: 1998-03-31
Running Time: 96
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: 1981-02-13

What similar items do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

Editorial Review
Amazon.com
Animator-director-screenwriter Ralph Bakshi audaciously tries to chronicle the history of 20th-century American popular music, while also placing each period into historical and social context--all in 97 minutes! Its animated, episodic narrative follows four generations of Jewish-American musicians as each painfully seeks fame through changing musical eras. Starting at the turn of the century with a piano-playing immigrant in New York, the film moves swiftly, following his offspring through such movements as Gershwin-era pop, jazz, folk music, '60s psychedelia, and punk--and only pauses for elaborate, energized musical numbers designed to showcase the work of Benny Goodman, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Lou Reed, the Jefferson Airplane, and numerous others. However, these electric set pieces provide brief dynamism in a relatively bleak film filled with hard-luck protagonists suffering through clichéd drug addiction, death, and alienation. While the film's scope is admirably ambitious, and Bakshi's stylized use of rotoscoping (tracing animation from live action) makes for fluid and often eye-popping visuals, his treatment also feels heavy handed and cuts numerous corners. And, when Baskshi ends his epic by mocking punk, and celebrating the future of rock & roll through the music of Bob Seger, one wonders whether or not he a knowledgeable grasp of his topic at all. The DVD version presents the film in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. --Dave McCoy

Customer Reviews

AMERICAN POP: Popular Music, and Fatherhood, 2009-06-12
The storyline is the BLOODLINE of Jewish immigrants, from Czarist Russia, through the DEVO counterculture. The mores of the time are depicted in the generational 'hiccups.' Upon first viewing, this is an obtuse, roadblock. The movie seems to start/stop, and introduce new characters.

The rotocoped performances by Roz Kelly, and others, along with permission from BOB SEGAR to use his actual voice...[did anyone really notice when, SOMEBODY TO LOVE by Jefferson Airplane, was a COVER?]for a fictional character. Bob Dylan, having allowed the fictional character to "WRITE" a hit or two of his, is ANOTHER PLUS.

The Music of AMERICAN POP, is well, broad, and somewhat comprehensive. From the popular, for its day, Maple Leaf Rag, to the popular, at the time the movie was released, Night Moves, sweeps along, period by period, as the absentee/rogue/and scoundrel fathers do their best, for the times...THEY live in. All with a musical talent. From a CANTOR, in Russia, through vaudeville, WW II, Rebelious 50's, The BEAT Generation, the Flower POP of the '60s, the drug counter-culture, Hard Rock, and even PUNK. WHEW! IF you like a broad spectrum of music, LIKE I DO, Then The SCRAWNY SOUNDTRACK ALBUM [compared to the sweeping and VAST music, actually in the film.] is a bit of a let-down. Single LP? "C'mon, I'm Dyin' here!"

The heart-wrenching scene where a strung-out heroine freak, realizes he's just met his illegitimate son, and then is too weak to kick the habit...Though he really wishes he could, is more raw and edgy, than mainstream animation has NEVER before tackled.

My only disappointment on viewing/multiple viewing, is some registration errors in the original film, loused up a couple of parts. The overall animation is slow vintage, in the early part, 101 Dalmations-esque, in the Beat Generation section, and Wild and MOD, in the final section. [With EVERYTHING in between, I should add.]

THIS is almost an AUTOBIOGRAPHY of RALPH BAKSHI. [As much as PECKER, is an Autobiography of John Waters, anyway] He is of partial-Eastern Europe/Jewish descent, and is in a ART FORM, much like music. His early SPIDERMAN TV SERIES work, was 180-ed, when he then, released, the "X" rated [really!] FRITZ The CAT. I don't see Disney going THAT far, though I do find Disney's "Potty Humor, requirement, just plain 'DUMB BUSINESS.'
The REASON, I mention Disney, is that it was Surprising to see, ROY DISNEY's name drift up the credits. [Ya, gotta remember, Don BLUTH, long-time Disney animator, defected, and created LAND BEFORE TIME, and SECRET OF NIHM, about this period, to appreciate ROY DISNEY's position.]

A fun little cameo of RICHARD (Night Court) MOLL as the tortured beat poet [doing an Allen Ginsberg piece,] is both true to the times, and another turning point where the WORDS are flip-flopped with TUNES as the important talent.

The GENES of a RABBI-Cantor singer, a songwriter, a piano player, a hippy lyricist, all combine to the WRITER/PERFORMER artist of the final STADIUM ROCK performance, finding the stardom...each of the previous 'POPs' had hoped their son could attain.

Bless you, Ralph.

awesome!, 2009-02-15
this is a classic animated movie which really is one of my favorites of all time. really great for those with music/entertainment interests.

A Family History of Music, Ambition, & Tragedy, 2009-06-21
American Pop is Ralph Bakshi's animated tale of a family's struggle to realize it's musical ambitions through the 20th Century.

Zalmie is a Russian Jewish immigrant to NY, his father a cantor was killed in a pogrom by the Czar's Cossacks. Upon arriving in America his mother is killed in a sweatshop fire, and Zalmie is left to the streets of New York. Zalmie finds his place in the world on Vaudeville, at first distributing chorus slips to customers so they can sing along, then he moves up the Vaudeville ropes to singer. During a USO show in WWI France there's a German attack and Zalmie is wounded in the throat, ending his dream of being a singer. He returns to Vaudeville, becomes a comedian and meets the girl of his dreams, a stripper. Zalmie tries to turn her into a star but life intervenes again, she gets pregnant and Zalmie needing to earn a living falls in with the mob.

Zalmie's ambitions are resurrected in his son Benny a talented piano player, but Benny would rather play with a negro Jazz band than seriously pursue music as his father would like. To please his father Benny marries the mobsters daughter and his life would seem to be set until WWII breaks out and Benny is sent to Europe. While on patrol Benny comes across a piano in an abandoned building where he takes a minute to play a little music. The music rouses a wounded German soldier who for a moment seems to be lulled by Benny's playing, but in a moment that shows the ruthlessness of war, and proof that music doesn't always soothe the savage breast, the German soldier kills Benny.

The story flashes forward to Benny's son Tony, a teenager finding himself smothered in the inertia of the late 50's, early 60's suburban television life. Tony steals a car and is off on his own Jack Kerouac On The Road adventure. When he lands in Kansas he meets a beautiful girl and they have a night of passion. Tony makes his way to San Franscisco where he meets a rock band fronted by Frankie Hart who has a more than passing resemblance to Janis Joplin. Tony lies to them and tells them he writes songs, and Tony proceeds to writing a slew of hit songs, as well as providing drugs to the band. Eventually, the drugs take over and rule Tony's life, Frankie dies, and when the band finds itself in Kansas Tony adopts a kid named Little Petey who reminds him of the girl he meet in Kansas so many years before. Tony and Little Pete go to New York where Tony teaches Little Pete the ins and outs of writing songs and drug dealing, until one day Tony splits, leaving Pete with a legacy of loving music and drug dealing. When Petey grows up he uses his drug dealing connections to get a band interested in songs he's written which culminates in Petey becoming successful, Zalmie's dream realized at last.

If the plot and story seem a little stereotyped or like you've seen them before, you probably have. What Makes American Pop different from other movies is the animation and the music. Bakshi uses the animation to great effect, from what would ordinarily be an average movie to something special, and uses just enough vintage footage to set the tone of the era. The real star of the movie though, is the music. Most of the musical forms and writers of the 20th Century are represented, to name just a few George M Cohan, Scott Joplin, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern, Dave Brubeck, Elvis, Lou Reed, Heart, Pat Benatar, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Bob Seeger.

American Pop came out almost 30 years ago, and a couple of years ago I found myself intereseted in seeing the movie again, so I bought the DVD and hoped that I wouldn't find the material dated, and I wasn't disappointed the movie still holds its appeal. The only thing that could have enhanced the DVD was some bonus features, there isn't even a directors commentary, and maybe a documentary on the making of American Pop or on Bakshi's influence in the world of animation, I think it could arguably be said American Pop influenced the animation of today such as the Pixar movies.

Brilliant and underrated mature animated movie!, 2009-11-14

In the early 1900's a struggling Jewish family from Russia called the Blinkskies have fled to America in search of hope, the young boy named Zalmie becomes quite talented in comedy and singing as he becomes an overnight success. Years later he becomes a father with a beautiful wife that leads to generations of musicials that follow in his footsteps from the 40's to the early 80's.

A very underrated, powerful and quite mature animated movie from Ralph Bakshi that has became a cult favorite over the years. I love how this movie is a very melodramtic and entertaining look at the history of a family from the vaudville days to the rock and roll era of the 80's in a "Forrest Gump" kind of way. I always believed this is Ralph Bakshi's best movie besides "Heavy Traffic", "Wizards" and "Fire and Ice" or even his "Hey Good Lookin", but this one is perhaps the most mature and adult movie he's made as i'm not talking about sex and gory violence. This one does have language and mild bloody war violence but can be viewed by people 14 and up despite the "R" rating for those reasons, it's also a story with heart and a great soundtrack from the 1900's to late 70's. The animation done with rotoscoping is very good and well made with a quality storyline as it's one of my favorite animated movies ever since i was 16 in 1997.

This DVD contains crisp picture and sound with only one extra which is the trailer, a must see for animation and drama buffs.

Also recommended: "Grave of the Fireflies", "Heavy Metal", "Pink Floyd The Wall", "Rock and Rule", "An American Tail", "Walk The Line", "The Doors", "Forrest Gump", "Saving Private Ryan".

Terribly UNDERRATED, 2010-09-01
I never seen an animated film by Ralph Bakshi until now. I was pleasantly surprised to find American Pop such a very good film. It's the exact opposite of what you would expect in a Disney (or Pixar) film, and I don't mean it in a bad way. This is a film for adults: drugs, prostitution, poverty, politics, and bloodshed are just some things that little kids will NEVER understand. But the film also has a good story: we get to see different generations of popular music (from the late 1890's to the 1980's) seen through the eyes of a Russian-Jewish family. It's an effective story, and same goes for the stunning (and diverse) animation. Much of the animation is colorful, realistic, and at times wildly bizarre (at least in the later half of the film). The one problem I had with American Pop is that sometimes it doesn't really feel like an animated film at all. Some sections in the film (particularly scenes with extended dialogue) could have worked better if they were live-action. Still, the film is an underrated gem. The adult story, the animation, the music, the dialogue, much of the film is undeniably solid.

Grade: 8/10

Links