RALPH BAKSHI'S MULTI-GENERATIONAL MELODRAMA 'AMERICAN POP'

Marya Small (now Mews Small) in Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP Year: 1981 Rating: **

What's considered cult animation director Ralph Bakshi's greatest achievement is a searing saga about four generations of failed musicians dating back to the turn of the century... winding up with a singer/songwriter who's supposed to have become famous having written and performed Bob Seger's NIGHT MOVES...

But the most involving sequences should have been during the first half, dealing with historically iconic topics from vaudville to mobsters to jazz joints to world wars... 

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

Which is nicely presented with vibrant, cool-looking imagery yet on a human level, the rotoscope process... of actors/actresses being filmed in live-action that transforms into an ultra-realistic animated experience... doesn't really work because those actual performers are so lethargic, their animated characters aren't very animated... 

And, like today's CGI-transferred Uncanny Valley (computer-generated people that seem like hollow shells), these characters are awkward, clumsy and visually downright creepy...

Marya Small in AMERICAN POP

Everyone lacking the necessary traits for the audience to care about, especially veering into the drug-fueled 1960's/1970's centering on the third generation's painfully self-centered beatnik-to-hippie poet/lyricist...

Who basically hangs around a lowlife band led by the otherwise talented ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST actress/singer Marya Small as a Janis Joplin-inspired drug-fueled crooner...

Marya Small in Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

Had the movie centered more on these particular dropouts, like Bashki's most honestly-soulful semi-autobiographical HEAVY TRAFFIC, there would be an actual beginning, middle and end to what's instead a cliche-filled counter-culture vignette within a multi-generational epic spanning the 20th century...

And all this bares the celebratory title AMERICAN POP... but instead of actually celebrating the music, these characters basically steal it for themselves: so not only does Janis Joplin and Bob Seger not exist, but there isn't a Bob Dylan or The Sex Pistols either... and what kind of world would that be?

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

Jim Hendrix interlude from Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

Marya Small in Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

Marya Small in Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP

From Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP