Butler's Cinema Scene

“NOT FADE AWAY” My rating: B (Opens Jan. 4 at the Tivoli)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: R

To date, David Chase’s major contribution to American arts has been as creator/producer of the cable hit “The Sopranos,” which along with its excellent drama and characterizations was forever pushing the envelope on TV violence, language and nudity.

For his first outing as a solo writer/director Chase puts away the blood bags and turns to his own adolescence. “Not Fade Away” is less a novel than a series of not-quite-nostalgic snapshots taken between 1963 and 1968.

It begins with two teenagers in suburban New Jersey staring at a shiny electric guitar in a store window. Their every third word is some variation on the f-bomb — I’m pretty sure Chase is foolin’ with us, delivering in one scene enough smutty talk to fill an entire movie. Then, our expectations of Chase-ian profanity fully met, he proceeds to deliver a very personal, sweet and slightly sad reverie on the role of rock ‘n’ roll in a young man’s life.

Our protagonist is Doug (John Magaro), who in 1963 is a skinny, unathletic dweeb hanging with similarly un-studly pals. The lives of these losers are transformed by the one-two-three punch of the Kennedy assassination, the first appearance of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan just weeks later, and the subsequent ascension of the Rolling Stones, who forced American teens to reckon with their own ignored blues heritage.

(The film’s title, of course, is that of a Buddy Holly song famously covered by the Stones.)

Doug is immediately smitten. The girls may not give him a second glance, but he knows he has rock star potential. He bones up on the drums and teams with his guitar-playing buddies Eugene (Jack Huston) and Wells (Will Brill) to form a band.  They’re pretty bad — at least until they start to get good.

“Not Fade Away” follows Doug and his pals over the years as they rehearse, play cheap gigs and dream of their big break.  The film is curiously structured: once they get out of high school and split up to different colleges, they can only reunite during the summers or during Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations. Chase remembers what those holidays were like — a chance to scope out old classmates, to see who’s gone all fraternity, who’s a hipster, who’s an intellectual, who’s a rebel.

Doug, for instance, returns from his first semester with an exploding head of Dylanesque curls, tight pants and those Byrd-ish high-heeled boots that zip up the side.  Suddenly he’s cool…cool enough to attract Grace (Bella Heathcote), the WASP beauty he has long pined for from afar. (Doug is of blue-collar Italian-American stock; Bella was born to the country club.)

There are crises within the band. Doug displaces the ego-driven Eugene as the lead vocalist, generating much tension. On the verge of their  audition with a record company, Wells wraps a motocycle around a telephone pole.

And things aren’t all that copacetic on the home front. Doug’s bombastic dad (James Gandolfini) is none too thrilled with his left-leaning, draft-dodging, long-haired son. Mom (Molly Price) is a glum Cassandra rarely seen without hair curlers and a ratty blue housecoat.

James Gandolfini

There’s no big dramatic arc to “Not Fade Away.”  Like I said, it’s a bunch of snapshots over several years. Think of it as Chase’s “Armacord.”  Many of the characters are mere sketches and some plot threads aren’t that well integrated (for example, the mental problems of Grace’s bohemian older sister);  these presumeably are based on incidents from Chase’s youth that deeply affected him.

But few films set in this period get it as right as this one does. As a veteran of the era, I can usually find dozens of musical, chronological and clothing incongruities, but “Not Fade Away” is darn near perfect on that count.

And the soundtrack of orignal hits and covers — courtesy of Steve Van Zandt — is killer.

Think of the film as Chase’s fond Valentine to the dreams inspired by rock ‘n’ roll.

| Robert W. Butler