What better film to welcome the New Year with than Back to the Future, that perennial charmer from the late, great eighties? The very best of time travel movies, as well as a thoroughly entertaining, satisfying, and rich story, Back to the Future is always good for another viewing.
The story goes it’s 1985 and teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is having a bad day. He’s late for school for the fourth time in a row, his big band audition is a failure for being ‘too darn loud,’ and his long-planned excursion with his girlfriend Jennifer (Claudia Wells) has to be cancelled because his dad’s bullying supervisor took their car and wrecked it. As a matter of fact, his life as a whole leaves a lot to be desired. His dad, George McFly (Crispin Glover) is a nervous, weak shell of a man with a laugh that sounds more like he’s choking and who is such a thorough coward that he doesn’t even say a word when his supervisor Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) comes into his house and insults his, George’s, own son right in front of him. His mom, Loraine (Lea Thompson) meanwhile, guzzles vodka while trying (and failing) to maintain uptight standards among her children and constantly looking as though she wonders where her life went wrong (“we all make mistakes in life children,” she says, glaring at her husband). Marty’s only real sources of comfort are his girlfriend and, perhaps even more so, his friendship with the eccentric Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd in a career defining performance), the local mad scientist.
One night Doc calls him out for his most important experiment yet and shows him a fully functional time machine built out of a DeLorean. Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, however, the experiment leaves Marty stranded in 1955, without the plutonium necessary to power the Time Machine. From there he has to figure out a way to get back to 1985…while also ensuring that his parents get together before he’s erased from existence.
See, in trying to find something familiar in the past, Marty runs into his teenage father and accidentally prevents him from having the chance meeting that led to his marriage. Instead, he, Marty, has it…and discovers that his teenage mother is not only disturbingly beautiful (“But you’re haah…you’re so haa…you’re so…thin!”), but also that she’s now infatuated with him.
Revisiting the movie, the thing that struck me particularly this time is just how well structured it is. The very first shot, a long, almost unbroken tracking close up of a wall of clocks and gadgets, sets the scene. It’s patient, unhurried, assured, like a man telling a long, intricate joke who knows that his punch-line will absolutely floor his audience and so feels no need to rush it. In the long, almost wordless shot we see that we are dealing with an eccentric inventor, a man intelligent enough to invent automatic breakfast machines and absent-minded enough to leave them on unattended for an extended time. It sets up future conflict (the plutonium) and establishes the ‘clock’ motif that pervades the film. The first five minutes of this movie are an exemplary bit of perfectly done exposition.
The story is remarkably lean. Running just under two hours, practically everything sets up or relates to something else. Almost every word in the first act pays off in some way at some point, usually in an unexpected and satisfying way. For instance, it’s briefly mentioned that one of Marty’s uncle is perpetually in jail. Back in 1955, Marty meets said uncle as a baby in his playpen. “Better get used to these bars, kid,” he mutters.
Then there’s the ingenuity and honesty the film shows towards the whole time-travel concept. Marty’s reactions to being stranded in the past are all entirely believable: from numb disbelief, to frantic assessment, to desperately reaching out for something familiar. It’s entirely credible, for instance, that upon realizing that his father is sitting next to him in a diner Marty would immediately try to make contact, and that, in his slightly panicked state, he wouldn’t stop to consider the consequences of such action. I also like his nervous non-reaction to the café owner’s questioning of his apparel (“What’s with the life-preserver?” he asks, eyeing Marty’s down jacket), realizing too late that eighties-style clothes don’t exactly blend in the fifties but unable to come up with an excuse on the fly. The movie is smart enough to show Marty’s clumsiness in the unfamiliar world of three decades past, but also smart enough not to take it too far. He’s able to interact with the people he meets, but misunderstandings and faux-pas abound, such as when he struggles to open a coke bottle before George seizes it and simply uses the opener on the machine, or when he identifies a street as “John F. Kennedy Drive” and gets asked “who the hell is John F. Kennedy?” It’s also smart the way these incidents become rarer as Marty gets used to the fifties, but never quite disappear.
There’s a lot of clever invention as Marty uses the gadgets and knowledge he has from the eighties to give himself an edge on his fifties-based opponents (most notably Biff, who turns out to have been bullying his father since high school and proves himself an even nastier piece of work than we had thought). One thrilling sequence has him inventing the skateboard to escape from Biff: a scene that makes me weep for the days when filmmakers could craft an exciting and believable action sequence featuring a few teenagers over the course of maybe a city block. Another very funny bit has him putting his walkman, radiation suit, and pop-culture knowledge to an unexpected use.
Meanwhile, Marty and the thirty-year younger Doc craft a plan to return him to the future by harnessing a lightning-bolt that will strike the local clock tower at precisely 10:04 PM the next Saturday, a lightning-bolt being the only source of power in the fifties capable of generating enough energy to power the Time-Machine. This gives Marty a strict deadline to ensure his parents wind up together, which involves forcing the painfully weak and shy George to ask out the lovely and energetic Lorraine and having her say yes when she has eyes only for Marty.
The way these plot threads pay off is both believable and very clever, and I won’t spoil them here. Suffice to say, while Marty has his work cut out for him (“Jesus, George, it’s a wonder I was even born!”), things pan out in such a way that he winds up doing more than he had intended and sets George on the path to becoming a real man.
In the meantime he also gains a new-found perspective on his parents. He discovers that George actually was a lot like him in High School, something his overbearing principal has been telling him for years, but which he never quite believed (hilariously, the same principal has apparently been running this school for at least thirty years without changing a bit in appearance or temperament. “Didn’t that guy ever have hair?” Marty wonders upon seeing him in 1955). He also discovers that his mother was much wilder in her youth than he would have ever believed: a fact that frankly horrifies him, slyly suggesting that, for all their complaints kids really do expect higher standards from their parents (however, the fact that the film seems to assume teenagers in the fifties were just as unchaste and aggressive as those of the eighties is one of the few parts that ring false).
In general the movie is very persuasive in its depiction of the fifties, both the good (it’s a lot cleaner, small businesses abound, and the town seems a whole lot friendlier) and the bad (casual racism, judgmental locals). A number of amusing gags come from how the town has and has not changed over the years (a theater that housed an assembly of Christ in the 1980s is showing a Ronald Reagan movie in the 1950s, the diner will eventually be turned into an aerobics studio, etc.). I particularly like how the mayors of 1985 and 1955 have identical campaigns, right down to the exact same cheesy slogan.
The heart of the film, however, is the friendship between Marty and Doc. Theirs is one of the better and more effective cinematic depictions of what the ancients considered the greatest of the four loves. The two of them are very different people: rebellious, cool teenager, eccentric, old scientist, but they clearly share a great trust and affection for one another. They understand each other, care about each other, and either would do anything for the other. In both the first and third acts Doc in particular makes great sacrifices for Marty’s sake, while Marty for his part spends his time in 1955 trying to figure out a way to save Doc from a tragic fate thirty years down the line and even risks his chance to return to the future in one final attempt to warn his friend. We see a lot of romantic love in the movies and the trials and sacrifices made for it, but not so much of friendship. In Doc and Marty, we have a beautiful depiction of how strong and admirable a friendship can be.
Doc and Marty spend most of the film together, and Lloyd and Fox have great chemistry. The two of them get some of the funniest moments of the movie, such as when Marty is trying to convince Doc of his story and Doc sarcastically asks who’s president in 1985. When Marty immediately answers with Ronald Reagan, Doc retorts “So who’s vice president? Jerry Lewis?” (incidentally, Reagan himself apparently loved that scene). Or when Doc’s model of their plan accidentally sets the garage on fire (“you’re not filling me with a lot of confidence, Doc.”)
The film is pretty much ideally cast. Michael J. Fox nearly missed out on the role due to his commitment to Family Ties and Eric Stoltz actually shot several weeks worth as Marty before they realized he was miscast (Stoltz himself apparently agreed) and Fox fortunately worked out his schedule to allow for both. Fox is the perfect Marty: he’s believable as an ordinary teenager (something few actors can claim) and expertly sells Marty’s fear, bewilderment, and shock upon arriving back in time. He also has great comic timing and is wonderfully physical in his role, particularly in a scene where he plays ‘Johnny B. Good’ for a crowd of fifties teenagers (I also like the moment where he’s talking to Jennifer and absentmindedly allows his gaze to follow two work-out-clothed beauties passing by before she pushes his gaze back on her). Fox just oozes likeability from his pores, the way some people ooze oil or sweat and he’s a large part of why the movie is as fun as it is.
Christopher Lloyd, meanwhile, has the role of his career as Dr. Emmett Brown. His unique voice and odd facial expressions suit the character perfectly, so that what would have seemed incredibly overdone in any other role seems perfectly natural. But Lloyd is also good in the quieter moments, such as the heartfelt embrace he and Marty share before attempting their desperate plan. As noted he and Fox play off each other well, able to communicate effectively with nothing but a few meaningful looks, such as the moment during the first time test where Marty slowly edges out of the car’s way until Doc gives him a confused glance and Marty reluctantly gets back into position.
Crispin Glover also gives a physically deft performance, with his choking laugh, breathless voice, and lanky movements, creating the impression of a marionette with an overzealous puppeteer (underscoring the way he lets other people control him). Lea Thompson has a lot of fun as Lorraine; fawning all over Marty as though purposefully trying to disturb him, while also occasionally showing that she really is a nice girl at heart (such as when she’s clearly touched by George’s first abortive attempt to ask her out). She could have done with one or two more ‘nice girl’ moments, just to underscore how worthy an object of affection she is, but Thompson does well in the role. She also is startlingly convincing as the elder Lorraine in 1985, with her baggy eyes and constantly wearied expressions effectively selling her disappointment with the way her life wound up (the make-up which transforms the 23-year-old beauty into a plain, overweight 47-year-old, meanwhile, is almost frighteningly good).
Thomas F. Wilson, who by all accounts is a supremely pleasant man in real life, is thoroughly despicable as Biff, swaggering around both the 1985 house and the 1955 town as though he owns the place, effortlessly dominating poor George, threatening Marty, and harassing Lorraine. Biff may be only a bullying teenager, but Wilson credibly creates the alarming impression that he is entirely capable of truly evil behavior. The tension is thus ramped up as we wonder what Biff might do any time he’s on screen, and when he threatens George or Marty with serious bodily harm we don’t doubt for a moment that he would make good on his threats. Biff’s power is effectively portrayed in two separate scenes where Marty stands up to him, only to remember too late that Biff towers over him by about a foot (the first of these, incidentally, is actually a rather touching moment; a teenage boy reacting automatically and unthinkingly to seeing his mother being mistreated).
Good as Fox, Lloyd, and the rest are, the real star of the show is the Time Machine itself, which is a beautiful work of filmmaking art (as Doc says, “If you’re going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style!”). The sleek, silver DeLorean is impressive on its own, but outfitted with huge, sail-like exhaust ports, wires, and pipes it becomes a formidable machine with its own unique outline and structure. The Time Machine has a lot of personality to it, particularly once it arrives back in 1955, where even alone on an open road it somehow feels alien to its environment: a displaced object, the only one of its kind on Earth. You can’t blame some of the people of the fifties for assuming it’s an alien spacecraft. From its grand, smoke-filled entrance to the final shot of the film, the Time Machine is a supreme presence in the story; its shadow falls over everything else that happens. It’s one of the most memorable cars ever to hit the silver screen.
One of the most interesting aspects about the movie is how it deals with the topic of time itself. Time is a running theme in the movie: it is the real antagonist of the story, represented by the almost omnipresent clocks that appear throughout. The very first thing we hear, before the first shot even appears on screen, is the inexorable ticking of a clock: endless, unceasing, and vaguely sinister in its constant repetition. Then we open on a whole wall of different clocks surrounding Doc’s gadgets…all of which, we discover, are exactly twenty-five minutes slow, resulting in Marty being late for school for the fourth time in a row. Even before he encounters the Time Machine, therefore, Time is Marty’s enemy. The Time Machine itself is Doc’s answer to the previously unanswerable power of Time. “I’ve always dreamt of looking beyond my years,” Doc gushes about his invention, reveling in the chance to outwit the clock (ironically, Doc claims he first got the idea for the Time Machine when he slipped while hanging a clock). After the Time Machine is stranded, Time again gains the upper hand, with Marty having a strict deadline to save his own existence and return to the future, both of which depend on timing: George and Lorraine must get together by a specific time and Marty’s one chance will require split-second timing. Significantly, Marty’s opportunity to return home features a clock as its instrument; a clock that will be stopped forever during the event. It is, therefore, as though Time itself is vanquished in that final cataclysmic race. During the climax, indeed, Doc has to almost literally battle the great clock as it ticks unceasingly towards that all-important instant.
Time travel stories are usually all about this desire to overcome time, that terrible, all consuming master of our lives. God gave us time, I think, to ensure that we would never be satisfied on Earth and to drive us constantly to seek to better ourselves and the world around us, and time is frequently a burden for us; either it is too fast or too slow and it brings all that we make to ruin. Most good time travel stories deal with the consequences of trying to extend our ability to influence the world outside of those confines of date and hour. Often the results are disastrous, and always the consequences are mixed. The stories speak to both a great fear and a great hope: the fear is of that great unknown question ‘what would have happened if things had only been slightly different?’ What if Hitler had never come to power? Might we not then perhaps have faced a possibly even worse battle against, say, the power of the Soviet Union? Might we have lost that battle? The events that led to the current day suddenly seem so tenuous, so vulnerable to even the slightest variation that we shudder to think of how even the slightest change might affect the future (i.e. squashing a mosquito in the Mesozoic era might result in your geeky neighbor becoming the unquestioned despotic ruler of the world).
On the other hand, there is the great hope: the chance to set right what went wrong. Who doesn’t have something in their past they wish with all their heart they could change or do away with? With time travel, that suddenly becomes possible, and the things accepted as simply part of the struggle of life become open to change, improvement, even salvation. If the events that led to the present are so vulnerable to change for the bad, might they not also be open to change for the good? Isn’t there frequently one life-changing moment that makes all the difference? What if you could go back and give someone that moment? How might their life – and yours – be different?
The practical lesson gleaned from all this is how malleable our lives can be. If George McFly can suddenly find reserves of courage he never knew he had, perhaps we can look inside ourselves and find something similar. If so many lives were changed for the better on just one night in November 1955 before 10:04 PM, perhaps we can change our lives for the better in our present.
C.S. Lewis wisely noted that the Present is the only time we ever really experience: the Past is dead and the Future doesn’t exist. The Present is when ‘the soul touches eternity.’ Though time travel may never become a reality (for which we might have cause to be grateful), movies like Back to the Future serve to remind us that we all have at least control over the time given to us, and that if we want to have a good future, we need to start with a good present.
Is it perfect? Well, no. Amusing as the set ups and pay offs are, sometimes they’re a little too perfect: such as when the 1955 Biff and the 1985 Biff bully George with the exact same conversation. The plot device of Marty’s family slowly vanishing from the photo doesn’t really make much sense, though it’s a necessary element to illustrate the urgency of the situation. A few of the effects, particularly the streams of fire following the first time warp, don’t hold up very well (since Marty is clearly standing with his foot right in them without noticing). Also, while most of the plot threads pay off believably, one key point is dealt with in a clumsy and unconvincing manner.
But these are all minor quibbles. Back to the Future is one of the classic films of the eighties. It’s thrilling, heartfelt, funny, and, appropriately enough, never seems to get old.
Rating: 5/5
Highly Recommended!
Some Quotes:
Doc: “If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles-per-hour…you’re gonna see some serious shit.”
George (asking Lorraine out): “I’m George McFly. I’m your density.”
George: “Lou. Give me a milk…”
(Dramatic pause, slams his money on the counter)
“Chocolate.”
Marty: “Sounds pretty heavy.”
Doc: “Weight has nothing to do with it!”
Doc (running from the room): “1.21 GIGAWATTS! 1.21 gigawatts? Great scott!”
Marty (following): “Wait, what the hell is a gigawatt?”
Lorraine: “Marty, you’re beginning to sound just like my mother.”
George: “Hey you! Get your damn hands off her!”
Biff: “Why don’t you make like a tree…and get out of here.”
Doc (on Reagan being president): “And I suppose Jack Benny is Secretary of the Treasury!”
Doc: “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads.”
(A line so awesome that both Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. used it in their speeches)
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