Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town

Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town (1967)

** (out of 4)

When George Lucas returned to USC after graduating he made two shorts. The documentary THE EMPEROR and this one here, which was actually the school's first student film to be shot in color and widescreen. Sadly, it's also the weakest short that Lucas had done up to this point. It's based on the E.E. Cummings poem and pretty much shows a man and a woman wondering around the country side. The short runs just 6-minutes, which is certainly a positive thing. The film is pretty to look at and it contains some nice cinematography but whatever plot the director was trying to get across doesn't happen. In fact, the film really doesn't come across as being about anything so it's up to the viewer to just come up with anything. I'm not certain that was the point of Lucas so in the end this is certainly the weakest of his short films.

Of all the George Lucas films made in his early career as a USC student filmmaker, "Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town" often receives the most flaque for reasons I do not understand. I was expecting much worse from this six-minute short, which other reviewers have criticized as being "going nowhere" in its premise and feeling pointless overall. From these remarks, I thought the film would have a story lacking plot development - the type of plot development that most expect from modern cinema - which it really didn't. As a whole, the feel of this brief film is much more about sentiment and artistry, having a focus that is more on a mix of good craft combined with a surrealistic narrative that is left to interpretation. Not something most audiences would appreciate I suppose, but it has a pleasant feel throughout with varying elements that I found quite interesting.

The short is based, somewhat, off of E. E. Cummings's poem of the same title, which after I read it, made less sense than Lucas's film. Both tend to have an emphasis on imagery - I particularly enjoyed the wonderful cinematography at the beginning and end, with the emphasis on man-made cities vs. Nature. As for the story, little happens in it apart from a photographer taking pictures of different people, then tearing them up whilst appearing and disappearing in different locations (as do his subjects). There is a couple consisting of a man and woman as well, who are frolicking in the woods and enjoying eachothers' company, before getting interrupted by the photographer. While not entirely fitting to the poem (which had no photographer at all) the sentiments of it are similar: man and woman, seasons, nature, etc, which are enhanced with a lovely musical track. A sentiment film few would understand, but I consider it quite artistic and pleasing, as well as being an interesting portrayal of a mostly non-narrative poem.

This was beautiful. I never read the Cummings poem this is based on, but I have some sense of what is going on here involving a guy who can teleport with a camera, a happy couple, and the people who the teleporter photographer can take away into his world. The music is sweet, and it carries the audience along with the montage, which is more melodic and less harsh and cold than the other early Lucas shorts. In fact, outside of Electronic Labyrinth, this is my favorite of the USC batch of films (color and widescreen certainly helps).

It's probably too abstract to be enjoyed more than once or twice, but something about it clicked for me - call it the gone-but-not-forgotten student filmmaker - and I appreciated that Lucas was trying something much different than his 'statement' films (Look at Life, Freiheit) or being completely into tone-poem land (Herbie and 6-18-67). This has human beings, it has a self-conscious and sort of knowing quality, and, in a shallow bit of props, it's pretty to look at and the pacing is sensational.

I saw this film in my CTCS 469 Film & Television Style Analysis class (a whole course on Lucas's work) in Spring 2000 at the University of Southern California. What a bizarre little movie. Somehow I doubt Lucas is in love with this film either. It seems to me like any of the lazy CTPR 290 stinkbombs of abstraction produced by current students here, and not at all like his innovative and stylish student films Freheit, Herbie, Look at Life, or The Emperor. (THX-1138:4EB Electronic Labyrinth doesn't get an honorable mention; it was a mere exercise in shooting in color without lighting. "It doesn't mean anything," Lucas is quoted as saying.)

All the best, if you happen to see this one somewhere. Like at USC.

George Lucas's take on e e cumming's poem achieves little other than to confirm the self-indulgence of student filmmakers. Pretty sure Lucas would rather this hadn't resurfaced.