Seventeen, a candid depiction of the life and times of a group of Muncie, Indiana teenagers, took San Francisco and Berkeley by storm at the recent San Francisco International Film Festival. We are pleased to bring the film back with directors Joel DeMott and Jeff Kreines in person to introduce and discuss their
controversial feature. Seventeen is “slice-of-life"--à la mode; and it was too heavy for PBS television, who commissioned it for the Middletown series, to digest. The film was pulled when DeMott and Kreines refused to allow it to be censored. Four-letter words (and sometimes the things they stand for), casual drug-taking, and interracial relationships are part of the fabric of life for these working-class teens, and are woven into the film, which records their lives and ideas with free-flowing intimacy.
Seventeen takes us back to school, from a government class that is the ultimate in ennui, to the submerged hilarity of a cooking class in which we are privy to the students' muttered ridicule of a teacher who tries too hard. There we are introduced to the several teenagers whom DeMott and Kreines will follow in activities from cruising for burgers to dates and drunken “keggers.” But it's not all fun; in fact, it's hardly fun at all. The film unfolds into an absorbing, real-life drama of a white girl who dates a black boy and becomes the center of neighborhood-wide tension. The nuances of racism are effectively picked up, from the kids' casual honesty to the studied distinctions made by their parents. Viewpoints are many, varied and all-important within the small community of friends and family the film depicts; as much as anything, Seventeen is a study in language: fast, fascinating and very, very American.
Selected for Filmex '84.