The role of music in Jonathan Levine's 'The Wackness'

by alex on June 23, 2008 · View Comments

in Events,Friends,Thoughts

Here’s a great interview with my buddy Jon, whose movie, The Wackness, comes out on July 3rd. It’s looking like Karen and I are going to the premiere + after party this Wednesday so we’ll be sure to post a quick review (as well as blog the crap out of the rest of the evening!).

The soundtrack is a veritable who’s who of hip hop deep cuts from 1994. Check out this interview that highlights how music came to play such an important role in the flick:

Talk a little bit about why that era was so important to you, in particular 1994.

For me it was two-fold. First off, I saw a great deal of authenticity in the story. If I were to try to write kids today, it would have come off as disingenuous. In order to get the authenticity that I value so much, I needed to go back to 1994. That was the year I graduated high school.

Beyond that, I think there’s a rich tradition of movies that focus on the high school years of a decade or two decades ago. We wanted to follow in that tradition and have people feel the same nostalgia for that time that I was feeling when I was writing it … When you can be one of the first people to look back at a time — remember this music and remember what people were wearing -– you just get this rich wellspring of goodwill. People like to remember these times.

Check out the whole interview here

Comments on this entry are closed.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous post:

Next post: