1980: On a Mission from God
THE BLUES BROTHERS (dir. John Landis)
So again, I’ve started a project called A Life in Film where I’m writing about a movie for every year I’ve been alive. The full essays live on my personal site, but I’m using the newsletter here to keep people hepped on what’s up.
In general, I’m a little nervous about doing these writeups about movies I love, because if someone’s going to take the time to read one of these, I don’t want to waste their time with endless “OMG IT RULES!!!!” 1980 poses a tough challenge, though, because the obvious movie to talk about is The Blues Brothers, and it happens to be not just a movie that I love, but one that I love so much that I think some of its themes are implanted into the wiring of my head.
Luckily, I do think there’s some interesting bigger-picture stuff to talk about here. Theology, cultural identity, that kind of fun stuff.
There’s probably no need to do a close rehash of The Blues Brothers; if you’re reading this, I assume you’ve seen it (and if you haven’t: you should!). But there are a lot of top-level things to note about it! For instance, it’s the first (and by far best) case of a Saturday Night Live bit becoming a movie. It features John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd doing maybe the best work either of them ever did. It’s about a couple of white weirdos* who love Black music, and believe they’re on a divine mission to use the power of music to save the orphanage where they were raised. It is itself a musical!
*It’s never made clear, as far as I can tell, if we’re supposed to consider them biological brothers or if they just have a sort of spiritual/musical brotherhood; maybe that doesn’t matter, and maybe that’s another point the movie’s making, intentionally or otherwise. And, of course, a couple of white guys who are trafficking so heavily in Black-coded culture referring to themselves as “brothers” is certainly a loose thread to be tugged at endlessly.