FAME (1980)

Unlike the Academy Award-winning theme song that accompanied it, Fame is far from idyllic. It presents a gritty and unsparing view of struggling young artists in New York City, never shying away from the difficulty of forging a successful career in the arts. In fact, at times its eponymous song feels like a cruel joke considering how melodramatic the plotting often is. But this song, and the many others in Fame, aren’t about life itself; the film does that heavy lifting. Instead, they’re a representation of this ensemble cast’s big dreams, where not even abject poverty can dim their ability to imagine a far better life for themselves. 

Poverty can be a very strong motivator in that regard, especially when it’s dispensed so freely here. Many of the attendees of the New York City High School of the Performing Arts have impoverished backgrounds, living in desperately lacking housing in substandard areas, while others, like Montgomery MacNeil (Paul McCrane), are the children of affluent parents who are rarely present in their lives. This class divide is hardly ever spoken about, except to endear us towards those who suffer the most in this regard. By refusing to contrast these backgrounds and environments, director Alan Parker and screenwriter Christopher Gore showcase how random it is that one can be born into dire poverty or outrageous wealth, a fitting parallel for the often arbitrary nature of fame and artistic success.

Following four years in the lives of a group of teenage performing arts students, it becomes clear throughout Fame’s opening scene, a lengthy audition sequence, that these youngsters are talented. But while talent and bottomless ambition are often a requirement for the kind of success these characters are aiming for, such qualities are by no means a guarantee of it. Even Ralph Garci (Barry Miller), who’s battling trauma from a seriously tough upbringing, can’t help but pity older student Michael (Boyd Gaines) when he sees him waiting tables for a living. Those dreams of grandeur, and more importantly, the promise Michael showed, have amounted to very little, a recurring aspect of Fame.

The teens themselves are unabashedly optimistic, with a fantastic opening sequence embodying their free spirit in the audition process. One can easily imagine the more nerdy qualities of this troupe, or its domineering members, as being quite aggravating to deal with in reality, but in this big-hearted film it’s enjoyable to watch them flourish in an environment that fosters and nurtures their creativity. Yet despite being cocooned in this protective space, these youngsters can only be protected for so long from the horrors of this city (and that only applies to the ones that haven’t already had to contend with them from a young age). 

Does it ever feel like four years have passed in these characters’ lives throughout Fame? Not at all, but that’s a necessary evil in a film that flits back and forth between its large roster of characters and their divergent paths. What’s less forgivable is just how clumsy this narrative is. Reading current reviews from cinema-goers of Fame reveals a common criticism, with the film feeling like a 2-hour mash-up or fan edit of the most dramatic and energetic moments from an entire series of television. Unfortunately, it’s a valid complaint. Fame delights in big, showy moments, whether that involves its young troupe breaking out into song or witnessing one of them undergoing a tragic experience. The latter is especially common, whether that involves getting an abortion to help further one’s career, succumbing to drink and drugs, or being duped by a sleazy stranger into shooting amateur pornography. 

Oftentimes Fame is the theatre kid equivalent of Euphoria, to such an extent that one wonders whether this film (and the television series of the same name that it spawned) was an influence on that HBO series. Like Euphoria, Fame’s tragic moments are genuinely moving, operating with the same degree of heartfelt earnestness found in these teenagers’ starry-eyed visions and gleeful interactions. The only trouble is that they’re couched in a film that often uses these tragic plot-lines as a supplement for gradual — or committed —character development. Fame breezes through these characters’ lives, skipping over massive time spans or shifting fortunes to focus only on these grand scenes, and never what precedes or follows them. Parker also commits to this technique with the film’s open-ended denouement. But while that at least demonstrates how we can never truly know what will become of these youngsters’ hopes and dreams, there’s no such justification for how freely Fame dashes through its character arcs.

It’s a shame, too, because even with these fundamental detractions the film is frequently moving. Even if it wouldn’t have exactly mirrored the real-life Performing Arts School programme, setting Fame across a single year in these characters’ lives would aid this journey considerably. As it is, one feels that even a four hour film couldn’t adequately address all of the various issues raised in the ever-changing lives of this large roster of characters, so it’s no wonder that the film led to a six-season television spin-off not long after its release.

Fame is more akin to a collage of scenes rather than a complete story, with the conventional nature of these scenes ensuring that the film’s experimental structure doesn’t feel earned. Thankfully, the film still proves to be an earnest, big-hearted, desperate, and desperately passionate tale of longing. It isn’t up to us to say whether or not these kids are doing themselves and their futures a disservice to pursue such shaky career paths, even when it will almost certainly end in tragedy for some of them.

For the rest, disappointment is more likely. But really it’s all up in the air, as these youngsters’ futures should be. Coco Hernandez (Irene Cara) seems like a star in the making, while I found Montgomery singing alone to himself in his room to be the most affecting scene in the entire film. We’ll never know what happens to these characters, but that’s not the point. Regardless of whether any of them will become one of the extremely lucky few for whom success awaits on the other side of this invisible precipice, they are all willing to jump into the unknown. And for that you want to believe in them, even when the darkness of this world seems too overbearing to do so.

USA | 1980 | 174 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • SPANISH • FRENCH • RUSSIAN

Cast & Crew

director: Alan Parker.
writer: Christopher Gore.
starring: Eddie Barth, Paul McCrane, Irene Cara, Barry Miller, Gene Anthony Ray, Maureen Teefy, Lee Curreri, Antonia Franceschi, Anne Meara, Jim Moody & Albert Hague.