Wanderlust: Surfing, Modernization, and Cultural Diplomacy in the Long 1970s
2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 40; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/dh/dhw030
ISSN1467-7709
Autores Tópico(s)Communism, Protests, Social Movements
ResumoBy mid-1967, when the State Department appointed Hollywood powerbroker Jack Valenti chairman of the U.S. delegation to the biennial Moscow Film Festival, The Endless Summer (1966), a celebrated chronicle of two surfers traveling around the world in search of waves, had already earned countless accolades. Newsweek pronounced it a “sweeping and exciting account of human skill pitted against the ocean itself.” 1 To Life it was the “nicest surprise to happen in the low-budget movie business in a long time.” 2 The New Yorker reckoned it a “brilliant documentary,” a “perfect movie about a search for the perfect wave.” 3 Members of the National Screen Council, which in January 1967 awarded the film its Boxoffice Blue Ribbon Award—“unusual for a documentary,” the group noted—were ecstatic. “You could be 85 and never have put a toe in the water and still think this is great,” chimed one. “Who would have thought I would sit enthralled for 91 minutes by a documentary about surfing!” said another. 4 The film’s director (and producer, cinematographer, editor, and narrator), the blond-haired Southern California archetype Bruce Brown, came in for extraordinary praise. Time magazine christened him the “Bergman of the Boards.” To the New York Times he was the “Fellini of the Foam.” 5 What ultimately matters in Hollywood is box office, however, and on this count, too, The Endless Summer proved a remarkable success, packing theaters coast-to-coast and earning more than $30 million worldwide. 6 For what Brown called “a combination documentary, travelogue, and home movie” about a sport with which most Americans were only passingly familiar, this was not a bad reception. 7 Not bad at all.
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