This book provides an examination of Big Wednesday as an unconventional film that employs a mythic sensibility in its representation of the loss of youth and young manhood.
Critically and commercially unsuccessful on its original release, the coming-of-age, surf drama Big Wednesday (1978), has undergone a significant reappraisal. It is now considered not only an important contribution to youth cinema, but also the most important film that John Milius ever made. Over six chapters, the book considers questions of authorship, commerce, genre, stardom, and myth, and explores how these ideas intersect with the film’s status as a significant youth movie and collectively how these ideas have contributed to its recent critical rehabilitation. In doing so, the book also provides a much-needed reassessment of an important and overlooked entry in the New Hollywood canon.
Exploring Big Wednesday’s subsequent resonance and relevance, this unique study will appeal to students and scholars in film studies, popular culture studies, youth studies, sociology and media studies.
Introduction 1. Storytelling in New Hollywood 2. Friendship, Innocence, and Mythologized Youth 3. Resistance and Incorporation in Californian Surf Culture 4. Authorship and the Star Director 5. Genre and the Male Melodrama 6. Youthful Archetypes and the Transition to Cult Stardom Epilogue
Biography
Mark McKenna is an Associate Professor in Film and Media Industries at Staffordshire University. His research interests are broadly focused on marketing and branding practices, media labour processes, and media policy and regulation strategy, and his work has explored these ideas in a range of contexts and from a number of different perspectives. He is the author of Nasty Business: The Marketing and Distribution of the Video Nasties and Snuff, and the co-editor of Horror Franchise Cinema (Routledge, 2021).
“McKenna’s deft exploration of various aspects of Big Wednesday reveals it to be far more than a cult surfing movie. This wide-ranging study not only provides an astute account of the film’s initial failure and eventual reappraisal but also focuses productively on how it works as an overtly sentimental male melodrama about the loss of youthful friendship.”
- Martin Shingler, independent scholar, freelance writer, editor and researcher.
