Movies - Heavy Traffic

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	Movies - Heavy Traffic

Heavy Traffic is a full-length animated film by Ralph Bakshi, released in 1973 by American International Pictures. It seeks to reproduce some of the atmosphere from underground comics of the period in an animated film. Heavy Traffic predates American Pop
and Heavy Metal by about a decade. It bears some thematic relationship to Bakshi's earlier film Fritz the Cat
, which was released in 1972, based on a Robert Crumb character.

Half way into production, Ralph Bakshi got into a fight with producer Steve Krantz over not recieving a paycheck for Fritz the Cat, and was fired from his own film. Animation legend Chuck Jones was approached to complete the film, but declined, out of respect for Bakshi. Another director (whose name has not yet been confirmed) was finally hired, and shot one sequence, before he was fired and Bakshi was re-hired. Despite this, Bakshi later stated that Heavy Traffic was the most enjoyable film to make.

The film is considered to be Bakshi's biggest critical success. Film website Rotten Tomatoes, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 90% . It is also Bakshi's favorite of his own work.

Although it is widely rumoured that Heavy Traffic was produced after Bakshi failed to purchase the rights to Hubert Selby's controversial novel Last Exit to Brooklyn
, Bakshi actually tried to seek out the rights after Heavy Traffic was completed. Selby agreed to the adaptation and Robert De Niro accepted a role, but Bakshi never got to make the film. Last Exit to Brooklyn was finally made by director Uli Edel, as a live-action film, released in 1989.

Heavy Traffic was re-released by Orion Pictures Corporation, and is now available on VHS and DVD by MGM Home Entertainment, the current copyright owners of the Orion and AIP film catalogues.

Plot Overview

Heavy Traffic uses pinball imagery as a metaphor for inner-city life. It begins by showing its young protagonist, Michael Corleone (Joseph Kaufmann), a 22-year-old pinball playing virgin in New York City, as a live action person. The scene is then thrown into animation. New York has a tough and violent atmosphere. We meet Michael's Italian father, Angelo "Angie" Corleone, a struggling mafioso who constantly cheats on Michael's Jewish mother, Ida. The couple constantly bickers and tries to kill each other.

Out of the apartment and into the streets, Michael ambles through a catalog of freaks, greasers, and dopers. Unemployed, he dabbles with cartoons, artistically feeding off the grubbiness of his environment. He regularly hangs out at a local bar where he gets free drinks from the female black bartender, Carole (Beverly Hope Atkinson), in exchange for sketches, somewhat annoying Shorty, Carole's violent, legless barfly devotee.

One of the regular customers at the bar, Snowflake, a homosexual transvestite, gets beat up by a tough drunk after only just realizing that Snowflake was a man in drag, and not a beautiful woman. The bar's white owner fires Carole over this.

Shorty offers to let Carole stay at his place, but not wanting to get involved with him, Carole tells Shorty that she's staying with Michael, and that they've been "secretly tight for a long time." Michael is turned on by her no-nonsense attitude and strong sense of self-reliance. This relationship arouses his father's racist fury as well as the jealousy of Shorty.

Michael moves out of his parents' house and tries to make a living, often failing. He gets a chance to pitch a film idea to an old movie mogul lying on his death bed, but the story proves too outrageous:

After a nuclear war, the world is covered with garbage. Most of humanity has been either destroyed or mutated. Guys are still horny as hell, and would hump anything in sight. A pile of humped garbage comes alive, and becomes known as "Mother Pile," and is worshipped as a religious figure. The last living human female, Wanda The Last becomes a sort of sideshow attraction and tours the land with her duckbilled mutant manager. One night, God speaks to Warren, asking Warren to let Him screw Wanda. Warren obliges, and Wanda gives birth to the new messiah. Throughout His son's life Mother Pile searched for him, and although she crucifed many men, not one of them gave her his location. Also, God had been giving His son lessons of what he called, "The Truth." The story ends after the son spent roughly three months meditating in a cave; after a shout of "I have the Truth!" he shoots God in the head, who in turn topples over and crushes Mother Pile. The ending quote was this: "The Truth is, God, you've been conning us all along."

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