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Back to the Future

Screening on Film
Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
With Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson.
US, 1985, 35mm, color, 116 min.
Print source: Harvard Film Archive

In dealing with the buried past, both Blue Velvet and Demme’s Something Wild (1986) address Back to the Future, the movie that most obviously superimposed the Fifties over the Eighties. Unfolding beneath the banner “Spirit of ’76,” the ten-year high school class reunion in Something Wild is a version of Back to the Future’s aptly named “Under the Sea” dance—rich with instances of voyeurism, exhibitionism and sexual assault—as Marty’s father spies on Marty’s mother undressing, Marty performs on stage, and Biff attempts to rape Marty’s mother, who has already expressed her interest in Marty.

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