FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH

A byproduct of the seismic shift in Hollywood spurred on by the economic success of Star Wars was the blossoming of the teen genre film in the 1980s: Teens proved that they had disposable income, and, by god, they earned a cinema of their own. Based on a work of late New Journalism by perennial adolescent (then 21-year-old) Cameron Crowe and directed by the more talented Amy Heckerling, the episodic Fast Times at Ridgemont High seems today like a somewhat abridged take on a high school annual, and it's sure as hell better than its 1982 classmates Porky's, Zapped and The Last American Virgin. At very least, Fast Times at Ridgemont High transcends pure exploitation: to a great extent, it itself is a film about consumption. Most known to the cognoscenti as the launching vehicle for the careers of a young Sean Penn (then 21, playing the 16 year-old surfer stoner Jeff Spicoli) and an accent-free Jennifer Jason Leigh. More than a poor man's American Graffiti, it's a middle-class precursor of Dazed and Confused. But the true protagonist of Fast Times at Ridgemont High is its primary location: the school scenes were shot at Van Nuys High School and Canoga Park High School. Rather, it's the Sherman Oaks Galleria, a landmark of San Fernando Valley youth culture in the 1980s, name checked by Frank Zappa in «Valley Girl». The mall begins and ends the film, with the title appearing over a shot of what's called «Ridgemont Mall». This exterior was actually shot at Santa Monica Place. Heckerling then launches into a deftly edited scene introducing all the film's major characters active in the mall interior, at work or at play and often both. It's not quite a Boogie Nights plan sequence, but, then again Heckerling's primary concern throughout is realism, honestly depicting the lives of teenagers coming of age, replacing family with friends - not a single parent is seen, and the teachers are kept as straight man, or intentionally unfunny comic relief. It's poignant that Fast Times at Ridgemont High ends with a credit roll of all the ancillary characters who have since passed on: every single store at that time a resident of the Sherman Oaks Galleria. After being damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, its fate was sealed. The mall closed for a number of years, before reopening in 2002 as an open-air facility featuring an office complex including Warner Bros Animation Studios, centred around an Arclight multiplex, that primarily shows movies targeted towards teenagers.