Once More - Back to the Future Is A Damn Perfect Movie

Back to the Future Is A Damn Perfect Movie

 

When people talk about the best, most perfect movies ever made, we all know the usual suspects: Citizen Kane, Chinatown, Casablanca. And I feel like Back to the Future should absolutely be on that list. The way this film is structured and feeds story to the audience is so seamless, it’s basically a clinic in how to make a movie.

First of all, it’s amazing to realize that the entire Back to the Future trilogy is basically a character-based saga. With the possible exception of the dystopian alternate timeline in the second movie, this series keeps its stakes very low and personal for Marty McFly. Throughout all three movies, his main goal is to ensure his own continued existence, but also to save his family—and to a large extent, a lot of the “action” in these films is in the service of character development. The narrative payoff is always in the form of the main characters changing.

And just consider how much information the movie packs into its opening minutes. The movie starts with that famous long take inside Doc Brown’s bizarre lab. Immediately you have an idea of who this guy is: He’s a bit cuckoo. But there’s more too. There’s foreshadowing, in the form of a man hanging from a clock that looks like the end of the movie, as well as plot development, with the newscaster telling us about the stolen plutonium. We’re then introduced to our main character, Marty McFly, and the shot ends with a skateboard hitting the plutonium, an act that tells us a ton about this wild kid and this person whose place we’re in. That’s all in THE FIRST SHOT OF THE MOVIE.

The scene continues and we get a bit more of who Marty is. He’s a rocker, kind of a rebel—and Michael J. Fox’s twitchy, squinty-eyed performance does a great job of selling Marty’s insecurity and constant state of hapless panic to the audience. And then Doc calls and sets up their first meeting, which will happen later in the film. Next we find out the clocks are slow, which means Marty’s late for school. So where does he go next? School, perfectly moving the story forward, while also telling us he’s not exactly a model student.

Huey Lewis and the News’ “The Power of Love” kicks in as Marty rides his skateboard on the back of a few cars through the center of Hill Valley. This scene gives us a more of an idea of who Marty is and also introduces us to an area we’re going to get very, very familiar with over the next three movies. The scene also features a glimpse of Goldie Wilson as mayor, another bit of foreshadowing.

 

Marty arrives at school and we meet his girlfriend, Jennifer. She’s totally on his side and tries to sneak him into school safely, but they run into Mr. Strickland. He over heard Marty talking about “Doc” Brown, and starts to bad mouth him. We haven’t seen Doc yet, but we already know a lot about him and what people think of him so we’ve formed a mental image. Strickland also tells Marty he’s a slacker like his father, something we’ll come to learn more about later in the movie. He says that “No McFly has ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley.” That, in a way, is hinting at what happens in the third movie more than anything, but also is about how his father will change over the course of the movie. Strickland, a character we’ll also see later, then mentions Marty’s band, which transitions us right into the next scene.

Marty’s band, The Pin Heads, is auditioning for the dance. Jennifer watches on proudly—but they’re rejected, something we already know is a McFly trait. It also puts a cap on a storyline set up in the previous scene. The rest of the school day is then skipped, probably because nothing happened of significance, and we go to Jennifer and Marty walking through the town square again after school.