When Robert Zemeckis comes up in everyday conversation, it’s usually in one of several ways:
- Robert Zemeckis? The guy who made Back to the Future, Forrest Gump and a bunch of other nostalgia-bait movies (including but not limited to his 2024 film Here)?
- Robert Zemeckis? The guy who can’t stop experimenting with special effects technology and making CGI heavy features like The Polar Express
- Robert Zemeckis? The guy who has a concerningly shallow take on the past and seems to really struggle when it comes to historical accuracy, nuance, or depicting other cultures/races?
And yes! That guy! That Robert Zemeckis! The one that has worked with Bob Gale on multiple occasions, loves collaborating with Tom Hanks, and is also best buds with Steven Spielberg. That one!
He’s a great director and I ended up going through a bunch of his movies over the holidays, only to get absolutely gobsmacked by one of them in particular. A movie that just so happened to encapsulate the Robert Zemeckis experience *and* even does better in regard to each of those things too! The film? Who Framed Roger Rabbit. What did it do better? Well, for starters it gives his trademark nostalgia some actually focus for once and uses it as a jumping off point to explore the 1940s under the pretense of it’s most popular genre, film noir, as well as deconstruct the genre and it’s most iconic trope (the femme fatale). It also signals his first major special effects movie and shows him getting the most mileage out of it by using it as a metaphor for the film’s predominant theme. And speaking of that theme, it actually works (and was envisioned) as a commentary on race relations, civil rights, and diversity! Not bad, Zemeckis. Not bad at all.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:03 - Defining Definitive
05:58 - Nostalgia, Noir, and Femme Fatales
24:20 - Technology or: what makes this Robert so Zemeckis
30:40 - How Roger Rabbit Plays the Race Card
44:03 - Closing Thoughts
Recommended watches:
The Strange Conservatism of Forrest Gump (Broey Dechanel) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeGeT3ZeKO0
Racial Segregation and Concentrated Poverty: The History of Housing in Black America (The Root) - https://youtu.be/Mi9sjhISYfg?si=BKU2eHA2Wf-6WYow#videoessay #filmmaking #filmanalysis
Support the channel:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NicheCaesar
Channel Membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCscDbMTovs2Zww6by8HSDMg/join
Socials:
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nichecaesar.bsky.social
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/nichecaesar
Media Obscura and Glaring Admissions (Podcast): https://pod.link/themediaobscura
Guppy Falls (eBook): https://a.co/d/isBwHfu