Crossroads (1986 film)
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| Crossroads | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover for Crossroads |
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| Directed by | Walter Hill |
| Produced by | Mark Carliner |
| Written by | John Fusco |
| Starring | Ralph Macchio Joe Seneca Jami Gertz Joe Morton |
| Music by | Ry Cooder |
| Cinematography | John Bailey |
| Editing by | Freeman A. Davies (as Freeman Davies) |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | March 14, 1986 |
| Running time | 96 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | N/A |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Crossroads is a 1986 cult film inspired by the legend of Robert Johnson. The film was directed by Walter Hill, and featured an original score by Ry Cooder. Starring Ralph Macchio, the film also features renowned guitarist Steve Vai as the devil's guitar player in the climactic guitar duel.
Taglines:
- "The Kid" keeps the legend alive...
- Where second best never gets a second chance.
[edit] Plot summary
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Eugene Martone is fascinated by the blues but studies classical guitar at the Juilliard School for performing arts. He visits a local seniors' home in which blues legend Willie Brown lives against his will and cannot get past the security. To get around this Eugene gets a job as a janitor there, but when he meets his idol, Willie denies that he is the same Willie Brown that Eugene is looking for.
When Eugene plays the guitar for Willie, the old man finally acknowledges his identity and the boy's skill. However, Willie criticises Eugene's lack of experience and will not let him have a missing Robert Johnson tune unless Eugene helps him escape from the home and return to Mississippi.
On their travels, Eugene and Willie make their way to the Mississippi delta and experience the legacy of Robert Johnson first-hand, taking part in an impromptu jam session at a blues bar. They also meet Scratch, the devil who bought Johnson's soul in exchange for the gift of his innovative guitar style. Eugene finds out that Willie Brown made a similar deal with Scratch back in the day. Now that he is an old man, he is worried that his soul's status will become a factor sooner rather than later.
In their travels, they pick-up a hitchhiker, Frances (Jami Gertz). Eugene and Frances share a tender moment in a hayloft. After Frances suddenly leaves and Eugene tells Brown how much he is going to miss her, Brown confesses that there was no missing song for Eugene to learn, but that he has proven himself far beyond what learning any blues song could.
Brown finally returns back to the crossroads with Eugene in hopes of breaking off the deal for his soul. There, Eugene offers to try to win Brown's soul back in a head-cutting duel with a guitar player of Scratch's choice. Scratch chooses Jack Butler (played by Steve Vai), a modern blues man who has also sold his soul for the music. After a blistering guitar duel, Eugene eventually manages to incorporate the training he received at Juilliard and win the duel.
[edit] Trivia
- The infamous climax cutting head battle scene has been widely popularized over the internet by guitarists who are fans of Steve Vai. [1] Most of the battle is played by Vai, except for Eugene's blues parts at the beginning of the duel which are played by Ry Cooder and can be heard on Vai's album "The Elusive Light and Sound, Vol. 1 "
- Macchio's fingering on the guitar was a studied acting job in itself because he didn't know how to play guitar prior to taking on the part of a guitarist. He received intensive training from classical guitarist William Kanengiser of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet to approximate playing realistically enough to hide that fact respectably well.
- When Butler (Steve Vai) finishes his final solo before the classical duel, he ends it with a diminished fifth (flat fifth), an interval banned by the Church at one point because it was associated -like Butler- with the Devil.
- The classical-influenced piece played by Eugene during the climactic scene is based on Niccolò Paganini's Fifth Caprice.
- There was no classical guitar program at The Juilliard School during the creation of the movie, but has since been made a part of the school.
- According to The Dirt this is guitarist Mick Mars favorite movie.
- The animated series Metalocalypse's episode 'Bluesklok' parodies Crossroads.
- The guitar used by Eugene is a Fender Telecaster.
- The guitar used by Jack Butler(Steve Vai) is a Charvel San Dimas.
