This is the ‘70s skateboard counterculture of the mean streets of west Los Angeles, Dogtown, Venice, brought to life by director Catherine Hardwicke with raw energy, youthful grit and incredible visual intuition. You are living it, riding it, immersed in an endless California vibe. It is the true story of the legendary Zephir skateboarders (Z-Boys) who redefined skate culture in the 1970s. Stacy (John Robinson), Jay (Emile Hirsche) and Tony (Victor Rasuk), under the guidance of their team leader, Skip Engblom (Heath Ledger) – Zephir comes from the surf shop Skip owns, a turning point in skateboard history and in the film. These wonderfully cast actors are the rebels who defined an era. “This was a magical time in the ’70s when this burst of creativity came from these kids who were from the wrong side of the tracks,” Catherine Hardwicke recounted in Director’s Guild of America. “They had shitty, unstable home lives. They weren’t good in school and couldn’t afford an expensive sport. But anyone could buy a skateboard super cheap. And with Skip Engblom as their father figure, it felt like the family they didn’t have.”
They were surfers who took the fearless surfing style they perfected in the water to the street and invented the extreme skateboarding style they became famous for. The director wanted the actors to learn to skate. And they did. For months, their training session began with surfing in the morning and then five or six hours of skateboarding in the afternoon. The real life skateboarders were present on the set and offered their assistance, keeping it authentic, true to each of their individual skating style, and even stepping in to do their own stunts because they did it better than the doubles.
The film feels real and the characters do, too. These boys didn’t have much to hang onto, but riding their skateboards was theirs, their own creative outlet, the only way to express themselves and they dedicated themselves to it with fearless abandon. Lords of Dogtown is also one of the most beautifully shot films in Los Angeles, back-lit by the sun and defined by a rock attitude that I feel every generation should experience. “Their music was integrated into the style of skating because, for these rebellious, frustrated kids, the pounding of that music helped them,” said the director.
The visual inspiration came from books, particularly Dogtown: The Legend of the Z-Boys, where C. R. Stecyk III and Glen E. Friedman capture the original skateboarding universe. In an interview with Emanuel Levy, production designer Chris Gorak recalled that they had to recreate the grit of 1970s Venice, long gone now. Every little thing had to be authentic. They rebuilt the Zephyr shop from photographs and the surfboards there were made by the real Skip Engblom and his crew. Heath also spent a day with him, learning how to shape boards.
It’s the atmosphere, the energy, the creativity, the look of a counterculture and a sport. But the clothes weren’t the sport’s focus. They aren’t in the film either. That’s the beauty of it. Those boys back in the day wore these clothes before the world knew they were cool, before they were a trend, they wore them as a way of bowing out of the pressure to conform. And when we see them on screen we like them instantly because they look authentic, because the characters on screen feel authentic (they did living-wardrobe and hair/makeup tests on location) where the clothes and music are part of the storytelling. And just like that, you are drawn into the story, back in time, getting to see that cool skateboarding culture, with the 1970s colour palette, long hair, jeans and sneakers and every imaginable t-shirt. The boys are never still (and you realise the camera is never still either), their clothes are never clean because they are always outside, skating, falling, riding empty pools during the drought and empty streets at dawn, wheels gripping the pavement. Each character is finding his freedom and powers, each one different and bringing his own contribution to a sport that was being invented or reinvented right then and there. An incredibly telling scene is when a guy walks in Skip’s shop “with a brown paper bag that we think is drugs, but it’s actually urethane skateboard wheels. Their eyes are popping, in awe of what these wheels could let them do.”
And then there is Heath Ledger as Skip. His dedication to a role was hypnotic and all-absorbing, and it was maybe his greatest gift and greatest misfortune. Heath grew up skating and surfing and went to Costa Rica to get back into the surf vibe for the role. He also hung out with skip and in the film he wore Skip’s clothes, a wig, false teeth and beads with open-buttoned Hawaiian style shirt. He stepped into his clothes and skin, sliding into the character naturally. He owns a surf shop and has a sudden yet short-lived success when he is marketing the three west coast teenage skaters. But too sudden and too fast he is starting to turn the boys into something he resents – merchandising and branding. Towards the end of the film, we see Skip in the shop he previously owned, working as a shaper in the back, a striking contrast between the neat and customer-friendly front of the shop and the cold, blue neon-lit workshop that matches Skip’s t-shirt. He’s back at what he loves, surfing and shaping boards. It’s not about failing or not being able to handle success, it’s about defining success in your own way, or maybe it’s about taking the idea of success out of your life for good and living just the life you want.
”You gotta approach every day as if it’s your last!”
Skip Engblom(Heath Ledger), Lords of Dogtown
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