Powerful

Don't Believe the Hype

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

If you found An American Family dull, you weren't watching it properly. In order to appreciate this documentary, you have to take it as a very special, intimate look at a family with some dramatic twists and turns, accompanied with a fascinating "slice of life" look at how things were in 1971, the year the documentary was filmed. There are so many more interesting elements to the program aside from the bits where Lance was involved -- Grant and his striving for rock and roll success while chafing under the expectations of his parents; Kevin and his struggle to carve his own identity while being a good, honorable, decent, and obedient son; Delilah and her struggles to grow up in a tumultuous family environment while keeping up with her passions and responsibilities; and Michelle and the roller-coaster of a ride she's on as she copes with the gargantuan highs and lows of early adolescence.Then there's Pat and Bill. Their relationship and its attendant struggles forms the centerpiece of this fascinating documentary. Unbeknownst to the viewer in the first half of the program, Pat's suspicions of Bill's multiple affairs has been verified and solidified and this spurs her own to make plans of her own. But Bill is no ogreish cad -- he, like everyone else in this program, is extremely likable, so when he arrives back home at the beginning of episode 9 and Pat presents him with her attorney's information and tells him to move out, it is nearly torturous to watch. The whole of the episode is thus tinged with that element of sadness, even at the very end when Grant sits down with his family (minus Bill and Lance) and strums rock and roll songs. By that time you've gotten to know everyone -- and seen just how accurate Lance was with his overall assessment of his siblings (i.e. very accurate) -- and it feels like this is happening to friends or relatives of yours.This is the finest example of the "reality TV" genre out there. It's incredibly emotionally involving, the Loud family are all very likable (something no other reality TV program can claim), it's a perfect time capsule for an era and a time that hasn't gotten much actual memorialization (only kitschification), and it is a highly entertaining program to watch. And it stands the test of time.

I videotaped most of the series when it reran on WNET some 20 years ago, and I keep trying to like it. But even to this avid TV viewer who lived through that era and is fascinated by cultural anthropology, the show is largely unwatchable.The problem is that except for a couple of episodes (episode 2 and maybe the one with Lance in Paris), it's dull and slow. What made it shocking in 1973 -- the strangeness of being able to peek into someone else's day-to-day life -- has now been eclipsed by a torrent of tell-all talk shows and contrived "reality shows." Without the show's original voyeuristic shock value, ten of the twelve hours are unadulterated tedium (though I imagine a nifty 100-minute documentary could be culled from the footage).

One of the key aspects that makes this series compelling is the director's insistence that it somehow adheres to strict rules (if such are even theoretically possible) of cinema Veriee. So much of the "reality" we observe in this precursor to the current deluge of reality shows is very subtly contrived. Given the fact that Pat and Bill were on the outs well before the series started, plus the fact that Lance had already come out, much the seemingly real-time tension viewers experience is really quite contrived in much the same manner as a scripted soap opera. The show--even in all of its heavy handed scandal-mongering--does illustrate the strains present in many modern nuclear families and does elicit much interest if only for the fact that it captures the strange transition between the spontaneous daily drama of life as seen from a fly on the wall and the media's shaping of such drama to suit its own thesis. By watching Lance, who even goes so far as to tip off the audience by self-consciously parodying his on-stage persona, we can readily observe the innocent wonder years of PBS well before it grew into the great dictator of perception that it is today.

God I wish this was available on DVD or video, I remember seeing it years ago on PBS, late at night, just came upon it by accident and was completely hooked. It was truly fascinating. The 70's were so strange and interesting, and this is the real deal, real life. The quintessential portrait of an American Family at an interesting time in history. Series like this should be well preserved and available for future generations, it's a tragedy.