Product Details

• Actors: Joseph Kaufmann, Beverly Hope Atkinson, Frank DeKova, Terri Haven, Mary Dean Lauria
• Directors: Ralph Bakshi
• Writers: Ralph Bakshi
• Producers: Mark L. Rosen, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Steve Krantz
• Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English, Italian, Yiddish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: MGM
• DVD Release Date: September 5, 2000
• Run Time: 76 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0792846818
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,421 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  Movies & TV > Animation > By Animator > Ralph Bakshi

• For more information about "Heavy Traffic" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Heavy Traffic is writer-director Ralph Bakshi's follow-up to Fritz the Cat, so if you're looking for a little something to watch with the kids, you might want to search elsewhere. It's an odd little movie, one that seems to both condemn and celebrate depravity at the same time. The hero is Michael, an artist who still lives with his battling parents. Michael is far too sensitive for the cruel city, though he sure seems to draw an awful lot of pictures of it. Michael hooks up with cool bartender Carole and the two of them set off to... well, they plan to do something. More engaging than the story are Bakshi's visual techniques, which include blending animated and live-action sequences and layering old film clips into cartoon backgrounds. Though interesting as a piece of animation, Heavy Traffic is difficult to recommend. There is a running thread of misogyny that makes the film off-putting, to say the least. Yes, all of the characters are unpleasant and yes, most of the violence is over-the-top enough to make a case for it being comic. It is the constant, casual misogyny that's unsettling--at one point Michael backhands Carole across the face and everyone, including Carole, seems to be fine with that. Keep an ear out for Jamie Farr and watch it for the animation, not the plot. --Ali Davis

Product Description

"Heavy images, crazy violence, insanity verging on insecurity and brilliance" (Films & Filming)! Heavy Traffic, the second feature from writer/director Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat), combines a quick-edit pace, a frenetic story line and an array of eye-popping animation and live-action styles. "Powerful, raw and valid" (Los Angeles Times), this "remarkable blend" of filmic styles is a "hypnotic, life-giving experience" (The Hollywood Reporter)! Michael, a young artist who lives with his neurotic mother and two-timing father, escapes the absurd and often ugly side of life on New York's tough streets by satirizing its rich yet wacky characters in wildly entertaining cartoons. From the gruff homeless and wisecracking prostitutes to gun-toting gangsters and corrupt cops, Michael's world becomes an outlandish kaleidoscope of shocking images and horrifying events that are either a testament of his wild imagination or a reminder of the strangeness of reality.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All the world's a TOON ...., October 15, 2000

By	Solo Goodspeed (Granada Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

I remember very well the effect this film had on me right after leaving the theater; everywhere I looked on the drive home, people looked like cartoons. In Heavy Traffic, animation artist Ralph Bakshi presents us with a look at life in the early 70s (late 60s?), city style .... and this city is gritty, not entirely pretty ....

Michael Corleone (not the only reference to other popular films of the times) scribbles away at his drawing board while his Catholic father and Jewish mother wage Armageddon outside his door. He finds comfort and release seeing the world as an absurd, psychotic cartoon. Pretty much a loner, his main connection to the outside world is a black bargirl named Carol who works right downstairs from him and slips him drinks for his entertaining sketches. An unfortunate incident with a drag queen associate costs Carol her job, and she and Michael end up out on the streets together, since he can't seem to make ANY sort of job situation come together. They form a sort of hustling alliance, with him as her pimp, and they nosedive into dark urban realms of the quick buck and the inevitable personal compromises involved.

All this is interposed with images of live city backdrops and numerous references to a pinball game. Ralph Bakshi's animated vision is a moving work of underground pop art which, despite limitations, was a groundbreaking achievement that pushed the frontiers of American animation thousands of miles. I can see the influence of this film (and Bakshi's work in general) on the likes of Matt Groening, Don Bluth, and yes, even parts of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Heavy Traffic is dark, rude and dangerous. At times it has an almost experimental feel, moving at a stream of consciousness pace more than any conventional narrative. Its portayal of characters is raw and extreme, has an exaggerated sort of believability to it. It also has the feel of a semi-autobiography, with its portayal of a creative misfit struggling against the odds for survival, if not personal validation.

This very personal work goes places other animations of the time wouldn't even consider, was rated X at the time of its original release, and was re-released very shortly afterward in a lightly watered-down R-version. The recent DVD release appears to be a restoration of the original artwork, is a nice clean print, despite the full-frame format and mono soundtrack. It would be nice to see this touched up with a slightly refurbished soundtrack (it IS animation, after all); at the same time the compressed sound lends to the quaint sort of 70s feel to it, creating an air of nostalgia rivaling that of The Iron Giant. And these guys weren't even trying!

My appreciation for this special film has not diminished over the years; indeed, I understand it a bit more as an adult. It captures the dark, skewed out, surrealistic beauty of the urban underbelly, delivers some nasty bellylaughs, shows us the world as an oversized cartoon arcade game, and reminds us that all we can do sometimes is just keep playing that game. Even if we do end up getting our head blown off by a paraplegic midget on a skateboard. This stuff happens .......

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get out of your Ghetto, September 12, 2005

By	Ronnie Clay "R.C." (Winnsboro, Louisiana) - See all my reviews

Breathtaking. Get past your own discomfort with relating to racial sterotypes and realize that this film is genius. A love story at heart, and perhaps one of the most profoundly honest and insightful films to date, Heavy Traffic broke the barriers of 'political correctness' before the people who coined that term were even born. If nothing else consider what is being said about settling for the familiar and not venturing outside of your personal neighborhood. Awe inspiring, Ralph Bakshi should be canonized.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally!, November 17, 2000

By	NecroComicon (The Inn at Innsmouth) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

It is about time that studios started looking into their back catalogues and releasing some old gems especially animated ones. This is a surreal reality cartoon from the genius Ralph Bakshi, a blighted but brightly lit urban landscape filled with far out characters. NOT FOR KIDS Now if we could get them to release all of Bakshi's work

Wizards- Fritz the Cat- Fritz the Cat 2- Streetfight- Lord of the Rings- I would especially love to see the short lived but spectacular Mighty Mouse series he did put on dvd! Even todays animated laugh fests on tv don't compare to this mans work.