Whatever Happened to Cameron Crowe?

Notwithstanding his output over the last two decades, although I did like We Bought a Zoo, Cameron Crowe is my favorite director. Almost Famous is my favorite movie. More than any other film I can think of, Almost Famous has been influential to me, and no director has ever mixed warmth, humanity, and music better than Crowe.

That said, what I thought I wanted from his memoir, The Uncool, was a lot of stories about his moviemaking career. I wanted anecdotes about working with Tom Cruise and John Cusack, about the outstanding Singles soundtrack, about his relationship with Nancy Wilson, and a whole lot of scuttlebutt.

But that’s not really who Cameron Crowe is, and what he gives us in The Uncool is probably better anyway, at least for fans of Almost Famous. It’s called The Uncool, but it might as well be titled Almost Famous The True Story. The book is bookended by the opening of his Broadway musical based on the film, the death of his mother, played brilliantly by Frances McDormand in the movie, and the real-life experiences that form the backbone of Almost Famous.

And my god, what stories they are. While his mother desperately wanted Crowe to become the youngest lawyer in America, he was obsessed with music, much of it music his mother disapproved of, and he stumbled into a writing gig reviewing albums for an alt newspaper in San Diego at the age of 14, during a period when the city was drawing significant political attention. He attended a meeting with his sister, asked on a lark if he could write music reviews, and the paper let him do it because those reviews helped subsidize the political coverage, even if some saw that as selling out. There were important mentors at the San Diego Reader at the time, including Lester Bangs, who took an interest in Crowe, and before he knew it, the kid, and I really do mean kid, was interviewing some of the most famous musicians in the country.

I think that because he was a kid, musicians ranging from The Eagles to Lynyrd Skynyrd to Bruce Springsteen found him disarming and opened up to him. It helped that he was insanely knowledgeable about their music and often generous in his portrayals. By the time he was 16, he was not only writing for Rolling Stone but touring with bands, particularly the ones on which Almost Famous is most closely based, The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. What’s wild is that many of the real-life stories are even more dramatic than what made it into the movie.

By the time he was in his late teens, Crowe had been granted access to David Bowie for a year-long profile, at a point when Bowie largely refused to do press. By the time he was 22 or 23, Crowe was essentially a washed-up music journalist who pivoted to investigative reporting, writing the book that became Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which he later turned into a screenplay and which ultimately launched his film career. He spends surprisingly little time on that transition, and I hope someday there’s a sequel.

Crowe’s life was not without tragedy. His mentally ill older sister died by suicide at 19, when Crowe was 10. His mother struggled with depression, and the death of his father in 1989 deeply affected him. Still, it’s fascinating to learn the personal meaning behind some of the songs that later appeared in his films. The Beach Boys’ presence in Vanilla Sky, in particular, is tied directly to his late sister, and you can see how clearly his life experiences have imprinted themselves on his work.

I recently saw an interview in which Crowe described himself as a warrior optimist, and it fits him perfectly. Unfortunately, that same optimism may also explain why his work has fallen out of favor in recent years. It doesn’t always align with the cultural mood. He’s currently working on a film about Joni Mitchell, who also appears in the memoir, and I hope it gives his career new life. It very well could, given the popular resurgence of music biopics. We could really use his warrior optimism in pop culture right now, especially his gift for marrying music and images.

I love the man, and I truly hope he has a few movies left in the tank. Or at the very least, a sequel to The Uncool.