High Fidelity is a 2000 American comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Frears and starring John Cusack and the Danish actress Iben Hjejle. The film is based on the 1995 British novel of the same name by Nick Hornby, with the setting moved from London to Chicago and the name of the lead character changed. After seeing the film, Hornby expressed his happiness with John Cusack's performance as Rob Gordon (changed from Rob Fleming in the book), saying, "At times, it appears to be a film in which John Cusack reads my book".^[2]

Plot[link]

The film centers on Rob Gordon (John Cusack), a self-confessed audiophile whose flair for understanding women is over par for the course. After getting dumped by his current girlfriend, Laura (Iben Hjejle), he decides to look up some of his old flames in an attempt to figure out what he keeps doing wrong in his relationships.

He spends his days at his record store, Championship Vinyl, where he holds court over the customers that drift through. Helping Rob in his task of musical elitism are Dick (Todd Louiso) and Barry (Jack Black), the "musical moron twins," as he refers to them. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things musical, they compile "top five" lists for every conceivable occasion, openly mock the ignorance of their customers, and, every so often, sell a few records.

Rob and the staff have a strong dislike for two shoplifting skateboarder teenagers, Vince (Chris Rehmann) and Justin (Ben Carr). One day, he listens to a recording that they did (actually "The Inside Game" by Royal Trux) and offers them a record deal, starting his own label called "Top 5 Records". During his off hours, he pines for his lost girlfriend Laura and does his best to win her back.

Rob soon hears that Laura's father, who liked Rob, has died, and attends his funeral with Laura. Shortly after the reception, Rob realizes he never committed to Laura and always had one foot out the door. This made him realize he neglected his own future in the process. Afterwards, he and Laura move back in together again, and she organizes a celebration of the recently released single by the two delinquents, where Barry's band plays "Let's Get It On" and is delightful (to everyone's surprise). In the final scene, Rob finishes his advice about making the perfect mix tape, and says that he is now making one for Laura.

Cast[link]

• John Cusack as Rob Gordon
• Iben Hjejle as Laura
• Jack Black as Barry
• Todd Louiso as Dick
• Catherine Zeta-Jones as Charlie Nicholson
• Lisa Bonet as Marie DeSalle
• Sara Gilbert as Annaugh Moss
• Lili Taylor as Sarah Kendrew
• Joan Cusack as Liz
• Tim Robbins as Ian "Ray" Raymond
• Joelle Carter as Penny Hardwick
• Chris Rehmann as Vince
• Ben Carr as Justin
• Natasha Gregson Wagner as Caroline
• Drake Bell as Young Rob Gordon
• Bruce Springsteen as Himself (cameo)
• Ian Williams as guy in record store (cameo)

Production[link]

Nick Hornby's book was optioned by Disney's Touchstone Pictures in 1995 where it went into development for three years.^[3] Disney boss Joe Roth had a conversation with recording executive Kathy Nelson who recommended John Cusack and his writing and producing partners D.V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink adapt the book. She had worked previously with them on Grosse Pointe Blank and felt that they had the right sensibilities for the material.^[4] According to Cusack, DeVincentis is the closest to the record-obsessive characters in the film, owning 1,000 vinyl records and thousands of CDs and tapes.^[5] They wrote a treatment that was immediately greenlit by Roth.^[4]

Screenplay[link]

The writers decided to change the book's setting from London to Chicago because they were more familiar with the city and it also had a "great alternative music scene", according to Pink.^[6] Cusack said, "When I read the book I knew where everything was in Chicago. I knew where the American Rob went to school and dropped out, where he used to spin records, I knew two or three different record shops when I was growing up that had a Rob, a Dick and a Barry in them".^[7] Charlotte Tudor, of the film's distributor, Buena Vista, said: "Chicago has the same feel as north London, there is a vibrant music scene, a lot of the action is set in smoky bars and, of course, there is the climate. But everyone, including Nick, felt that geography was not the central issue. It has a universal appeal".^[8]

Cusack found that the greatest challenge adapting the novel was pulling off Rob Gordon's frequent breaking of the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience.^[3] The screenwriters did this to convey Rob's inner confessional thoughts and were influenced by a similar technique in the Michael Caine film, Alfie.^[3] Cusack rejected this approach because he thought that "there'd just be too much of me".^[3] Once director Stephen Frears signed on to direct, he suggested using this technique and everyone agreed to use it.^[3]

Cusack and the writers floated the idea that Rob could have a conversation with Bruce Springsteen in his head, inspired by a reference in Hornby's book where the narrator wishes he could handle his past girlfriends as well as Springsteen does in his song, "Bobby Jean" on Born in the U.S.A..^[9] They never believed they would actually get the musician to appear in the film, but thought putting him in the script would get the studio excited about it.^[3] Cusack knew Springsteen socially and called the musician up and pitched the idea. Springsteen asked for a copy of the script and afterwards agreed to do it.^[3]

Casting[link]

Frears was at the Berlin Film Festival and saw Mifune's Last Song starring Iben Hjejle and realized that he had found the actress for the role. Frears read Hornby's book and enjoyed it but did not connect with the material because it was not about his generation.^[10] He accepted the job because he wanted to work with Cusack again (they had worked together previously on The Grifters) and liked the idea of changing the setting from London to Chicago.^[10] The director was also responsible for insisting on keeping Jack Black on as Barry.^[10] Frears has said that many people from the studio would come to watch his rushes.^[11]

Soundtrack[link]

One of the challenges the screenwriters faced was figuring out which songs would go where in the film because Rob, Dick and Barry "are such musical snobs," according to Cusack.^[3] He and his screenwriting partners listened to 2,000 songs and picked 70 song cues.^[3]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[12]

Track listing

1. "You're Gonna Miss Me" - 13th Floor Elevators
2. "Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy" - The Kinks
3. "I'm Wrong About Everything" - John Wesley Harding
4. "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" - The Velvet Underground
5. "Always See Your Face" - Love
6. "Most of the Time" - Bob Dylan
7. "Fallen for You" - Sheila Nicholls
8. "Dry the Rain" - The Beta Band
9. "Shipbuilding" - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
10. "Cold Blooded Old Times" - Smog
11. "Let's Get It On" - Barry Jive & The Uptown Five
12. "Lo Boob Oscillator" - Stereolab
13. "Inside Game" - Royal Trux
14. "Who Loves the Sun" - The Velvet Underground
15. "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)" - Stevie Wonder

More music in the film

Songs mentioned in dialogue of film

Reception[link]

High Fidelity premiered at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. The post-party was held at the Sunset Room where Tenacious D performed.^[13] The film was given a wide release on March 31, 2000, grossing $6.4 million on its opening weekend. It went on to gross $27.3 million domestically and $19.8 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $47.1 million.^[1]

Reviews[link]

The film received positive reviews. Critical aggregator Metacritic gave the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on reviews from 35 critics, and indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[14]

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "Watching High Fidelity, I had the feeling I could walk out of the theater and meet the same people on the street — and want to, which is an even higher compliment".^[15]

In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe praised Jack Black as "a bundle of verbally ferocious energy. Frankly, whenever he's in the scene, he shoplifts this movie from Cusack."^[16]

In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden praised Cusack's performance, writing that he was "a master at projecting easygoing camaraderie, he navigates the transitions with such an astonishing naturalness and fluency that you're almost unaware of them."^[17]

USA Today did not give the film a positive review: "Let's be kind and just say High Fidelity...doesn't quite belong beside Grosse Pointe Blank and The Sure Thing in Cusack's greatest hits collection. It's not that he isn't good. More like miscast."^[18]

In his review for Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "B-" rating and wrote, "In High Fidelity, Rob's music fixation is a signpost of his arrested adolescence; he needs to get past records to find true love. If the movie had had a richer romantic spirit, he might have embraced both in one swooning gesture."^[19]

Peter Travers, in his review for Rolling Stone, wrote, "It hits all the laugh bases, from grins to guffaws. Cusack and his Chicago friends — D.V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink — have rewritten Scott Rosenberg's script to catch Hornby's spirit without losing the sick comic twists they gave 1997's Grosse Pointe Blank."^[20]

In his review for The Observer, Philip French wrote, "High Fidelity is an extraordinarily funny film, full of verbal and visual wit. And it is assembled with immense skill."^[21]

Stephanie Zacharek, in her review for Salon.com, praised Iben Hjejle's performance: "Hjejle's Laura is supremely likable: She's so matter-of-fact and grounded that it's perfectly clear why she'd become exasperated with a guy like Rob, who perpetually refuses to grow up, but you can also see how her patience and calm are exactly the things he needs."^[22]

After seeing the film, Hornby expressed his happiness with John Cusack's performance as Rob Gordon (changed from Rob Fleming in the book), saying, "At times, it appears to be a film in which John Cusack reads my book."^[3]

Legacy[link]

Empire magazine voted High Fidelity the 446th greatest film in their "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" list.^[23] It is also ranked #14 on Rotten Tomatoes' 25 Best Romantic Comedies.^[24] In its June 2010 issue, Chicago magazine rated it #1 in a list of the top 40 movies ever filmed in Chicago.^[25] Russian-American alternative singer-songwriter Regina Spektor was watching this movie when she wrote her song Fidelity, which is her most popular song to date and marked her first entry into the Billboard 100.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• "The Cusacks" by Scott Tobias. The Onion A.V. Club. March 29, 2000.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: High Fidelity

• Rob Gordon at Twitter
• High Fidelity at the Internet Movie Database
• High Fidelity at AllRovi
• High Fidelity at Box Office Mojo
• High Fidelity at Rotten Tomatoes
• High Fidelity: Tenth Anniversary of a Film About Music

This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (July 2009)

High fidelity—or hi-fi—reproduction is a term used by home stereo listeners and home audio enthusiasts (audiophiles) to refer to high-quality reproduction of sound^[1] to distinguish it from the poorer quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has minimal amounts of noise and distortion and an accurate frequency response.

One effort to standardize the term was the 1966 German Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) standard DIN 45500. DIN 45500 approval was intended to provide audio equipment buyers with reassurance that their equipment was capable of good quality reproduction. In theory, only stereo equipment that met the standard could bear the words 'Hi-Fi'. This standard was well intentioned but only mildly successful; in practice, the term was widely misapplied to audio products that did not remotely approach the DIN basis specifications.

History[link]

Bell Laboratories began experimenting with wider range recording techniques in the early 1930s. Performances by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra were recorded in 1931 and 1932 using telephone lines between the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and the labs in New Jersey. Some multi-track recordings were made on optical sound film, which led to new advances used primarily by MGM (as early as 1937) and Twentieth Century Fox (as early as 1941). RCA Victor began recording performances by several orchestras on optical sound around 1941, resulting in higher fidelity masters for 78-rpm discs.

After World War II,^{[citation needed]} several innovations created the conditions for a major improvement of home-audio quality:

• Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, based on technology found in Germany after the war, helped musical artists such as Bing Crosby make and distribute recordings with better fidelity.
• The advent of the 33⅓ rpm Long Play (LP) microgroove vinyl record, with low surface noise and quantitatively-specified equalization curves. Classical music fans, who were opinion leaders in the audio market, quickly adopted LPs because, unlike with older records, most classical works would fit on a single LP.
• FM radio, with wider audio bandwidth and less susceptibility to signal interference and fading than AM radio, though AM could be heard at longer distances at night.
• Better amplifier designs, with more attention to frequency response and much higher power output capability, allowing audio peaks to be reproduced without distortion.^[2]

In the 1950s, the term high fidelity began to be used by audio manufacturers as a marketing term to describe records and equipment which were intended to provide faithful sound reproduction. While some consumers simply interpreted high fidelity as fancy and expensive equipment, many found the difference in quality between "hi-fi" and the then standard AM radios and 78 rpm records readily apparent and bought 33⅓ LPs, such as RCA's New Orthophonics and London's ffrrs, and high-fidelity phonographs. Audiophiles paid attention to technical characteristics and bought individual components, such as separate turntables, radio tuners, preamplifiers, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Some enthusiasts assembled their own loudspeaker systems. In the 1950s, hi-fi became a generic term, to some extent displacing phonograph and record player.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the development of the Westrex single-groove stereophonic record cutterhead led to the next wave of home-audio improvement, and in common parlance, stereo displaced hi-fi. Records were now played on a stereo. In the world of the audiophile, however, high fidelity continued and continues to refer to the goal of highly-accurate sound reproduction and to the technological resources available for approaching that goal. This period is most widely regarded as "The Golden Age of Hi-Fi", when tube equipment manufacturers of the time produced many models considered endearing by modern audiophiles, and just before solid state equipment was introduced to the market, subsequently replacing tube equipment as mainstream.