Andrew Garfield in Under the Silver Lake (2018)
Vitals
Andrew Garfield as Sam, sensitive stoner and conspiracy theorist
Los Angeles, Late Summer 2011
Film: Under the Silver Lake
Release Date: August 8, 2018
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Costume Designer: Caroline Eselin
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy 41st birthday to Golden Globe-winning screen and stage actor Andrew Garfield. Born in Los Angeles on August 20, 1993 but raised in England, Garfield rose to prominence through his role in The Social Network (2011), his portrayal of Spider-Man in three movies, and his Oscar-nominated performances in Hacksaw Ridge (2016) and Tick, Tick…Boom! (2021). However, my favorite of Garfield’s movies to date is Under the Silver Lake, the surreal neo-noir pastiche in the spirit of The Big Lebowski (1998) and Inherent Vice (2014).
Written, produced, and directed by David Robert Mitchell, Under the Silver Lake premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and was released in France that August before it was finally released by A24 in the United States in April 2019.
Set in Garfield’s native L.A., Under the Silver Lake follows Sam, an aimless thirtysomething stoner whose interests include comics, conspiracy theories, and classic movies. In between his afternoon delight with an aspiring actress (Riki Lindhome) and delivering a cathartic beatdown on some neighborhood kids terrorizing cars, Sam notices his alluring new neighbor Sarah (Riley Keough) by the pool in their shared apartment complex. That night, Sam joins the beguiling blonde to get high and watch How to Marry a Millionaire, but their fledgling romance is interrupted by her roommates and a batch of unseasonably late fireworks.
Sam wakes up on his couch the morning after he meets Sarah, shaking off the Spider-Man comic book stuck to his hand—perhaps a reference to Garfield shaking free of the Spider-Man role he had played back-to-back in 2012 and 2014.
Sam returns the following day only to discover that Sarah and her roommates have hastily moved out, and he obsessively sets out to learn what happened.
What’d He Wear?
Costume designer Caroline Eselin cycles Andrew Garfield through a half-dozen graphic T-shirts over the course of Under the Silver Lake, though it’s curiously only the plain white undershirt Sam wears with pajama pants that receives any in-universe comment when a party guest tells him she likes it, perhaps highlighting the vapidity of the L.A. culture that likely assumes a solid white T-shirt is a fashion statement.
Sam’s first T-shirt is powder-blue, stamped across the chest with a screenshot from the 1982 arcade game Jungle King, which was retooled and re-released later that year as Jungle Hunt after the threat of litigation from Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs’ estate. This side-scrolling game places the protagonist (later named Sir Dudley for Atari home consoles) in four different scenarios, including a scene where the explorer must navigate a crocodile-infested river. Sam’s short-sleeved T-shirt depicts this scene, sourced from the original Jungle King as illustrated by the explorer’s red loincloth and Tarzan-like hair before he was dressed in safari gear for the Jungle Hunt rebrand.
Jungle King T-shirt in 100% cotton (Replica Prop Store, $26.75)
When not in his pajama pants, Sam wears five-pocket jeans in a rotation of washes and fabrics throughout Under the Silver Lake, beginning with these slim-fit jeans in a light blue-gray slate denim wash identified as Levi’s by the signature “red tab” sewn along the seam of the back-right patch pocket. He holds them up with a smooth dark-brown leather belt that closes through a rounded brass-finished single-prong buckle.
Sam checks out the latest Under the Silver Lake zine at The Last Bookstore on South Spring Street in downtown L.A.
The sole constant of Sam’s wardrobe are his black-and-white Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star high-top sneakers, worn with black socks.
In the early 1920s, the Massachusetts-based Converse Rubber Shoe Company introduced its new basketball shoes with input from professional basketball player Charles Taylor, who had joined the company as a salesman and offered suggestions to enhance flexibility and ankle support. Taylor’s signature was added to the ankle patch as an early form of product endorsement, which helped establish the shoe’s reputation. More than a century later, the design remains largely unchanged, featuring contrast-stitched canvas high-top uppers, white rubber outsoles, and a rubber toe cap.
Sam’s Chucks maintain the classic black-and-white color scheme, with black cotton canvas uppers accented by white contrast stitching, laces, and rubber outsoles and toe caps. The shoes are equipped with eight sets of nickel-finished eyelets for the flat white woven cotton laces, alongside two ventilation grommets on the inner side of each shoe. The round white ankle patches are a nod to the shoes’ all-American heritage, featuring “CONVERSE” and “ALL STAR” in red text surrounding a large blue star at the center, along with Chuck Taylor’s signature printed in blue.
Sam and Sarah get acquainted.
What to Imbibe
Remaining true to its depiction of early-2010s hipsterdom, Sam frequently drinks long-neck bottles and cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, the erstwhile blue-collar favorite that was embraced by urban hipsters to the extent that sales jumped 20.3% in 2009, according to Rebecca Hiscott’s reporting for The Huffington Post.
The PBR story dates to 1844, when German immigrant Jacob Best founded the Best Brewing Company in Milwaukee. In 1863, Best’s grandson-in-law Frederick Pabst was hired as brewer and eventually rose through to the company to be named president in 1889, a year before he transformed it into the Pabst Brewing Company.
Pabst had been bestowing its flagship “Best Select” lager with blue silk ribbons around the bottles for more than a decade by the time it was again honored during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. As more bar patrons reportedly requested “the blue-ribbon beer,” Pabst incorporated this into its marketing, first adding it to the Best Select nomenclature before officially rebranding it as Pabst Blue Ribbon by the end of the century.
Perhaps due in part to its cheese-making operations, Pabst survived Prohibition to retain its position as one of the best-selling American beers of the 20th century, increasingly associated with blue-collar culture as exemplified in Johnny Russell’s 1973 country single “Rednecks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer”. Though sales slumped through the 1980s and ’90s, its longevity among brand-loyal drinkers combined with its newfound popularity brought PBR back into the spotlight through the 21st century as it remains among the top 20 American beers by sales volume.
How to Get the Look
Andrew Garfield in Under the Silver Lake (2018)
Under the Silver Lake introduces Sam’s simple quasi-hipster/millennial-core style of graphic T-shirts, jeans, and Chucks as he spends the first day of the mystery clad in a shirt stamped with an obsolete video game screenshot and slim-fitting blue denim.
- Powder-blue cotton short-sleeved T-shirt with Jungle King gameplay screenshot chest graphic
- Light slate-blue denim Levi’s slim-fit jeans
- Dark-brown leather belt with rounded brass-toned single-prong buckle
- Black-and-white Converse Chuck Taylor All Star high-top basketball sneakers with black cotton canvas uppers, white laces, and white rubber outsoles and toe caps
- Black socks
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
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