Rainier Documentary Captures Turning Point in Seattle’s Culture

Seattle has had several periods of boom and bust. The city has seen innovation and industry dominance. The culture and landscape is always changing, but since 1878, there has been one constant: Rainier Beer. 

That bright red R has been seen and gulped by many generations of Seattlites, but it was not until the 1970s that Rainier really gave back something cheerful after Boeing laid off practically the entire city. Starting in 1974, a series of TV advertisements for Rainier entertained people and revitalized the brand, creating a phenomenon where Rainier beat out most other competitors in the region.

Poster art for Rainier: A Beer Odyssey

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The film, Rainier: A Beer Odyssey, is ostensibly about the series of Rainier ads that changed Seattle's diet for beer. Really, though, the film is about Seattle and how the next generation of creatives brought their own way of thinking to advertising. They were scrappy, resourceful, and determined not to sell a product, but to create short films that featured a product in a way that made people feel the urge to buy it.

This documentary is a bit scrappy in its own right. Rainier: A Beer Odyssey is a film that looks nothing like a traditional documentary. There are talking heads, transitions, and something of a timeline, but for the most part formal narration and exposition is thrown out the window. For the first several minutes of the film there are no words explaining the images we see. It is all footage from Rainier ads that showcase the nature of the Northwest. It’s a glimpse at the inspirations for the kinds of ads we will see.

The film unfolds itself as a haphazard stream of consciousness. Often when a talking head is explaining something that happened, there will be an ad from before the '70s or an ad from the renaissance of Rainier ads that help to illustrate the point. Still photographs taken in a sequence and shown one after the other will also move the story forward. The flow makes sense in this avant garde way. The filmmakers get to where they are going eventually and our understanding of the relevance of the images comes quickly. This is a film that sees linear time in a less than concrete format.

Clips work as a sort of foreshadowing. Before you ever know how Mickey Rooney ever got involved in these ads, you get to see a couple of shots of him. The non-linear use of clips builds the mystery and heightens the story of the ad agency that created these iconic spots. It puts their style in direct comparison with what came before them and how they responded to those earlier ads.

Mickey Rooney, actor, and Jim Foster, Rainier's advertising and marketing director.

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The story of Heckler Associates, which started as Heckler-Bowker, the ad agency behind the iconic Rainier ads, is the story of the ads themselves. As much as the film is a love letter to Rainier, it is also a testament to giving credit where credit is due. The people within Heckler Associates are the reason these ads exist and why they look and sound the way they do. When you think of the great festivals, events, and brands that cropped up in Seattle in the ‘70s, it was because of people like those featured in this film. These creative people brought a new identity to Seattle by mining the regional humor of the Northwest.

If the film has a detriment it is that not enough time is spent with the creatives who made the ads. There are clever interstitial pieces, like Alfred Hitchcock and Johnny Carson parodies, but they tend to slow down the narrative thread of the film. Each and every one of the creatives behind the ads carried a fascinating piece of the puzzle and brought something unique to the table. It is almost as if the filmmakers, wanting to showcase the work of those involved in Heckler Associates specifically on these Rainier ads, failed to see that the real story is the people at that agency and the stellar work they did for Seattle and Puget Sound companies as well as many national brands. The focus of the documentary, unlike the ads the filmmakers revere, is on the beer.

Rainier: A Beer Odyssey is a unique documentary that showcases a truly Northwest story. Beer ads have been around since the advent of television, but it’s rare that they can be considered art; it is rare that anything we call a commercial could be considered art. Though, these ads prove the exception to that rule as they are phenomenal works that capture a cultural turning point for Seattle and the Puget Sound region.

Rainier: A Beer Odyssey screened at the SIFF Uptown. Check the film's official website for additional upcoming showings. 

Still of a 1970s motorcyclist riding toward our famous volcano with a pack of Rainier beer on the seat behind them.

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