Light of Day

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also the Light of Day disambiguation page.

Light of Day
Light of Day theatrical poster
Directed by	Paul Schrader
Produced by	Keith Barish Rob Cohen
Written by	Paul Schrader
Starring	Michael J. Fox Gena Rowlands Joan Jett
Music by	Thomas Newman
Cinematography	John Bailey
Editing by	Jacqueline Cambas Rose Kuo Jill Savitt
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date(s)	February 6, 1987
Running time	107 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	Unknown
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Light of Day is a 1987 drama film starring Michael J. Fox, Gena Rowlands, Joan Jett and Michael McKean. It was written and directed by Paul Schrader. The original music score was composed by Thomas Newman. The film was marketed with the tagline "When your family is closing in, music may be the only way out."

1 Plot summary
2 Cast
3 Details
4 Trivia
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Fox and Jett play a brother and sister who are lead performers in a rock band in Cleveland, Ohio. The sister, Patti Rasnick, is an unmarried mother and has a troubled relationship with her own mother, who is deeply religious. Estranged from her parents and struggling to make ends meet, Patti decides to dive headlong into a carefree rock music lifestyle. The brother, Joe Rasnick, pulls away from rock music to provide some stability for her tiny son. It takes a family crisis to bring Patti back home and force her to face the prickly past with her mother.

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Michael J. Fox	Joe Rasnick
Gena Rowlands	Jeanette Raskick
Joan Jett	Patti Rasnick
Michael McKean	Bu Montgomery
Thomas G. Waites	Smittie
Cherry Jones	Cindy Montgomery
Michael Dolan	Gene Bodine
Billy L. Sullivan	Benji Rasnick
Jason Miller	Benjamin Rasnick
Tom Irwin	Reverend Ansley
Michael Rooker	Oogie

[edit] Details

Schrader has expressed dissatisfaction with Light of Day, particularly its plain visual style: "I had progressed from being a person with a literary vision to a person with a visual vision, and in that film I tried to... suppress my new literacy" and the casting of Joan Jett: "it's a good performance, but... that piece of casting just did not work". (See Schrader on Schrader and Other Writings (2004) (ISBN 0-571-22176-9))

[edit] Trivia

A young Trent Reznor appears, with other members of Exotic Birds in the film as a member of fictional band The Problems.
Light of Day is one of the very few projects where Michael J. Fox has smoked in front of the camera. Fox has admitted to being a chain smoker (reference mentioning smoking:^[1]), and that he avoided being photographed with a cigarette out of fear that it would encourage smoking^{[citation needed]}.
Former (1984) Miss Teen USA Cherise Haugen had a small role as the girl Fox' character brings home as a one-night stand.
The film had grossed over $10,490,000 in the United States.
The film was shot on location in Chicago, Illinois, Hammond, Indiana and Cleveland Heights, Ohio.