Rumble Fish
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- For other meanings, see Rumble Fish (disambiguation)
| Rumble Fish | |
|---|---|
 Movie poster of Rumble Fish |
|
| Directed by | Francis Ford Coppola |
| Produced by | Francis Ford Coppola Doug Claybourne Fred Roos |
| Written by | S.E. Hinton Francis Ford Coppola |
| Starring | Matt Dillon Mickey Rourke Diane Lane |
| Cinematography | Stephen H. Burum |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1983-10-08 (USA) |
| Running time | 94 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10,000,000 USD (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Rumble Fish is a 1983 film directed, produced and co-written by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the novel by S.E. Hinton (ISBN 0-440-97534-4).
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Set in an unnamed industrial town (Tulsa, Oklahoma, in Hinton's book), the film centers on the relationship between The Motorcycle Boy, a revered former gang leader, and his younger brother, Rusty James, who can neither live up to his brother's great reputation nor live it down.
The movie starts in a pool hall where local high-school tough guy Rusty James (Matt Dillon) is told that rival group leader Biff Wilcox (Glenn Withrow) wants to fight him that night. Accepting the challenge, Rusty James then talks with his friends - Smokey (Nicolas Cage), B.J. (Chris Penn), Steve (Vincent Spano) and Midgit (Lawrence Fishburne) - who all have a different take on the forthcoming fight. Steve mentions that Rusty James' older brother, The Motorcycle Boy (whose real name is never said), would not be pleased with the fight. Rusty James dismisses him, saying that The Motorcycle Boy has been gone for months after leaving inexplicably, and that gangs are an honorable thing to be proud of. He also mentions, as he will several times, that "rumbles" are an honorable tradition in the city - though he is the only one who thinks this.
Rusty James visits his girlfriend, Patty (Diane Lane), then rendezvouses with his cadre and walks to an abandoned garage lot, where Biff and his buddies suddenly appear. Seeing that Biff is high on drugs, Rusty James is angered, knowing that Biff will be an erratic, crazy opponent, and believing that drugs ruined the purity of the gangs and led to their eradication. Expecting a fistfight, Rusty James is caught off guard when Biff pulls a knife. This is evened up when one of Rusty's friends hands him a bike chain. The two battle in a particularly thrilling sequence, which culminates in Rusty James disarming Biff and beating him almost unconscious.
Suddenly, The Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke) arrives and is quietly displeased with the renewed violence he worked to end. Distracted by a moment of happiness to see his brother's return, Rusty James leaves himself vulnerable - and Biff uses a shard of glass to cut him down the side. Incensed, The Motorcycle Boy sends his motorcycle flying and into Biff, who is then taken away by friends. Steve and The Motorcycle Boy nurse Rusty James back to health through the night, after sneaking him past Officer Patterson, a street cop who's long had it in for The Motorcycle Boy and is anything but pleased to see he has returned. It is during conversation between Steve and an injured Rusty James that we learn how The Motorcycle Boy has been gone for two months, is 21 years old, colorblind, partially deaf, and noticeably aloof - the last trait causing many to claim he's got loose screws in the head. Rusty James and The Motorcycle Boy share a touching family evening the next night with their alcoholic, welfare-dependent father (Dennis Hopper), who says that The Motorcycle Boy takes after his mother (whereas Rusty James is implied to take after him).
Things start to go wrong for Rusty James. He fools around with another girl and is dumped by Patty, who quickly (too quickly) found out about his tryst. He's kicked out of school after his frequent absenteeism. The Motorcycle Boy hints to Rusty James that he has no interest in reviving any gang activity, as he continues to act distant and aloof. Patty starts to date Smokey, who explains (gently) that Rusty James is too dumb to ever run the gangs, should they return.
Rusty James, The Motorcycle Boy and Steve head across the river that night to a strip of bars, where Rusty James is enjoying being away from his troubles. It's during this time that The Motorcycle Boy has much of his dialogue, explaining that he located their long-lost mother in California. He also tries to dissect Rusty James' fear of being alone, and comments on what life is like when you're colorblind and partially deaf. The night goes on, and Steve and Rusty James get drunk, then separated from The Motorcycle Boy. Wandering home alone, they get caught in an alley with thugs. When Rusty James makes a run for it, he is clubbed on the head badly, having an out-of-body experience. When he comes back to, he and a helpless Steve are saved by The Motorcycle Boy, who dispatches the two thugs and rescues Rusty James yet again. As he nurses Rusty James again, The Motorcycle Boy tells Rusty James that the gang life (the rumbles) he yearns for and idolizes is not what he thinks it is - rather, it's "a bore." Steve calls The Motorcycle Boy crazy, a claim which The Motorcycle Boy does not deny - further prompting Rusty James to believe his brother is insane, just like his runaway mother supposedly was.
Rusty James meets up The Motorcycle Boy the next day when the latter is in a pet store, strangely fascinated with Siamese Fighting Fish ("Rumble Fish"). Patterson notices their attention to the store and suspects they will try to rob it. The Motorcycle Boy mumbles that the fish should be released, then leaves the store, with his younger brother once again following along, trying fruitlessly to communicate. They end up at a bar, where, by coincidence, they meet their father. The father explains to Rusty James that neither (contrary to popular belief) his mother or brother are crazy.
Father: "No, your mother... is not crazy. And neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother crazy. He's merely miscast in a play. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river ... With the ability to be able to do anything that he wants to do and ... findin' nothin' that he wants to do. I mean nothing. I mean ... an acute perception, that doesn't make you crazy, but ... but sometimes ... it can drive you crazy, an acute perception."
The father leaves, and the brothers go for a long motorcycle ride through the city and enjoy a few smiles along the way, although The Motorcycle Boy's reckless driving frightens Rusty James here and there. They arrive at the Pet Store, and despite Rusty James' pleas, The Motorcycle Boy breaks in and starts to set the animals loose. Rusty James makes a last-gasp effort to convince his brother to start acting more "normal" and reunite with him, but The Motorcycle Boy refuses, knowing they are too different to ever have the life Rusty James speaks of - something that causes Rusty James much pain. The Motorcycle Boy then tells Rusty James that, whatever happens, to take his newly stolen motorcycle all the way to the ocean. The Motorcycle Boy leaves the store with the Rumble Fish, but never makes it to the river. Patterson meets him before he can dump the fish and shoots The Motorcycle Boy, killing him. Rusty James is too late to stop the shooting, but does complete his brother's task and get the fish into water. All the major characters congregate at the scene and see The Motorcycle Boy has been killed. Then, as Coppola's very lengthy "reaction" shot ends, we see a motorcycle shadow racing across a slab of concrete where the words "The Motorcycle Boy Reigns" is spraypainted. The movie ends with Rusty James finally reaching the ocean, where the sun is shining.
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[edit] Cinematography
The movie is notable for its avant-garde style, shot on stark high-contrast black-and-white film, using the spherical cinematographic process with allusions to French New Wave cinema. It also contains homages to Larry Clark's photography book Tulsa.
The striking black and white photography of the film's cinematographer, Stephen Burum, lies in two main sources: the films of Orson Welles and German cinema of the 1920's. Coppola envisioned a largely experimental score to compliment his images. He began to devise a mainly percussive soundtrack to symbolize the idea of time running out. As Coppola worked on it, he realized that he needed help from a professional musician. And so he asked Stewart Copeland, drummer of the musical group The Police, to improvise a rhythm track. Coppola soon realized that Copeland was a far superior composer and let him take over. The musician proceeded to record street sounds of Tulsa and mixed them into the soundtrack with the use of a Musync, a new device at the time, that recorded film, frame by frame on videotape with the image on top, the dialogue in the middle, and the musical staves on the bottom so that it matched the images perfectly.
The song "Don't Box Me In (theme from Rumblefish)", a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway (Wall Of Voodoo) was released in consort with the film and enjoyed significant radio airplay.
[edit] Production
Coppola wrote the screenplay for Rumble Fish with Hinton on his days off from shooting The Outsiders. He even went so far as to make the films back-to-back, retaining much of the same cast and crew. Actual filming began on July 12, 1982 on many of the same Tulsa, Oklahoma sets used in The Outsiders.
As with The Outsiders, Coppola enlisted a large group of young, up-and-coming male actors - including now-famous performers such as Matt Dillon, Chris Penn, Nicolas Cage (actually, Coppola's nephew), Lawrence Fishburne, Vincent Spano and Mickey Rourke. According to imdb.com trivia, Tom Cruise (who had a supporting role in The Outsiders) was offered the role of Rusty James but turned it down to do Risky Business.
To get Rourke into the mindset of his character, Coppola gave him some books written by Albert Camus and a biography of Napoleon. The Motorcycle Boy's look was patterned after Camus complete with trademark cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth--taken from a photograph of the author that Rourke used as a visual handle.
Before filming started, Coppola ran regular screenings of old films during the evenings to familiarize the cast and in particular, the crew with his visual concept for Rumble Fish. Most notably, Coppola showed Anatole Litvak's Decision Before Dawn, the inspiration for the film's smoky look, and Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which became Rumble Fish's stylistic prototype. Coppola's extensive use of shadows (some were painted on alley walls for proper effect), oblique angles, exaggerated compositions, and an abundance of smoke and fog are all hallmarks of these German Expressionist films. Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi, shot mainly in time-lapse photography, motivated Coppola to use this technique to animate the sky in his own film.
The result is an often surreal world where time seems to follow its own rules. The film, filled with retro anachronisms, seems to portray life in the mid-1950s when Rusty James' hoodlum gang mentality was beginning to give way to the bohemian Beatnik way of life represented by his brother. However, other elements in the film indicate that the story in fact takes place in the present time: Rusty James plays a Pac-Man arcade game in a bar, and contemporary Zydeco musician Queen Ida is performing at an outdoor festival.
The movie's score was written by drummer/composer Stewart Copeland (The Police). The song "Don't Box Me In" (theme from Rumblefish)", a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway leader and frontman of Wall Of Voodoo was released with the film and enjoyed significant radio airplay.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Matt Dillon | Rusty James |
| Mickey Rourke | The Motorcycle Boy |
| Diane Lane | Patty |
| Dennis Hopper | Father |
| Vincent Spano | Steve |
| Nicolas Cage | Smokey |
| Tom Waits | Benny |
| Diana Scarwid | Cassandra |
| Laurence Fishburne | Midget |
| William Smith | Patterson the Cop |
| Chris Penn | B.J. Jackson |
| Glenn Withrow | Biff Wilcox |
| Michael Higgins | Mr. Harrigan |
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Rumble Fish at the Internet Movie Database
- Official site for Rumble Fish DVD
- Official Site for Stan Ridgway
- Copeland's official site
| The Godfather series | The Godfather (1972) | The Godfather Part II (1974) | The Godfather Part III (1990) |
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| 1970s | The Conversation | Apocalypse Now |
| 1980s | One from the Heart | The Outsiders | Rumble Fish | The Cotton Club | Peggy Sue Got Married | Gardens of Stone | Tucker: The Man and His Dream | New York Stories (with Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese) |
| 1990s | Bram Stoker's Dracula | Jack | The Rainmaker |
| 2000s | Youth Without Youth |
| Productions | The Junky's Christmas (1993) | Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) | Don Juan DeMarco (1995) | Lanai-Loa (1998) | The Florentine (1999) | The Virgin Suicides (1999) |
