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I will try to watch Lebowski this weekend.
He had several good roles. This, Angel Heart, Year of the Dragon, the list goes on.
Thanks, @Thunderfinger. I really enjoyed this one; good pick!
I like Mickey too, and it's kind of a shame to see where parts of his career went as I think he should've reached a higher profile and audience than he ultimately did.
I was really impressed with the then 18 year old (!) Diane Lane as well, as she really conveyed the emotion of her character quite exceptionally in her minor scenes, and delivers my favorite line of the whole film ("You're better than cool. You're warm."). Beyond that, she was an utter vision (not to say that she still isn't gorgeous). If only I could've been a teen around that time in her neck of the woods!
I only saw it the once about four years back, but I could immediately see why it's such a beloved cult classic.
1 RUMBLE FISH
2 MEMENTO
3 THE BIG LEBOWSKI
It s a shame.
I see, @Thunderfinger. That was my motivation too, as I didn't see the point in choosing a film that was widely known and that many had seen. The Detective was a sleeper in the catalogues of many I know who love noirs, so I knew I had to choose it over something more "mainstream" than The Maltese Falcon. More known/popular films have had their time to shine.
Rumble Fish definitely shows Coppola's crazy versatility. He really could do so much and in numerous genres, like a Welles, Kubrick or Hitchcock before him.
I haven t.
Thanks for the effort, though.
Nope, not I.
Looking forward to it--one year on!
Glad to have that noted. Would've missed it otherwise. I really liked the score, and thought it fit the tone of the film quite well — part of that being Coppola's use of it, which seems at times unrelenting (in the best way).
This is how I saw it, as well, @mattjoes. Off the top of my hand, and without fleshing it out too much, there might be something to this in a Freudian/Jungian sense re: no boy can become a man until his father has died (either literally or spiritually). The film does undoubtedly have some mythical underpinnings. Following this through, I suppose, would in turn point to The Motorcycle Boy being Rusty James's father figure as opposed to/in addition to "the older brother he always wanted."
This is a good observation. Watching it myself, I noticed during the classroom sequence that the clock on the wall appeared to be jumping around. I chalked it up to continuity, but perhaps it was more intentional, part of this sense of youthful time, where it's lost track of easily.
Good shout, @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 -- you know I love BRICK. Hadn't made that connection, though. The dialogue certainly fits in with the heightened style of the rest of the film.
I do wonder whether this high style is attractive to or alienating to teens themselves. Was RUMBLE FISH, in fat, a film that was made for teens? In the sense of John Hughes movie, for instance. I know the book was written for that intended audience, but the film strikes me as a story about teenagers aimed at adults.
Yes, one of the things I noted was how the film does a good job of treading the line between literal and non-literal filmmaking. The plot progresses from A to B to C, etc., and while all letters can be read literally, certain of them can, if chosen, be read non-literally.
This is the first I've seen him so young. I thought he was excellent and can certainly understand his reputation better. I will have to seek out more of his early stuff.
Yes, and Coppola is another whose work I must seek out more, specifically his post-1970s stuff like this. Apparently, he's recently gone back and done a director's cut of the film he made directly after RUMBLE FISH, called THE COTTON CLUB (now titled THE COTTON CLUB ENCORE), and it premiered two months back at Telluride. One piece I was reading called it his masterpiece. What did you think of that one, @Thunderfinger? I suppose that would be as good a place as any for me to start next.
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Overall I'm grateful of your pick, @Thunderfinger -- I'd never have seen it, otherwise (at least not anytime soon). And as you said, that is a shame.
I definitely agree that there is a lot going on between Rusty, his brother and his father, and noted that the largest impact of the story is watching him fall over himself trying to be like them. I think Rusty drinks like a fish because he sees his old man do it, and it's all he knows (he may also want to impress him, to show that he's a man on his level) and when Motorcycle Boy leaves the gangs we see Rusty similarly trying to fill that spot poorly. This is interesting, because by showing Rusty always being someone else, the moment is more powerful when he takes his own initiative and is allowed to be his own man even while truly becoming the "new" Motorcycle Boy in that last shot. There's a continuing of a sort of legacy but also of him finally coming into his own. He's ready to make his own decisions now, in the service of nobody else.
But I really like how the film warns Rusty about being something he's not, as his attempts to be like his brother and father don't work out for him, and both of those male centers in his life are quick to warn him to avoid that. When he drinks like his father he does stupid things or checks out of his life, resigned to that waiting around he's aware of but is too lazy or scared to stop. And far more notably, many characters warn him about being like his brother because he doesn't have the brains to lead a gang and lacks the quiet diplomacy of Motorcycle Boy; he's a hotheaded soldier and a blunt instrument. With the consequences Rusty faces throughout the film, of all the people he hurts when drunk or when he's too eager to get into silly street fights, I think he learns the importance of doing something in life that plays to his own strengths. By dying in front of him, a lost cause of a gang life, I think Motorcycle Boy sours the gang experience for Rusty quite purposefully and gives him a way out that he wouldn't have sought on his own. He actually had to lose the person he loved most to change, in a strange way.
Brick was definitely on my mind as I watched this film in particular, and if we ever get around to picking movies again for a fresh marathon many, many months from now, I'd consider selecting that one for my second pick. I think it'd be a fun one to discuss, especially for those who know noir filmmaking and the tropes.
I'm always fascinated by films that have the young characters speaking like adults, as that gives the whole thing such style and memorability. Some will say things like, "Kids don't talk like that, it's unrealistic!" And sure enough, when Brick is viewed by those who don't understand the noir conventions and the style of speech in those stories that its script quite overtly plays from, they will criticize the writing as being poor and not how kids or anyone really speak. I read that when Rumble Fish first premiered it got booed, so I'm now curious if it was because audiences partially didn't expect to see such a stylized film that painted a more surreal picture of life for kids. Many challenging or different/eccentric films of this kind are seldom welcomed with open arms on their debuts, much like one of the previous films in our viewing schedule, L'Avventura, because they demand some thought and a reconsideration on the part of the viewer of what movies can be.
Personally, I always love when the reality of the world in a film, show or book is mixed with the extraordinary of fantasy or mythicism (Fleming's Bond novels, for instance), so Rumble Fish was right up my alley. If I had to describe it in a sentence while comparing it to another famously surreal series of films, I'd say that Rumble Fish is essentially Mad Max on the streets with the apocalyptic terrors swapped out for kids. In both films there's a heightened sense of dialogue, where slang is used and a new sort of language created, and also where an almost otherworldly sense of place reigns. There's something about the streets of Rumble Fish that feel fantastical and full of hidden magic, much like how the wasteland of the Mad Max films is a breeding ground for hyper-madness and crazy new cultures and tribal units built around cars, vital resources and the old world now lost. And of course, the way that Motorcycle Boy is made a mythical figure of fear and respect on the streets also reminded me of the similarly vehicular nature of Max Rockatansky's own symbol of legend on the wasteland, "The Road Warrior." You could almost imagine a sign on a dead Australian highway reading in rough scribbles, "The Road Warrior Reigns!" to ward off would be vagrants and criminals from causing trouble. I love how Rumble Fish and Mad Max are able to blend man and myth like that, and how, after a while, you lose sight or sense of who either Motorcycle Boy or Max are behind their legendary titles. They become more than man, though man is all they are.
The way the characters of Rumble Fish acted in the gang scenes, especially in the dramatic way that the gang members raced around in madness as the fight between Rusty and Biff went on, also gave off that same lunatic feeling of when Max enters Thunderdome for me. A big, nutso affair with crazy style and untamed adrenaline. Even Biff's hyper-dramatic and animated entrance to the fight made me grin, as the way it was shot and acted plays directly into how George Miller crafted his own crazy wasteland, like in Road Warrior when The Lord Humungus is dramatically introduced to everyone near and far as "The Warrior of the Wasteland! The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla!" It's all so ridiculous, but so perfect at the same time. Why see life as it really is when it can be heightened and mutated to a fever pitch like that! I wish more films like these were made today.
As for kids back then, we did speak like old people.
@strog, I saw The Cotton Club in the cinema when it came out. It didn t do much for me.
I'm sure that Diane Lane, Matt Dillon, Nic Cage and all the rest of them quite fittingly look back at the film and think, "Man, where did the time go?" It's perfect that the film is stocked full of young actors destined to be stars of their own making later on, as we can see how far they've come in our current time now that those careers have been made while also seeing how they've matured as people and artists. Their own careers over the three decades since Rumble Fish released have inadvertently supported the message about time in the film itself.
@0BradyM0Bondfanatic Of the more recent Coen Brothers-films, I would recommend Hail, Caesar!. Nice little 1950's set comedy-mystery about the Hollywood film industry.
Thanks, that makes things easier! :-)