* “Summer Lite” is a new subhead
for light viewing for the summer. (This series I will try to make interesting
but I will try not fuss over details of the entries as much.)
Subsections below:
Coppola’s yeomanly try at righting his financial ship coincides with a
critical decline in his imageRumble Fish seems squarely to be more accomplished visually than story-wise
The film’s failings (from my quick view)
Dillon’s performance annoys; other names are here, famous before or after
[Edit 5/24/14. Edits 5/27/14. Edit 5/30/14.]
I saw this film in the theater, and the Wikipedia article on it (that
is, the release date noted) suggests it had to be in my senior year of college,
though I don’t really remember the school-related context too well (and
normally I would). What I do remember is that there were reviews of Rumble Fish (typically, at the time, I
was clued off to “what was good” in movies by Time magazine, with probably some help from The Washington Post and/or The
New York Times, though I don’t think I read the latter on a regular basis
until about 1985, certainly starting in 1986).
I knew that by 1983 director
Francis Ford Coppola was in a peculiar phase in his career; Apocalypse Now (1979) had been a focus
of anticipation for years, and of final audience and critic beholding in
August-September 1979. (I went to a September showing in Manhattan, of all
places, prompting a droll story I’ll maybe tell you in a future posting.) Then
came the disaster of his One From the
Heart (1982), with which Coppola had taken the production tack that was
diametrically opposite that of Apocalypse:
everything done on a sound stage with maximum control, with Francis inside a
trailer or such, directing with help from a TV monitor, almost like an
obsessive-compulsive avoiding germs. Heart
was big on visuals and not at all on story. The box-office disaster was so
bad that Coppola would be working prodigiously to recover from it for many
years.
By the way, along with all else,
for what would be a limited period, Francis changed his name’s form in public
connections, starting in spring 1977 as he was finishing up principal
photography on Apocalypse; he dropped
the middle name Ford. I think in the biography of him by Peter Cowie (see
reference at end), the reason is given (I don’t remember it); but this explains
why the on-screen and packaging credits for Rumble
Fish, reflecting the 1983-struck form, show him as “Francis Coppola”—he retained
this use until, at some point, maybe the end of the 1980s, he went back to
including the “Ford.” (This while within the copy on the 2005 DVD that reflects
the way his production firm came up with a new edition of the film, the full
name Francis Ford Coppola is also shown.)
Such complexities show why, with
Coppola, if you know the biographical details, along with the constellation of
people he used for this film, you are then acquainted with his world, which in
some respects helps you understand the intent and virtues of his films. I am a
fan of Coppola, while I won’t shy from the criticisms made of him as an artist;
for other blog entries I did on work tied to him, see this on the
documentary Hearts of Darkness and
this on his well-regarded The
Conversation (1974).
For Rumble Fish, not only does he use long-time producing partners—producer
Fred Roos, production designer Dean Tavoularis, and sound designer Richard
Beggs—but (seen in Apocalypse) the actors
Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, and, [update] yes, Herb Rice, the Black actor who played Roach
(at the Do Lung [sp?] bridge) in Apocalypse—here,
he is a man commenting in a pool hall where live music is being played.
Coppola’s yeomanly try at righting his financial ship coincides with a
critical decline in his image
Coppola’s first efforts to dig
himself out of the profound financial hole he was in, triggered by One From the Heart, was to make The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, both released in 1983 and both based on novels
published years before by S. E. Hinton, a writer of young-adult works (not
a common career at the time) (End note).
Regarding Coppola, the critical consensus was forming by 1983—and I parroted
this, rather regrettably, in summer 1985 in a paper I did on Apocalypse Now for a class I took on U.S.
classic films that was offered by the American Studies department: After the
two Godfather films, Coppola tended
to be good with images, but equally inevitably, his storylines could suffer.
This came to be regarded as something of a curse of his work.
I think today, as applied to Apocalypse, this is an unfair
assessment. Granted, there are little infelicities with Apocalypse, like little improbabilities here or there; unclear
speaking by actors in places…. But I think, on multiple viewings, Apocalypse reveals itself as a work to
be appreciated as a sort of Gestalt—with
images and an understanding of the larger story bridging little holes in the
narrative and petty-level dialogue. And this film is thus amazing for
delivering, in the American film language, a rendering of a cross between Joseph
Conrad’s novella/short story “Heart of Darkness” and a gawking “travelogue” of
the Vietnam War that, apart from the film’s political/peacenik slant and some
off-base details on the nature of military activity, is the best “mystical”
treatment we have of this traumatic phase in American cultural and historical
life since World War II. Even if you disagree that Apocalypse meets this goal so well, or that it’s presumptuous for a
film to even try to do this, I think it accomplishes something in this
direction (and in proportion to its ambition) much better than any of Coppola’s
other post-1970s films—those that have been criticized for narrative flaccidity—reach
this own respective goals.
Following my own position, we
can say Apocalypse was Coppola’s last
great picture (if it isn’t indeed his very greatest). When we get to the two S.
E. Hinton films, I think a lot of us will be in greater agreement that these
films are rather lacking.
Rumble Fish seems squarely to
be more accomplished visually than story-wise
Actually, I’ve never seen The Outsiders, though I would like to.
But it seems “of a piece,” in how accomplished a work it is, with Rumble Fish (as might be likely given
that they were produced back to back). The later-released Rumble Fish I did see, first in 1983, and I think I was inclined to
agree with critics who felt Coppola had gotten erratic in crafting narrative
structure, even while his images could be arresting.
When I saw the film this past
week, I felt that I almost had never seen it before. And I found it really hard
to embrace. I mean, I remembered some little images—as I saw them again—from
when I saw them in 1983. But in general, I was rather put on my mettle to enjoy
this film.
For one thing, visually it was
something else. The Wikipedia article talks about an imitation of 1920s German
expressionism shaping its style; I would have said it did a lot to imitate
Orson Welles a la Touch of Evil
(1958). Angles, shadows, smoke…and high-contrast black-and-white. Overall, this
makes for interesting “eye candy.” And the editing and variation of shots, such
as focusing on a face one time, showing people from another angle another
time—as a matter of visual variation while maintaining situational
continuity—works well enough.
A 2005 DVD extra shows how
Coppola and his team shot storyboards of the film on video to see how it would
look. This is like extensively outlining a written article, which helps give it
a structure and clarity that aid readability. I can see that Coppola, in his
preproduction planning and general conceptions, could get intriguing visual
structures and that this can, at least in theory, punch up the flow of the
story.
The soundtrack, by Stewart Copeland, drummer of the rock group The Police, is interesting. It almost
seems a little too busy at times, but it’s generally OK, intriguing for its
combinations of sounds, with usually an emphasis on rhythm (and it includes
instruments other than drums, including guitar, though whether Copeland played
all the instruments, I’m not sure).
The film’s failings (from my quick view)
What I found lacking in this
film was, basically, the story, and one performance in particular. It didn’t
really hold me so closely as to allow me to “drink down” this film with
enjoyment. I watched it through once and got most of the way through a second
watching before finishing up this review (the second time I had a rather bad
headache, which didn’t mean any particular strong change [for the better or
worse] in how the film struck me, based on its merits and not my illness;
sometimes a good film can make your illness-feelings recede a bit; this didn't happen here).
I mean, Welles’ Touch of Evil has its visual
pyrotechnics, but if you’ve seen that film a few times, you appreciate how
Welles articulates the whole noir-ish story scene by scene, arresting shot by
arresting shot; and generally, like a master, he shows how visuals and story
can be complementary.
With Rumble Fish, I felt that the “spiky” visuals rather “got in the
way” a bit, or attracted a film student’s wondering/appreciative eye, while the
story—which seemed banal (as to basics “on the page”) on the one hand and
barely rising to complement the visual brio on the other—barely enabled me to
accept the visuals, in the way that the story could have hooked me right into
them if they all worked together well.
In particular, I thought Matt Dillon’s performance was downright annoying. Here, he plays Rusty
James—the script is such that the full name keeps being repeated, sounded
clanging and story-parodying—who is an aspiring street tough who starts out
ambivalent about his older brother, “Motorcycle Boy” (his given name is also
mentioned, Michael), played by a young Mickey Rourke,
who arrives on the scene and vanquishes the man Rusty James fought in a street
rumble. Motorcycle Boy presently becomes, and also is assumed to be, a hero who,
nevertheless, has an ambivalent attitude toward Rusty James and his hankering
to be an alpha punk in town. The two seem to do a symbiotic dance with each
other through the film, with Rusty James hankering to acquire Motorcycle Boy’s
mojo, or mystique, or coolness, or whatever…and there is some directive from
Motorcycle Boy for Rusty James to eventually go to California and get to the
ocean. Which, after a dramatic downfall has happened, Rusty James eventually
does, for an aching try at atonement, or such, at film’s end.
I know I’m crumpling up a
summary of the plot, but the whole portentous, jejune, barely interesting thing
seems (1) stupid enough that it shouldn’t take much to understand it and yet
(2) am I not appreciating something here, as to why this story should mean more
than it seems to?
(By the way, no slight to
Coppola, but the theme of a younger brother [or other type of male] regarding
an older brother [or other seasoned role model] as a mentor occurs numerous
times in Coppola’s work, including in Apocalypse,
regarding the way Captain Willard looks up to Colonel Kurtz in his perverse
Special Forces-schooled self-made-ness, and even in, I believe, the late film Tetro [2009], which Coppola wrote as
original work. This, as is no secret, reflects Coppola’s attitude toward his
brother August, who was a professor and who died a few years ago. In
fact, end credits show Rumble Fish is
dedicated to him.)
Dillon’s performance annoys; other names are here, famous before or
after
Especially icing the ambiguous cake
in Rumble Fish is Matt Dillon’s
performance. Whether intentional or not, he comes across as an un-remediated
dolt; you don’t know whether he wants to be a kind of “tough” that sounds stupid
as part of his trademark (as if to call out, “Be intimidated by me, because I’m
so stupid, you should be afraid of me
just for that!”), or whether he is just a moron who is aspiring to be something
even a moron can’t achieve—a street tough who has his whole small town in his
pocket.
Dennis Hopper is on board
as Rusty James’ and Motorcycle Boy’s father, an apparent town drunk. A
making-of doc suggests a lot of takes were required to get Hopper to be on
point in the scene where the father is with his sons in the café. Here, he’s approximately
the burnout, with a capacity to be eloquent, that he was in Apocalypse Now.
Speaking of that film, another
star from it is here: Laurence Fishburne, as a sort of local Black friend,
entering shots with a sort of effortless cool, who does little more than make
comments to help establish the dramatic situation.
Among new faces, Nicolas Cage is here in his first film role, or one of his first, as a friend of Rusty James' (Cage is a son of August and nephew of Francis); Diane Lane is here
as Rusty James’ girlfriend, looking quite young (but still as attractive as she
would be in middle age); and Sofia Coppola, credited as “Domino,” is here
as the Diane Lane character’s younger sister. Sofia hardly looks here like a
family relation to Lane and in fact—no harshness intended—here she’s at an
awkward age where a girl looks as cute as a middle-aged person’s bare foot. But
she makes a game effort at acting, not the washout as numerous critics and
viewers have judged her with The
Godfather Part III.
Maybe disturbing those who don’t
like nepotism, Coppola’s sons Roman and Gian-Carlo (the latter died in 1986),
are listed as associate producers.
End note.
I first became aware of S. E.
Hinton through an issue of a magazine, aimed at young students and on writing,
that I got in an English class in ninth grade (1976-77). I think I still have
this magazine in my files. As was a novelty in 1976, Hinton had published her
first fiction when she was in her teens (I think in the 1960s). By 1976 she was
securely established as a writer, and the magazine article mentioned either or
both of the novels Coppola adapted for the screen (I think a title like Rumble Fish was not such as would have
interested me in the novel much). Hinton, as to the evidence I had then (and
looking back, I couldn’t say I was wrong), was not the sort of writer I would
have read when I was in my teens. But the same magazine title (maybe a
different issue) had an article on Ray Bradbury that interested me more, and
you could say Bradbury inspired me to some extent as an aspiring writer. I did
get a copy of his The Illustrated Man and
Other Stories, whatever the title, and read some stuff in it.
Reference.
Peter
Cowie, Coppola (New York: Charles
Scribners’ Sons, 1990).
