Blu-ray Review: RUMBLE FISH, Innocence Dies A Lonely Death In Tulsa

Editor, U.S. ; Dallas, Texas (@HatefulJosh)
Blu-ray Review: RUMBLE FISH, Innocence Dies A Lonely Death In Tulsa

As much as I love movies, and that is a lot or I wouldn't be here, there are certain things that turn me off almost immediately. Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish, a kind of response to the populist storytelling of his infinitely more successful The Outsiders, does almost every single thing that I hate about consciously artistic films. Yet, here I sit, in awe.

Rumble Fish takes S.E. Hinton's novel and turns it into an exercise in artifice, utilizing black and white photography to immerse the audience in the world of its color-blind muse, The Motorcycle Boy, and an aggressively avant-garde rhytmic soundtrack that turns the film into what should be an interminably long jazz exploration. So far, that's two strikes on the list of "Things Josh Hates", but somehow Coppola takes these assertive outre touches and pieces them together into a complete and intensely engaging portrait of the death of innocence that made me absolutely melt.

While in the midst of filming his adaptation of Hinton's The Outsiders, Coppola began to get antsy. The Outsiders was by design a very big, emotionally expansive and garish film. The kind of thing designed to scream at the audience to let them know how it feels. Coppola worked very hard to quiet his less mainstream friendly instincts on that film, but he felt trapped by the process. Hinton, who'd been a close collaborator on the film mentioned her other novel Rumble Fish and when Coppola read the book, he knew he had his antidote.

Rumble Fish is the story of Rusty-James (Matt Dillon), a teenager who is the younger brother of neighborhood legend The Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke). When his elder brother disappears, Rusty-James loses his rudder and begins to careen through life looking for the fight that will make it all make sense. He drags what is left of his big brother's gang, Smokey (Nicolas Cage), B.J. (Chris Penn), Midget (Larry Fishburne), and Steve (Vincent Spano), through his existential crisis as he attempts to reconcile his own inability to connect with the world through acts of violence. The one thing that almost keeps him grounded is his on-again-off-again relationship with Patty (Diane Lane), a student at an all-girls school in the neighborhood.

When The Motorcycle Boy returns after a long disappearance, Rusty-James begins to regain his mojo, thinking that the life he'd lived before would make a comeback and he and the gang would go on as if nothing ever happened. What he doesn't realize is that while he is looking for truth in the glory of the past, everyone around him has moved on into a future that looks a lot different, including and especially his big brother.

LIttle by little Rusty-James' life starts to come apart as the world he knows goes on without him, no matter how hard he tries to make it stop. The Motorcycle Boy tries to protect him from himself, but Rusty-James just won't listen and it takes a shocking act of violence to wake him up.

Everything about Rumble Fish is perfect, every conscious choice made by the creative team and the actors make the film better. The pin-sharp cinematography, the expressionistic art direction and lighting, the incredible percussive score, the surreal flights of fancy, and most of all the arch and pained performances of every actor lend to a whole that is far more than the sum of its very impressive parts.

Criterion's new Blu-ray of the film is one of the best overall packages for their recent releases that I've had the pleasure to enjoy. Not only is the presentation of the film impeccable, which is certainly is, but there are hours of materials that contextualize the film in a way that helped me to understand it on a level that would normally takes several viewings.

For the film's U.S. Blu-ray debut Criterion pulled out all the stops, engaging a ton of key cast and crew to talk about their memories and involvement with the film. No interview is as engaging as that of Coppola himself, who talks in great detail about the genesis of the film as well as the stylistic decisions that went into making it stand out. We also get fascinating new interviews with Matt Dillon and Diane Lane who talk with great fondness about their involvement, and in particular Dillon's obsession with S.E. Hinton's books. Hinton also makes an interview appearance and she talks a lot about the collaborative process and close workign relationship she had with Coppola. The new interviews round out with a talk with Roman Coppola regarding his presence on the film, and cinematographer Stephen Burum and production designer Dean Tavoularis in a wonderful thirty minute conversation about their contributions to the film.

If Criterion had stopped at the new interviews, the disc would've been excellent, however, the addition of a wealth of older material makes it indespensible. Also included are behind-the-scenes documentaries from 2005 regarding the making of the film as well as the creation of the score with Stuart Copeland. Then the disc goes back to the mid-80s for contemporaneous interviews with the young cast and crew, as well as a fascinating short piece on Mickey Rourke for French TV.

Various other bits and pieces discuss the existentialist touches of Rumble Fish and some deleted scenes, but the real gem is a feature length documentary by Chilean Alberto Fuguet. This film, Locations: Looking for Rusty James, is a personal exploration of the meaning of Rumble Fish for the filmmaker and a small cult of fanatics in Chile who discovered it and worship the film in a way in which it hasn't caught on in the US. Fuguet goes to Tulsa and visits the locations of the film only to have them feel more like home than his own country, and he talks in great detail about the impact of the film on the cinphile community in his country. It's fascinating stuff.

Criterion's Rumble Fish is a revelation. While The Outsiders is literally required reading in most American high schools, and the film version is shown to thousands of classrooms every year, this one slipped by because it is so bold and subversively constructed. Hopefully this changes soon, because it's really a masterpiece, and among Coppola's finest works.

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