REPO YOUR ENTHUSIASM (20)
By:
June 4, 2024
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of “offbeat” movies from the Eighties (1984–1993, in our periodization schema). Series edited by Josh Glenn.
RUMBLE FISH | FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA | 1983
Rumble Fish, based on S.E. Hinton’s 1975 young adult novel, centers around two brothers from a derelict town, abandoned at an early age by their mother.
The eldest holds himself at a distance. He’s an intellect, enigmatic; he might be crazy or dangerous. Without question, he’s damaged. He sees only in black-and-white and periodically loses his hearing. Played by Mickey Rourke at his most magnetic, he’s referred to only as The Motorcycle Boy. A “tough” from the era of gangs, he retains the status afforded a legend. He returns to his hometown to rescue his younger brother, Rusty James, from a brutal fight with another kid. Rusty James, in his search for himself, wants only to find that he’s like his brother. He thinks The Motorcycle Boy has life sewn up, while doesn’t think he’s smart enough to be anybody at all. He’s pure emotion and hormones; he may not have the complexity of thought necessary to live with the contradictions inherent in growing up. But he might: “I feel like I’m wasting my life waiting for something.”
As we look back on our lives, our experiences often take on the quality of a dream. Rumble Fish captures this essence with its balletic and fearsome fight sequence, its calculated sound design, surreal visual touches, split focus cinematography, chiaroscuro effects, Stewart Copeland’s rhythmic score, stellar cast, and clocks — many, many clocks — reminding us that time is always passing but not always at the same speed.
In 1983, not long after the release of Rumble Fish, while I was working as an actor on Coppola’s The Cotton Club, Richard Brautigan popped into my dressing room seemingly out of nowhere and floating like The Great Gazoo. He looked at me with wide eyes and proclaimed: “Francis doesn’t make mooovies. He makes tapestries.” Then he wafted on, possibly back to his crashed spaceship. The observation has stuck with me. Coppola is a weaver, but the tapestry is never only for decorative purposes; it asks to be discerned. He doesn’t dictate how we should feel about it.
Rumble Fish transcends the confines of all other teen films of the Eighties. A meditation on the passage of time and the search for meaning, the difference between personality and being, perception and reality, it creates a dreamlike experience that lingers.
REPO YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Annie Nocenti on AFTER HOURS | Lynn Peril on BRAZIL | Mandy Keifetz on BODY DOUBLE | Carlo Rotella on ROBOCOP | Marc Weidenbaum on GROUNDHOG DAY | Erik Davis on REPO MAN | Mimi Lipson on STRANGER THAN PARADISE | Josh Glenn on HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING | Susan Roe on HOUSEKEEPING | Gordon Dahlquist on SOMETHING WILD | Heather Quinlan on EATING RAOUL | Anthony Miller on MIRACLE MILE | Karinne Keithley Syers on BETTER OFF DEAD | Adam McGovern on WALKER | Ramona Lyons on MILLER’S CROSSING | Vanessa Berry on WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS? | Elina Shatkin on NIGHT OF THE COMET | Susannah Breslin on MAN BITES DOG | Tom Nealon on DELICATESSEN | Lisa Jane Persky on RUMBLE FISH | Dean Haspiel on WEIRD SCIENCE | Heather Kapplow on HEATHERS | Micah Nathan on BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA | Deborah Wassertzug on ELECTRIC DREAMS | Mark Kingwell on WITHNAIL AND I.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!