Rumble Fish

And if sometimes I can't seem to talk, you know this blackboard lacks, a piece of chalk.

1983's RUMBLE FISH suffered a lot of criticism during its original release.  Professional movie watchers and layperson alike were baffled as to why director Francis Coppola chose to frame this adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel the way he did, in black and white, apparently emulating German Expressionism.  Some saw French New wave influence.  As with other Hinton books, the story of rebellious youths was seemingly pretty straightforward, but with plenty of existential elements.  Of the film adaptations (including THE OUTSIDERS, also directed by Coppola), RUMBLE FISH is the most abstract and inward looking.

Rusty James (Matt Dillon in another bad ass teen role) idolizes his older brother, known as the Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke), to the point of lacking his own identity.  He shares with him an alcoholic father (Dennis Hopper) but lacks their insight and smarts.  Not just the street variety.  Rusty is confused, frustrated, but unable to articulate (or understand) just why.   His frustration drives his behavior, his poor choices.  He neglects and mistreats his girl Patty (Diane Lane) and seems to be more interested in gang fights.  It is during one of them that the Motorcycle Boy reappears, quite possibly saving his life.

Like the fish at the pet store (the only image in color), the two brothers feel stifled by their bleak Midwest town.  Motorcycle Boy, someone who could've done anything with his life but suffered bad timing, got all the way to California. But he came back for perhaps one last look, to dance again with an old lover, to quietly reflect on the emptiness of having been king of the local gang, being bored with such a life.  These views are unfathomable to to Rusty James, who can't see beyond the fishbowl.  Who can't seem to calm his restless spirit long enough to listen.

But time is running out, represented so vividly by Coppola by time lapse photography of clouds and clocks in nearly every frame of his movie.  It is a stylistic in sync with everything else, a patent fantasy dance that might recall WEST SIDE STORY at times, with its highly choreographed movements and camera work (by Stephen H. Burum).  There's that evocative scoring by Stewart Copeland.  And you know when Tom Waits appears in the first scene as a mumbling billiard hall owner that you're in some other dimension.  A youth fever dream with enviable production design.   The B & W photography is just so right for this bleak tale, one that a kid with more romantic notions might've conjured as he sits in detention.