richardrushfield: Rumble Fish revisited ...

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Rumble Fish revisited

Actually better now then it was when it was released. When it came out in 1983, it was in the shadow still of Apocalypse Now and it seemed a meandering minor play on the same themes..sort of an Apocalypse Now leftover. Rumble Fish also stood in the shadows as the less accessible brother to the schmaltzier Outsiders.

But taken on its own now, Rusty James desperate flailing has a real poignancy, thrashing around against this world painted in cold detachment, the desperation all the starker. The black and white photography is stunning and creates this preserved decaying world with an epic dignity. Sweltering, crumbling Tulsa looks as seedily seductive as Elia Kazan’s New Orleans in Streetcar. Mickey Roarke’s Motorcycle Boy gets just the right touch of gentle madness and a great spirit that knows its candle is about to burn out.

Amazing cast with terrific performances by Roarke, Nick Cage, Lawrence Fishburne, Diana Scarwid, Diane Lane and Tom Waits himself. Beautiful off-kilter Stuart Copeland score. It’s sad though that at this point in history when we hear Matt Dillion’s New York brouge, I only hear Johnny Drama.

It’s a totally unique film. I can’t think of another film that’s really similar to it, before or since except perhaps some early Jim Jarmusch. It feels like history rolled past Rumble Fish which is too bad. Always nice to recall that when Coppola was good, he was the best.

And also this quote, from Motorcycle Boy, more true today than 25 years ago:

California’s like a beautiful, wild… beautiful, wild girl on heroin… who’s high as a kite, thinkin’ she’s on top of the world, not knowing she’s dying even if you show her the marks.