Starring Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Dennis Hopper and Tom Waits
Written by S.E Hinton and Francis Ford Coppola
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Production year 1983
Running time 94 minutes
After an extraordinary purple patch of films in the 1970s that included The Conversation, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now Francis Ford Coppola entered the new decade riding high and with his very own studio - Zoetrope Pictures. The 1980s however would prove troubled times for him, with high profile and expensive flops including One From The Heart and The Cotton Club almost bankrupting him and his new company. In the midst of these failures however he directed two striking cult films back-to-back - The Outsiders and Rumble Fish. Both were based on books by S E Hinton, whose 1967 debut novel The Outsiders - written while she was still a teenager, has sold more than 14 million copies to date.
Tonight's film Rumble Fish was shot using high contrast black and white stock and owes much to both both the French New Wave and German Expressionism in its visual style. Time lapse photography along with exaggerated compositions and strange angles make this one of Coppola's most fascinating and experimental pictures.
The soundtrack too is avant garde with percussive compositions by Stewart Copeland of The Police who used a new device called a Musync that allowed him to mix street sounds with musical notes.
A hugely talented cast is headed by Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke who star alongside a gang of idiosyncratic supporting actors including Nick Cage (Coppola's nephew), Dennis Hopper and Tom Waits.
Look out for the author herself in a small role as 'Hooker on Strip'
