“Rusty the Savage”, a bildungsroman with tragedy (and masterpiece soundtrack) – Corriere.it

Il October 7, 1983 was presented at the New York Film Festival (released in American cinemas the following week; here only in March 1984) Rusty the Wild/Rumble Fish by Francis Ford Coppola, which concludes the diptych that opened seven months earlier with “The Boys on 56th Street/The Outsiders,” as well as the one based on a novel by the writer Susan E. Hinton (for which Coppola acquired the rights in parallel had) and from which they shot from very close range, choosing the then nineteen-year-old as the protagonist Matt Dillon (already in the line-up of the predecessor).

Despite the huge success that the first film achieved at home, Rusty the Wild snubbed by the public in its early days and then gained ground again over time, so that it is now considered a classic of the 1980s. And rightly so: a masterpiece, more experimentalless emotional and no less beautiful than its predecessor, of which it should be considered almost an antitype (based on the fact that for this film Coppola forced his cinematographer Stephen H. Burum to a Black and white openly expressionistic and cold saturated and warm color palette what made The Boys of 56th Street stand out aesthetically).

The film restores the settingOklahoma in the late 1960s and continues even more self-analytically the search for a punctum to the end of the age of American innocence mowed down by the Kennedy assassination; stir Anthropological obsessions typical for Coppoli, like family and belonging, but he also once again expresses his desire to gradually build a cinema in which, above all the weather (idealized, derealized, transfigured) is configured as a machine/mechanism that can be escaped contemporary pain.

Rusty James (Matt Dillon) the very young boss of one Gang of boys This also includes Smokey (Nicolas Cage), BJ (Chris Penn), Steve (Vincent Spano) and Midget (Laurence Fishburne); lives with his father (Dennis Hopper), a lawyer addicted to the bottleand in the almost mythical memory of his brother Motorcycle Boy” [da noi il meno efficace Quello con la moto] (Mickey Rourke), who had been a few years earlier legendary figure in the gang world and is now said to be wandering around somewhere in California on his Kawasaki. He unexpectedly returns out of nowhere, just when Rusty could have suffered the worst a dispute with rival Biff Wilcox (Glenn Withrow); but her Bond regained It seems to have little use for Rusty’s everyday life, as he first gets expelled from high school and then loses his girlfriend Patty (Diane Lane), who dumps him in favor of the tougher Smokey.

The crucial turning point in his existence and the resigned end of his brother/model’s idolization will come after the death of Motorcycle Boy, who was killed by him a brutal one and insensitive police officer (William Smith) during the raid on a pet store with the aim of freeing some betta fish from an aquarium (the rumblefish of the original title; i.e., using a broad metaphor, a species whose life in captivity results in…Elimination not only those around him, but also the instinct to attack his own reflection).

Like The Boys from 56th Street, Rusty the Wild is an RTraining Manzo that clearly outlines a path of (re)initiation into life (but also a triangular family tragedy – the alcoholic father and his two defeated sons – without female characters to cushion the fall of the American dream) in a formal, harmonizing measure Echoes of Greek tragedy in its contrast between heroes and anti-heroes, high and low memories of that cinema of the fifties on the subject juvenile delinquent in which problematic characters engaged in rebellious and sometimes criminal behavior (from the obvious The Wild One, 1953, by Laszlo Benedek, to which the Italian title also refers, and Giovent burned/Rebel Without a Cause, 1955, by Nicholas Ray, to for extensive theory of lesser-known B-films such as Jail Bait, 1954, by Edward D. Wood Jr.

But also for alignment without sagging in the narrative or didactics, baroque accents such as Orson Welles’ frequent, feverish quotations and insights even visionaries: such as the inclusion of color to emphasize Motorcycle Boy’s color blindness, or, in the final mirror sequence, Rusty’s freedom from itAchromia of his world; or like the surrealist/expressionist aftermath of clocks without hands and shots crushed by wide angle shots where the shadows are more important than the volumes.

In this film, as in the previous one, the parterre is from faces and bodies Complementary to the stories of the protagonists Dillon and Rourke (here a step away from the jump towards planetary celebrity which will be released with 9 1/2 Weeks/9 1/2 Weeks, 1986, by Adrian Lyne) full of actors of the time launch pad, from Fishburne to rookie Penn; and this time he also shows family relationships (Coppola’s nephew, Nicolas Cage, similar or almost debutant; his twelve year old daughter Sofia, as Patty’s sister; his son Gian-Carlo, who tragically died three years later in the life of Rusty’s cousin) and unexpected cameo appearancescomes barista Tom Waits.

After A Dream Along a Day/One From the Heart (1982), in which he was a key and turning point and even beyond the dimension theoretically Rusty the Wild, which he played in Apocalypse Now (1979), is perhaps the only other title in Coppola’s filmography that cannot be imagined separately from his music: the great soundtrack was composed by Stewart Copeland and shines with its own light, even when separated from images; but unfortunately few people remember it Master song Don’t Box Me In, for which Police drummer Stan Ridgway, leader of Wall of Voodoo, called in to sing. View the video clip (directed by Howard Deutch): three and a half minutes, shortened the whole philosophy of the film and that seduces you due revision more than any trailer.