Rumble Fish
Director: Francis Ford Coppola Run Time: 94 min. Release Year: 1983
Starring: Dennis Hopper, Diana Scarwid, Diane Lane, Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke
In this deeply personal tale of estrangement and reconciliation between two rebellious brothers, set in a dreamlike and timeless Tulsa, Francis Ford Coppola gives mythic dimensions to intimate, painful emotions. The director’s “art film for teenagers” was his second adaptation of young-adult novelist S. E. Hinton’s work in a single year, after the more classically styled The Outsiders. Graced with a remarkable cast headed by Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, and Diane Lane; haunting black-and-white visuals that hark back to German expressionism and forward to Coppola’s own Tetro; and a powerful percussive score by Stewart Copeland that underlines the movie’s romantic fatalism, Rumble Fish pulsates throughout with genuine love and dread.