Rusty James, un bandit de rue inattentif, se bat pour être à la hauteur de la réputation de son frère aîné légendaire, et aspire aux jours où la guerre des gangs se déroule.Rusty James, un bandit de rue inattentif, se bat pour être à la hauteur de la réputation de son frère aîné légendaire, et aspire aux jours où la guerre des gangs se déroule.Rusty James, un bandit de rue inattentif, se bat pour être à la hauteur de la réputation de son frère aîné légendaire, et aspire aux jours où la guerre des gangs se déroule.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Récompenses
- 3 victoires et 4 nominations au total
- B.J. Jackson
- (as Christopher Penn)
- Midget
- (as Larry Fishburne)
- Patty's Sister
- (as Domino)
- Cousin James
- (as Gio)
Avis à la une
"Rumble Fish" just might be Francis Ford Coppola's most overlooked film.
This movie, based on the Susan E. Hinton novel, tells about young street tough Rusty-James (Matt Dillion) who idolizes his older brother known only as 'The Motorcycle Boy' (Mickey Rourke).
Rusty-James longs for the days of rumbles and being a part of a gang. His friends are somewhat reluctant to feel the same way. His girlfriend Patty (Diane Lane) goes to an all-girl prep school. She's supportive of Rusty-James' need for acceptance and wanting to be cool like his estranged brother. "You're better than cool", she reminds him. "You're warm!" That's also a warning. Will Rusty-James heed?
Subtly, this is a film about the failure of the 'American Dream' and making choices, whether right or wrong. After all, Rusty-James' family fell product of the socialization process. They live in the slums, but that may not always have been the case. The boys' alcoholic father, memorably played by Dennis Hopper, was once a well-to-do lawyer earlier in life. What about the enigmatic Motorcycle Boy? Is he truly crazy? Or does he have 'an acute perception' that drives him crazy?
Brilliantly shot in black & white, Stephen H. Burum's cinema-photography makes "Rumble Fish" feel like something out of a chaotic dream. Everything is surreal, yet relative to each other. Clouds stream by overhead symbolizing the passage of time. Clocks appear throughout the movie suggesting time-is-a-burnin'. The suggestion here is: don't waste the time you do have while you still can. Stewart Copeland's almost all percussion and highly rhythmic score adds to that effect.
In "Rumble Fish", Coppola skillfully addresses the need to belong, to lead, to have goals, to have vision and warns not to fall deeper into an urban trap. Will Rusty-James discover what it means to step out and become his own identity before it's too late? As The Motorcycle Boy points out, "If you're going to lead people, you need to have somewhere to go."
That's good advice.
It was the second film he released in 1983 adapted from an S.E. Hinton book. His first ("The Outsiders") was cleaner than this. "Rumble Fish" has a lot of violence, a lot of swearing, and a decent amount of sex/nudity. It is the flip side to "The Outsiders"; and in my opinion, the more mature work of the two (although both are very good).
Matt Dillon gives his best performance as Rusty James, a 1950s street punk whose alcoholic father has all but walked out on him, and whose older brother (an enigmatic figure known only as The Motorcycle Boy) has left and moved to California some time ago.
We are led to infer that The Motorcycle Boy was a sort of rebel hero - a type of Robin Hood, as Rusty James says - and the entire town loves him. As a result, Rusty James "can't live up to his brother's reputation...and his brother can't live it down," to quote the film's tagline.
But The Motorcycle Boy returns one day in the form of Mickey Rourke. He rescues his kid brother from a violent underground fight with a group of thugs and takes him back to the safety of their home.
The Motorcycle Boy has come back in order to make amends, one supposes; or at least because he feels as if he has an obligation to see his father and brother again.
Meanwhile, Rusty James - in a desperate intent to match his brother's reputation - continues his downward spiral of street fights and violence, resulting in more than a few bloody brawls.
"Rumble Fish" is displayed in grainy black-and-white, and the soundtrack itself is surreal, often featuring fragments of distorted audio matched with hazy visuals. At first it doesn't seem to make sense, but then it is revealed that The Motorcycle Boy has a hearing problem that comes and goes at random (typically when he is under stress) - and is colorblind, which explains the b&w photography.
This is a great decision by Coppola because it gives the film an authentic feeling; at first, we feel as if we are following Rusty James' plight, but then once we pull back it becomes obvious we are watching through the eyes of The Motorcycle Boy himself. Coppola's experimentation with color in a few shots is something we're only now seeing take form again in movies like "Sin City" (which also featured Rourke). "Schindler's List" had a few moments of color and b&w, too, but it wasn't as frequent.
The performances are excellent. An all-star cast includes not only Dillon and Rourke but also Diane Lane (who was also in "The Outsiders" with Dillon), Dennis Hopper, Diana Scywid, Vincent Spano and Nicolas Cage.
Dillon's performance is key to the film because essentially this is his story, but it's being narrated to a certain effect by The Motorcycle Boy (at least insofar that it's his problems taking form in the narrative) - and Rourke gives a terrific performance. His moody, quiet embodiment of The Motorycle Boy leaves a lasting impression; his character comes across as a somber, reflective and ultimately regretful man who made bad decisions in his past and now wants to protect his brother from the same thing. It is implied that he may even have become a mail hustler on the streets of CA; his persistence to not tell any details of his adventure, and the fact that he sees a photo of himself posing in front of a bike ("taken by a guy in California," he tells his brother) in a magazine, and then asks Rusty James not to tell anyone, could be perceived as such. Or maybe not. It all depends on how far you want to look into it.
"Rumble Fish" may not be Francis Ford Coppola's best film, but it is one of his most sadly underrated movies and is probably worth mentioning in a list of the best films of the 1980s. In a decade where American art-house seemed to be a lost thought, "Rumble Fish" stands out as one of the few.
The story is thin. Rusty and his "gang" hang out, talk, walk around a lot, get angry, encounter various characters that appear in some scenes, then disappear. Ultimately, the glue that holds the plot together is the relationship between Rusty and his enigmatic, somewhat intellectual older brother, no longer a gang leader, who now functions as Rusty's mentor who over time, wised up. The story's era is unclear.
Casting is okay except for a disconnect between story location and character accents. The setting is supposed to be Oklahoma; yet, most characters, and especially Rusty James, speak with a thick New York accent. Director Francis Ford Coppola made the same mistake in "The Outsiders", using the same location and some of the same actors.
The film was shot in B&W, except for a couple of scenes where aquarium fish appear in red and blue. Overall photography is interesting in that visuals have a look and feel influenced strongly by German Expressionism, and include low-angle, noir lighting, heavy shadows, smoke and fog, and a few weird camera angles. Visuals in many scenes convey a gritty, dingy, urban look.
In the copy I watched, dialogue sounded muffled and hard to understand. Background sounds combined general urban clanking noise with the rhythmic based ticks of a clock and light jazz to create an interesting if perhaps contrived overall soundtrack.
An art film that was not well received by audiences when it came out, "Rumble Fish" would appeal to an art house audience but probably few others. I found the story talky and boring, though the B&W visuals were interesting in a stylized sort of way.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesMickey Rourke remembers that he approached his character as "an actor who no longer finds his work interesting."
- GaffesWhen Rusty James and his friends have the house party, before they break into the house Rusty James says 'Smokey man, you sure come up with some good ideas bro'. But his lips do not move.
- Citations
Father: No, your mother... is not crazy. And neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother crazy. He's merely miscast in a play. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river... With the ability to be able to do anything that he wants to do and... findin' nothin' that he wants to do. I mean nothing.
- Versions alternativesThere is rumored to be an eight-hour bootleg cut of the film.
- Bandes originalesDon't Box Me In
Written by Stewart Copeland and Stan Ridgway
Performed by Stewart Copeland and Stan Ridgway
Meilleurs choix
- How long is Rumble Fish?Alimenté par Alexa
Détails
Box-office
- Budget
- 10 000 000 $US (estimé)
- Montant brut aux États-Unis et au Canada
- 2 494 480 $US
- Week-end de sortie aux États-Unis et au Canada
- 18 985 $US
- 10 oct. 1983
- Montant brut mondial
- 2 494 480 $US
- Durée
- 1h 34min(94 min)
- Couleur
- Mixage
- Rapport de forme
- 1.85 : 1