Thankyou for sharing your experience of the film. I particularly like how you could draw parallels with your own growing up life.
I agree with all you have said about the film and Nic's acting ability. This is one of those films that stands the test of time and seems to become more interesting as time goes by. Mickey Rourke was great too, don't you think? It is one of those films where I would be interested in knowing what was going on in the directors mind... It is such an arty film!
You make a good point about Nic's age, I am so metern struck by the maturity of his early roles, I'm thinking particularly of something like Birdy, which I really love. Nic seemed to have the innate capacity at even such an early age for real depth of emotion, I have read he was not that comfortable with his portrayal in Birdy, describing it as something like 'emotional vomit', but it his capacity for that rawness which to me makes him such a profound actor!
Sorry I've rambled off the point of the thread. Great to read your insightful opinions Rumblefish! Keep them coming!
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Holy plasma balls ~ Blake the Master Sorcerer ~ Magic in his hands
Wow, Rumble... I absolutely loved your musings on this movie, my fave Coppola flick (pssst, don´t tell anybody, but I like this one better than The Godfather and Apocalypse Now... Yeah I know, I couldn´t say this in a Francis F. Coppola forum: SACRILEGE!! LOL) For me, Rumble Fish feels like pure poetry, period. And a very young Nic managed to inform his performance with some pathos for the very first time in front of a camera...
Thanks so much for your review on the movie Rumble Fish. It's one of the few Nic flicks that I never watched in it's entirety. But after reading your review, it's one I'll have to put on the 'Must Watch' list.
It's funny how different movies resonant differently among viewers. I guess what it boils down to is what you said here......how this movie struck you and never left you because you were/had actually lived that life and could identify with Nic's feelings of alienation and search for hope.
I also enjoy what you said here "Forget about 'family favours', 'Hollywood patronage', and all that other nonsense. Nic might have caught a break through his connection to Coppola, but his own talent has carried him the rest of the way, and I have admired his work for my entire adult life"
You said it in a nutshell. The Naysayers of Nicky Coppola can say what they want to say but the truth is............HIS OWN TALENTS HAVE CARRIED HIM THE REST OF THE WAY. Nic's talents, hard work, professionalism and personality have propelled him to the top of his generation of actors. He gets hired MORE than any other actor out there (that I am aware of) because of his dedication to the profession and because producers and directors alike can count of him to deliver the goods.
I mean....it's not like there aren't enough actors out there for the amount of jobs offered, right?
Anyhooo..........thanks again for the wonderful review.
B
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"Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men." ~~~Thomas Henry Huxley~~~
Didn't want to derail the other thread, so I started this one.
My appreciation of Nic's career began with Rumble Fish. I realize he also had parts in 'Fast Times...' and 'Valley Girls' before that, but those films were too distant from my experience to cause a connection.
I grew up in a rough mining town called Sudbury, in northern Ontario. There was a strike at the mines in 1978 that crippled the entire city for almost a year. People were literally going hungry, there were no prospects of a job, it was like the Great Depression, on an isolated level. Young people ran loose in the streets, fighting, stealing, forming into gangs etc,.. can you see how this is leading up to Rumble Fish?
When young Canadians turn to violence, it doesn't usually involve guns, which is a tragic reality for our American friends to the south. We fought with sticks, knives, bottles, chains, anything we could get our hands on. So, put the conditions of my town, and the style of fighting that took place together, and jump into the landscape of Coppola's classic, Rumble Fish.
When I saw the film, it was like Coppola plugged into my brain, and transmitted the signal onto celluloid. The desperation, the isolation of being a young man with no real reason for hope is the essence of Rumble Fish. You are boiled town to your core being, the person you really are, underneath all the pretenses. Some of us find that we have goodness hiding deep within us... others learn the ugly truth about themselves. This is what Rumble Fish captured in a way that few other films did. Of course, 'The Outsiders' was along that same path, but it didn't resonate with me the same way.
So, Nic's sense of alienation, the pain that he brings to his acting, was a perfect fit for Rumble Fish. He never really belonged in those other campy spoof films of the early 80's; Rumble Fish was where he found a home. And if you look at all of the great work Nic has done since then, the greatest performances are those that bring him closest to the dark truth that can be found in Rumble Fish.
Of course, as a hardcore movie fan 25 years later, I can look back at Rumble Fish and appreciate the artistic camera work, the sparse use of colour, and all of the other goodies Coppola injected into the film, but the underlying fiber of the story is still what grips me, to this day.
As an add-on, I think Nic did a great job of holding his own among the cast of Rumble Fish. I mean, Dennis Hopper, Mickey Rourke, Larry Fishbourne.. et al, this was a star-studded cast, including many others who were just starting out their careers. It must have been a real mind-blower for Nic to walk on the set - even in a secondary role and face that camera, with the awareness of the great talent surrounding him.
Forget about 'family favours', 'Hollywood patronage', and all that other nonsense. Nic might have caught a break through his connection to Coppola, but his own talent has carried him the rest of the way, and I have admired his work for my entire adult life.
