alexataisling

One of the best thrillers ever made, it has the reflective quality of Le Carre's earlier post-war spy flicks like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and the TV dramas with George Smiley but with plenty of shoot-em-ups and car chases. The down-beat mini trashing the massed cops of Paris is so much more impressive than Bond with all his gadgetry pulling the same stunt. Great set-pieces but the best of all is the body surfing down the stair-well. Unbelievable. Matt Damon has a brooding presence which fits in well with the storyline and Franka Potente makes a sexy and believable sidekick and I'm glad they got together in the end, leaving a suitably open ending for the sequel. The story neatly turns the usual spy shtick on it's head with the bad guys as his own side. We all know now how true that is now. Should have been called, He Doesn't Know He's Bourne, but I'd go a million miles for a lousy pun.

I saw Rumble Fish in a small a cinema in Dublin when it came out in 1983. It became a cult hit around town and was shown every Monday afternoon for for £1 for months. I bunked off work often to see it as did many people, I got to know. It's hard to say what made it quite so special, god knows I've tried over the years in those party/pub moments when the conversation is flagging and someone asks, 'what is your favourite film?' Obviously they want to know why when you come up with something they've never heard of, hate or are indifferent to. I read Susie Hinton's books afterwards and also sought out the Outsdiders (also from a Hinton novel) which was made at the same time and was a good film with some of the wistful intensity of teenage life so strong in Rumble Fish but was like the straight, conventional brother by comparison. I think Susie Hinton went straight to Coppola's heart and she worked with him on the two films, even appearing in cameo in both. It is amazing to me that her books were marketed as teenage fiction, they are to my mind mature American fiction and transpose beautifully to the screen. The plot is a simple one and necessarily so yet the implications are universal. The style, camera-work, casting and soundtrack work together so well. I don't think that even in the Godfather Coppopla ever got it so right. The dreamy quality of the film, the distorted imagery and the fantastic soundtrack reflect the physical and mental damage suffered by the James family, Rusty's brain damage from one too many rumbles, Dad's alcoholism and the Motorcycle Boys colour blindness, depression and death wish. It's like an elegy for the old west and the constraints of small town life, John Ford meets David Lynch. It also marked the beginning of the end for Zoetrope studios and we'll never know what great movies we lost when that motorcycle gang left town.