Rumble Fish

Rumble Fish
Theatrical release poster by John Solie
Directed byFrancis Ford Coppola
Screenplay by
Based onRumble Fish
by S. E. Hinton
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyStephen H. Burum
Edited byBarry Malkin
Music byStewart Copeland
Production
company
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • October 21, 1983 (1983-10-21)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$10 million
Box office$2,494,480[1]

Rumble Fish is a 1983 American drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is based on the 1975 novel Rumble Fish by S. E. Hinton, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Coppola. The film stars Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Vincent Spano, Diane Lane, Diana Scarwid, Nicolas Cage, Chris Penn, and Dennis Hopper.

The film centers on the relationship between a character called the Motorcycle Boy (Rourke), a revered former gang leader wishing to live a more peaceful life, and his younger brother, Rusty James (Dillon), a teenaged hoodlum who aspires to become as feared as his brother.

Coppola wrote the screenplay for the film with Hinton on his days off from shooting The Outsiders. He made the films back-to-back, retaining much of the same cast and crew, particularly Matt Dillon and Diane Lane.[2] Rumble Fish is dedicated to Coppola's brother August.[3]

The film is notable for its avant-garde style with a film noir feel, shot on stark high-contrast black-and-white film, using the spherical cinematographic process with allusions to French New Wave cinema and German Expressionism. Rumble Fish features an experimental score by Stewart Copeland, drummer of the musical group The Police, who used a Musync, a new device at the time.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference mojo was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Bryn Mawr Film Institute (10 August 2018). "New Illusion: THE OUTSIDERS, RUMBLE FISH, and Coppola in the early '80s". medium.com. Archived from the original on 2019-11-09. Retrieved 2019-11-08.
  3. ^ Tsui, Curtis (2017-04-26). "10 Things I Learned: Rumble Fish". The Criterion Collection. Archived from the original on 2019-11-09. Retrieved 2019-11-08.
  4. ^ The 1980s device is not to be confused with the 21st-century music licensing company of the same name. "Stewart Copeland interview excerpt". Rock World magazine. May 1984. Archived from the original on October 4, 2018. Retrieved March 4, 2013.