Francis Ford Coppola

De Niro as Vito would never work.

Yes.

Rumble Fish (1983)

In 1983, Coppola came out with two adaptation of S.E. Hinton novels. The first was an interpretation of her most well known work and mainstay in middle school English classes across the country: The Outsiders. Coppola's adaptation isn't bad, but it's pretty uninteresting and standard fare that doesn't succeed in much beyond being a showcase of several prominent '80s actors who would go on to bigger things (aside from Thomas C. Howell who plays the main character, Ponyboy, and this was the high point). Coppola wanted his next adaptation, Rumble Fish, to be the polar opposite of The Outsiders. Whereas that film had no substantial style or atmosphere to it, Rumble Fish is drenched in brilliantly composed experimentation that people wondering where the Coppola of the '70s had been hiding can point to Rumble Fish as the outlier amidst Coppola's dull output in the decade. He draws on German Expressionism, surrealism, time lapse works, and utilizes some of the matte work he perfected in One from the Heart to great effect here. Along with Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992, this is Coppola's best work as an artist post-Apocalypse Now and only makes admirers lament his downfall even more when you see that just a few years later he made vanilla garbage like Gardens of Stone.

Rusty James, played by the phenomenal Matt Dillon, is aimless and constantly battling the anxiety of not living up to the stature of his older brother, The Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke). He's got a girlfriend (Diane Lane) that he treats poorly, his friends (Chris Penn and Nicolas Cage) don't truly respect him, and his father (Dennis Hopper) is too busy drinking his life away to provide any direction. The Motorcycle Boy returns from a trip to California, and he couldn't be more different from the brash and bullheaded Rusty James. He's quiet, reflective, and constantly in his own head. Rourke seems to sort of sleepwalk through the movie like he's the Oracle of Delphi, casually strolling through the chaotic streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma without giving much regard to his surroundings. Coppola utilizes some excellent sequences of Rourke, who's color blind and partially deaf, where he plays with sound and scope that attempted to place the viewer in that enigmatic head of The Motorcycle Boy. This is also coupled with the moody, sharp in contrast black-and-white photography that Coppola uses to pump atmospheric smoke, steam, and sweat into nearly every frame that gives Rumble Fish such a signature look. He casts shadows on walls around the town, adding to this unnerving feeling that danger and decay is around every corner. I decried One from the Heart for being a shallow movie that Coppola used as an experiment to show off some incredible technique but forgot to make his characters and "Las Vegas" (the entire film is done on obviously stagey-looking sets) feel alive and vibrant, which made the film a resounding dud. Rumble Fish on the other hand is another exercise in experimental filmmaking, but this time around he uses Hinton's characters to personify Tulsa's claustrophobic and anarchic setting beautifully. Rumble Fish is a relatively short movie at just around an hour-and-a-half, but Coppola fills it with more energy and experimentation than he did for the rest of his career, sans Dracula.

The plot of the film is not going to work for everyone. In fact, the movie is largely plotless and sort of follows Rusty James and The Motorcycle Boy around town, but my criticism of One from the Heart feeling meandering and pointless aren't so in Rumble Fish. Again, this is largely due to Coppola making the environment feel so chaotically alive. From smoky pool halls to dingy dive bars, Rumble Fish's suffocating environment engulfs Rusty James, who only knows that he wants to be his brother but has no clue on how to actually achieve that, or if it's even feasible. Dillon is an incredibly underrated actor, especially in regards to his work here and in Gus Van Sant's wonderful Drugstore Cowboy. He is the embodiment of the testosterone-driven environment that's ensnared him and keeps pushing him into bad decisions. He's unapologetic, angry, and yet thumbs his nose at who he views are the truly lost causes of society: the heroin users that have "ruined the gangs". Rusty James is a deeply flawed character that will either ingratiate you or fascinate you, but Dillon is able to walk this fine line and come out as a compelling protagonist despite having very few positive traits. While Rumble Fish is certainly not a universally applauded film that everyone will get behind, it was highly refreshing to see Coppola, a filmmaker who as I go through the last entries in his filmography has frustrated me with his weak output in his later career, at the height of his powers. It's his most assured and fascinating work post-Apocalypse Now, and I think it's also his best during this period. The Outsiders represents the Coppola we unfortunately got post-70s, conjuring up bland studio system films that could've been made by anyone. Rumble Fish is our last glimpse at the filmmaker we wish we'd seen more of, and that will forever haunt our cinephile dreams of what could have been.

8/10

Agreed on all accounts. Rumblefish is where it's at.

At the end of the day, his best movies are based on books.

One from the Heart (1981)

This is a film that is generally not widely viewed and yet well known as the beginning of the end of the Coppola from the '70s we all revere. The movie that bankrupted Zoetrope Studios and subsequently "forced" Coppola to direct the ho-hum string of movies in the 1980s and 1990s to pay it all back. The movie that chose to go entirely with sets, miniatures, and do nothing on location at all to both the effect and detriment of the movie. That movie. But now I've finally watched it, and despite some film people being pretty mixed on it (peeking at Letterboxd there are some film aficionados who view the movie as a masterpiece) I can conclusively say that I hated One from the Heart and found it to be an almost total failure of an experiment and a grueling viewing experience that tries the viewer's patience and interest from the opening frame.

One from the Heart is about one couple containing two of the most miserable and unappealing leads you're apt to see in a movie. Hank (Frederic Forrest) just can't take this relationship anymore because... uh... well he said so, so I guess that's why. And Frannie (Teri Garr), well she's also through with the relationship because... uh... well she said so too. In all seriousness though, for all the money and effort that went into the sets, brilliantly showy Vittorio Starraro lighting, and sheer scope of the project it's inexcusable for Coppola to give us such a flop of a central through line for these shallow, dull characters and thus their entire reasoning for pushing the flimsy plot in the direction it goes in the first place. They say they're in love, make love, say "Happy Anniversary!" and then proceed to break up because he wanted to make dinner at home and she wanted to go out. Why filmmakers insist on thinking by plopping us into the downfall of characters we don't know and don't care about without any real pretext will work is beyond me. What follows is the both of them meandering around "Las Vegas" (but really an obvious recreation of the same two blocks of casinos that sometimes works but never can get past its own artificiality) to hushed songs from Tom Waits about love and misery and more bullshit. While doing so, they each bump into lovers, both have sex with their lovers, but both obviously still have feelings for each other and of course will end up together even if none of it makes sense at all. There are no real events that happen, and the routine of seeing these two aimlessly stroll around to these music cues gets irritating very quickly.

Perhaps most surprising is despite the showy colors, big crane shots, and fake wall trick photography that Coppola has clearly painstakingly designed, One from the Heart has no energy, passion, or life. This is billed as a musical, but it really isn't at all. Only a couple of songs are diegetically sung and they both stink, and while the "streets" of Vegas are bustling they don't feel alive at all. None of this is helped by the clear staginess of the film's look (Coppola also has still backdrops of the city that don't implement moving lights to simulate cars, or hotel room lights which adds to the stilted and peculiar nature of the movie) but Coppola wanted to indulge in a sort of poetic, magical realism he sure isn't having fun with anything. You always have to give a filmmaker, especially one with the pedigree of Coppola and coming off the most impressive decade for a filmmaker in cinematic history, some credit for taking risks and experimenting with the medium, and it seems like the positive reviews focus on just that. Its defenders note the lighting, the intricate set design, and the soaring camera movements as signs that this is still the same Coppola from his past four films.

And yet they casually brush off the putrid storytelling and characterizations of the film as if they're only minor issues. They're monumentally bad ones, and Coppola's blithe focus on them is what crushes One from the Heart and solidifies it as the notorious flop that it is. This is one of those frustrating stories about love where the two characters are only not together because they force themselves not to be, don't get back together because again they choose not to be, and then get back together because they finally say okay let's do this thing again. There's no conflict keeping them apart. There's no conflict that draws us in. There's no supporting characters furthering the plot. Hank isn't a chronic gambler. Frannie isn't an exotic dancer trying to change her life. These are cliched Vegas storylines, yes, but at least they're something. All Coppola can muster up is two miserable, toxic people wander around under the bright lights of Vegas and people will care about their plight. Except that no one did, and One from the Heart is a far bigger disaster than even legend could conjure it up as.

4/10

I stand by what I wrote about One from the Heart. Coppola has made worse movies, but this has to be his most frustrating and disappointing coming off of Apocalypse Now.

True. He went on to make Gardens of Stone and Jack and Twixt.