ESSAY ON FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S ARTSY-TOUGH 'RUMBLE FISH'

Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke doing time in RUMBLE FISH

Beyond the dynamic B&W cinematography by director Francis Ford Coppola, RUMBLE FISH is a different kind of art film as it's both that and a teenage angst flick: The difference is that both main characters... younger brother Rusty James played by Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke's legendary The Motorcycle Boy... want nothing to do with one or the other...

In other words, the rumble-tough movie is fully embodied by Matt Dillon's character, who walks the walk and talks the tough guy talk while his now passive mentor, who once genuinely ruled those same streets, is dead-set against all the nostalgic street savvy shit while embodying the deep arthouse aspect which, during some of the best scenes, Dillon's character not only loathes but annoyingly doesn't understand (especially drunk dad Dennis Hopper's surreal drunken rambling), much like young audiences who initially rejected what Coppola intended as an "art film for teenagers" (a cerebral b-side to THE OUTSIDERS, both S.E. Hinton adaptations) but eventually grew to, like Rourke's wandering, pondering nomad, embrace as a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience where brothers and genres simultaneously collide onscreen. "Man, what the f--- do the Greeks have to do with anything?" The answer is... Nothing. And Everything.

Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke in RUMBLE FISH