The Coppola clan seems to love “Rumble Fish.” If you remember, Sofia Coppola put the 1983 film in her Sight and Sound top 10, and her father, the man who made it, seemed to love it.
In a recent Instagram AMA session, Francis Ford Coppola was pressed on whether he still believes, as he said years ago, that “The Conversation” is his best film. Coppola’s answer was somewhat surprising, his personal favorite changed:
My best movie? That’s like asking someone who has 7 kids, who is the best? I love them all but if I scratch deep, I’d say Rumble Fish.
That’s quite surprising since Coppola directed four of the greatest films of the 20th century: “The Godfather,” “The Godfather Part Two,” “The Conversation,” and “Apocalypse Now.” I don’t know about you, but “Rumble Fish” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when assessing Coppola’s filmography, far from it.
“Rumble Fish”, based on the novel by SE Hinton, tells the story of Rusty James (played by Matt Dillon), a troubled and stubborn young man who fights against his older brother’s shadow amid the harsh reality of a lonely urban landscape. Some of us read the book and were shown the movie in high school, along with Hinton’s “The Outsiders.”
“Rumble Fish”, which Coppola describes as “an art film for teenagers,” was shot in this beautiful black-and-white, inspired by German Expressionism. It is one of the most stunning films of his career. The release wasn’t that well received either, with many citing it as an experimental departure from the director’s better-known works, and a disappointing one at that.
Today, “Rumble Fish” is this cult-ish artifact, and is considered by many critics to be an overlooked film in Coppola’s vast filmography. I wouldn’t say it’s been fully reviewed and gotten a second wind since its release, but it’s definitely more beloved than it was in the ’80s. However, Coppola’s best film? Far from here.
Legendary film historian David Thomson wrote that Rumble Fish is “perhaps the most enjoyable film Coppola has made since “Apocalypse Now”. It is certainly one of his more underrated works, along with “Peggy Sue Got Married,” “Tucker: The Man and His Dreams,” “The Rainmaker,” and “The Godfather Part III” (yes, I love the trilogy capper).
“Rumble Fish” is part of the disappointing post-‘Apocalype Now’ phase of Coppola’s career. He’s had a few keepers here and there, but none come close to his ’70s work. Some believe that the difficult shoot of “Apocalypse Now” broke and changed the man, and with it, as well as his films. Shortly after shooting his masterpiece in 1979, Coppola took the ideas he had brainstormed for a new film and began writing the script for “Megalopolis,” which he finally shot in 2023 and will be released this year.
