Rumble Fish; Directed by Francis Ford Coppola; Written by Francis Ford Coppola and S. E. Hinton; Based on a novel by S. E. Hinton; Universal.

An individual is the sum of his memories and his dreams. That, of course, is no great revelation; the Greeks were scripting plays about it thousands of years ago. Nowadays, however, the past is often overlooked or at least greatly diminished when compared with the Now. The future—the status of which tends to be mixed (i.e., this will be a glorious world or radio active rubble)—also receives more attention. This state is no new development, either; it is a tendency that Moderns have exhibited for centuries. One of the consequences of ignoring the past is that would-be artistic creations are typically very shallow, or at least that’s a characteristic failure. That is, art (the real thing) requires reflection; reflection, by its very definition, means that there must be another object, typically posterior with regard to time and certainly distant in terms of space, that the thinking subject ponders. Reflection speaks of depth: even a mirror with a physical thickness of just a few millimeters has an immeasurable metaphysical ground that stretches back, or away from, the observer. One can know one’s position in life only by taking into account where one has been; certainly, where one is going is a factor, but it is a variable one. So reflection upon the past isn’t enough, as concentration on it alone would result in a debilitating stasis. This is where dreams come in, dreams of a better life that are shaped and anchored through a recognition of possibilities, a perception that can only come through a reflection upon and understanding of the past.

These points are very evident in the formal aspects of Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish; they are discernable, to a lesser extent, in the script that Coppola created with S. E. Hinton, the author of the novel upon which the film is based. With the exception of one stylistic and symbolic touch, the film is in black and white. This approach is one that acknowledges a number of cinematic predecessors, the films of the 1930’s about hard times and those of the 1950’s about teenagers, in particular; it forms a cohesiveness between the form and content that is lacking in other black and white films with a contemporary setting, such as Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979). Coppola clearly understands what he owes to his predecessors and at the same time has a sense of where film is going. He reflects on both what the film medium is and how it works and so succeeds far more effectively than the limited mate rial in itself would apparently permit.The story tells of the relationship between a younger and an older brother, about how the younger looks to the older as a model, as someone who he would like to be come. The teenager has memories and dreams. Although they are flawed and dubious, they still be speak a sense of direction in a lad who is, essentially, an inarticulate outcast. Coppola provides a rich language through images.