Rumble Fish

Coppola wrote this on his days off from The Outsiders. The plan was explicit: keep the same crew, stay in Tulsa, and shoot the second film immediately after the first. That is also how he kept actors like Matt Dillon and Diane Lane. It is in black and white with one exception, the Siamese fighting fish in the pet shop tank, which appear in colour. There are two reasons: the Motorcycle Boy is colour blind, and Coppola wanted 1920s German Expressionism. He screened The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for the crew as the stylistic prototype, which is where the shadows and oblique angles come from. Stewart Copeland of The Police wrote the score using a new synchronisation device called Musync, and it is almost entirely percussion. The theme is time running out, so the music works like a clock, with Tulsa street sounds folded into it. It collapsed commercially, taking 2.5 million dollars against a 10 million budget, and became a cult film later. Who it is for: viewers who like formal experiment placed ahead of story, and anyone who wants Mickey Rourke at his best. Who it is not for: people expecting a teen drama. This is close to abstract and emotionally cold.