For a director as endlessly celebrated asFrancis Ford Coppola, choosing one movie as his masterpiece is a daunting prospect. Obviously,The Godfatherstill stands as one of the defining works of the New Hollywood movement, andPart IIarguably holds together as a better film, even if it’s not as iconic. However, one could make just as convincing an argument thatApocalypse Nowis his opusin that it uses the template of a war film to dive into the human psyche and uncover the darkness within. And still others thinkThe Conversation, sandwiched between the first twoGodfatherinstallments, remains unfairly overlooked, and for good reason – it’s excellent.
But if you askSofia Coppola, herself a fantastic filmmaker, to pick a single movie from her father’s legendary resume, her answer might not be what you’d expect. In a 2010 interview with Rotten Tomatoes viaFar Out,Coppola was asked to pick her five favorite films of all time, and the only one from her father that she picked was 1983’sRumble Fish.
Sofia Coppola’s Favorite Film From Her Father Is Rumble Fish
Rumble Fish
While Francis Ford Coppola worked in the early ’80s on his adaptation of S.E. Hinton’scoming-of-age classic,The Outsiders, he became interested in another one of her novels,Rumble Fish. In particular, the story’s focus on the relationship between the two brothers resonated with Coppola, as he had long worshiped his older brother, August. Coppola worked with Hinton on the script while filmingThe Outsiders, and almost immediately after finishing, he began work onRumble Fishwith most of the same production team.
The story centers around Rusty James (Matt Dillon), the leader of a gang in an unnamed small town. Rusty’s older brother, known only as “The Motorcycle Boy” (Mickey Rourke), is a legendary figure in the town, having once brokered peace among all the local gangs. As the film begins, The Motorcycle Boy has been missing for two months, and Rusty struggles greatly to live up to his brother’s lofty reputation. With the man who achieved peace absent, gang tensions rapidly escalated, helped by the rise of the local heroin trade.
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Ultimately, The Motorcycle Boy returns to town, much to his brother’s delight, but it’s clear that he’s become disillusioned with the gang lifestyle and wishes to live in peace. He urges Rusty to leave the gang behind, but this only leaves Rusty more determined than ever to prove that he has what it takes, even at the cost of his personal relationships.
What Coppola achieves withRumble Fishis a darker, sadder sort of companion piece toThe Outsiders. Both films share deep empathy for their characters, treating their emotional struggles as valid even though they’re still young. ButRumble Fishhas a harder edge to it, and more explicitly, it goes out of its way to deglamorize the gang lifestyle, exposing the emptiness and cruelty one needs to survive within it. Thus, whileThe Outsidersis a deeply moving coming-of-age story and a perfect viewing for teenagers, with maybe thequintessential ’80s cast,Rumble Fishis arguably a more thoughtful and substantial work.
Why Is Rumble Fish Sofia Coppola’s Favorite?
In her interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Sofia Coppola elaborated on her thoughts aboutRumble Fish: “I love that it’s an art film about teenagers. I just love the way that it’s shot – I love those old lenses, those Zeiss lenses; they have a softer feel,” (in a strange twist of fate, Sofia utilized the exact lenses her father used to shoot2010’s underratedSomewhere). As she noted,Rumble Fishis actually one of the most stylistically unique films her father has ever made.
While Coppola has always been known as a classicalist in his filmmaking,Rumble Fishsaw him take heavy influence from film noir, especially German Expressionism of the 1920s. With cinematographer Stephen H. Burum, he shot on high-contrast black-and-white film, often employed a handheld camera to create a sense of instability, and in some of the dream sequences, used smoke and fog. Additionally, hedrew inspiration from Jean Luc-Godard and the French New Wave, particularly in how they prioritized character interaction over plot. The result is one of the most experimental works of his legendary career and certainly one of his most unique even today.
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In this regard, it’s not even slightly surprising that his daughter responded so strongly to the film.Sofia Coppola’s filmography regularly has a similarly loose quality driven more by character and mood than story, with movies likeSomewherethat could easily be considered art films. Even more telling is that her career is full of stories about the difficulties of youth.The Virgin Suicidesexplored the predicament of feeling oppressed and misunderstood,The Bling Ringcaptured the power of becoming the object of others’ envy, andevenLost in Translationwas deeply empathetic in its portrait of a young woman on the brink of adulthood and the pain of feeling trapped by it.
So, when Sofia Coppola praisedRumble Fishfor being “an art film about teenagers,” it explains so much about both that film and her own career;what are her movies, if not art films about teenagers? It surely seems influential on her filmmaking techniques as well; she’s never been afraid to be more aesthetically daring than her father, and in fact, she often makes use of handheld camerawork and high-contrast lighting. Francis madeRumble Fishbecause he felt a personal connection to the story, but the irony is that it arguably makes his daughter’s work click more than his own.
Rumble Fish Is an Overlooked Coppola Joint
But even outside how clearly it shaped Sofia Coppola’s voice as a filmmaker,Rumble Fishis still a deeply moving coming-of-age piece. LikeThe Outsiders, it finds a surprising sensitivity within an outwardly lurid subject, and from a technical perspective, it remains one ofFrancis Ford Coppola’s most unique films. It’s certainly not the kind of film you’d expect most movie snobs to champion overThe GodfatherorApocalypse Now, but it’s certainly one of his career’s most underrated.Rumble Fishis available to rent onApple TV,Google Play, andPrime Video.
