An Art film for Teenagers

I've just listened to Francis Ford Coppola’s audio commentary for Rumble Fish and very much enjoyed the great director ruminating on his vision for the film, ( “an art film for teenagers”), his experiences with the actors and so on. Coppola makes no bones about his love for the film, it’s clearly his favourite picture and at one point he ponders why he didn't devote his career to making small, independently-minded films. It would have been an interesting alternative career trajectory to be sure. Elsewhere Coppola reveals that the look of The Motorcycle Boy was modeled in part on Albert Camus, with accounts for Mickey Rourke’s cool French intellectual style. In an amusing moment Coppola recalls an unhappy week Chris Marker spent on the set, invited to work on the film to pick up some second unit shots but completely uninspired by the location around Tulsa Marker promptly left. Highly recommended listening.