Grazie for this film! In a raw spirit of the late 70’s this film inspires and entertains and brings out the humanity in me. This is a “go to” film and will be until the day I die. A masterpiece you might say.
Listen to my quick and dirty review!
https://podomatic.com/embed/html5/episode/8569086?autoplay=false“A small-town boy obsessed with the Italian cycling team vies for the affections of a college girl.” -IMDB
Dennis Christopher Dave
Dennis Quaid Mike
Daniel Stern Cyril
Jackie Earle Haley MoocherSteve Tesich
Comedy, Drama, Romance, Sport
PG
Fri 20 Jul 1979 UTC
101min
IMDB Rating: 7.7
Known for An Innocent Man, Krull and Steve McQueen’s Bullitt, Peter Yates is the accomplished director who brought this vision to life. It’s college/career coming of age film with a gritty passion not seen much in the genre.
Dennis Christopher is pure oxygen as “Dave.” His plight is the plight of every young man in American between the ages of 16 and 20. I was right there with him. Hormones make you want to hump every girl you see and explore a new universe apart from what your parents have made for you at home. He’s a guy who’s ready to take on the world but the world won’t let him yet. There is a cast of thousands besides him including: Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley, Jackie Earle Haley Barbara Barrie, and Paul Dooley. They are ALL in top form in telling this story and MY how young the all look in 1979.
This film is the story of Dave and his friends just out of high school with nowhere to go. Their dads were “cutters” of concrete. They feel trapped in the identity. The film is about Dave finding himself. He pretends to be Italian to get girls and portray a more preferable identity. He also races a bike. Two strategic races make a metaphor for the content the film seeks to get across. Who are you when you’re young and who can you be when you choose to break away from assigned identity.
The italian classical music in this is uplifting. Dave is one of my favorite young men filled with angst in film as well as all literature. He is remarkable to watch. I feel like he is me, at that age anyway. The bike racing, the gang of guy friends stuff, the tension from his father to get out of the house, it’s all beautiful like a rainbow landing on ones face. I can’t say enough good about this film.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This film transcends time. It’s principles and contexts are so primal and universal to growing up and finding ones way in the world that it is truly timeless. I recommend to any and all, this is a remarkable “perfect” film like only a few others I have run across.
10/10
3 thoughts on “Breaking Away (1979)”
Comments are closed.