Pretty In Pink by Jonathan Bernstein

Author:Jonathan Bernstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466890626
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

5

Brats Out of Hell

The Rapid Rise and Long, Slow Fall of the Brat Pack

If the librarian at Lone Star Junior High in Fresno had any notion of the ultimate consequences of her actions, perhaps she might not have been so enthusiastic in her petitioning of Francis Ford Coppola. However, her missive so powerfully conveyed the deep affection that the students at her school felt for S. E. Hinton’s novel of midsixties teen alienation, The Outsiders, and was so rigid in its conviction that he was the only auteur visionary enough to bring the book to filmic life, that Coppola was inspired to take on the task.

None of which is intended for a second to suggest that his subsequent movie of The Outsiders (1983)—which bears a dedication to Lone Star Junior High—was anything less than a completely involving wallow in wounded innocence. It totally captures the “us against them” fervor that 16-year-old Susie Hinton poured into her story, putting even the most boorish viewer firmly on the side of its assembly of trembling-lipped angelic underdogs. Ravishing to look at, its Cinemascope framing and super-saturated close-ups render the cast iconic and gorgeous. What might have given the Lone Star librarian a moment’s pause, though, is the realization that she was, in effect, laying the foundations for a platform that would introduce an entire stud farm of fresh young acting talent into the national consciousness. Many of The Outsiders’ ensemble had debuted in earlier movies or TV shows, but their collective participation in a movie so drenched with emotion and a sense of separatism (there are no adult characters and only one female, Diane Lane, of any importance) meant that they were suddenly perceived as a fully formed new generation of stars, fluent in the argot and the angst of the new generation of cinemagoers. Separately and in factions, these leaders of the new school enjoyed a speedy trajectory through soundstages, bedroom walls, nightclub back rooms and tabloid front pages. Some of them approximated the shambling humility and unformed aspirations of the gauche guy or gal next door. Others played at being reckless rule breakers, thrusting young heartthrobs whose leather biker boots shone with the slavishly applied saliva of prostrated studio heads. The fact that some of the actors who appeared in teen ensemble movies would carouse offscreen in the same groupings led to the coining and exhaustive utilization of a term that evoked shudders and nausea in both those to whom the moniker applied and the others for whom it was inappropriate.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.