FREE ON YOUTUBE Francis Ford Coppola - The Outsiders 

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) If Francis Ford Coppola should be dejected in 1983 after the collapse of his Zoetrope Studios, you don't see it in The Outsiders. The Outsiders doesn't just look like "great cinema", but like "the greatest cinema ever"! Coppola looks back to the 50s to Nebraska, but probably not to his own youth, but to the time of the big Hollywood hams. The Outsiders starts with a banner, the movie title passes us from right to left. The colors seem like a Technicolor experiment on Acid, with Stevie Wonder singing Stay Gold. This seems to be abundantly blown away by the wind(s)... Everything over-stylized, nothing real! The outsiders are a street gang, but romantically transfigured. They're certainly not real kids, but part of Coppola's multi-layered "Storytelling". The movie is based on the well known novel by S. E. Hinton. It's about the class struggle of the rich Popper Gang and the oily Greasers from the lower class. In the car cinema Greaser wants to rip Dallas Winston (Matt Dillon) Cherry (Diane Lane) open while his two younger and insecure friends Johnny Cade and Ponyboy Curtis (Ralph Macchio and C. Thomas Howell) try to appease him. For Cherry, Ponyboy feels the shy feelings of love that one only experiences as a teenager. Outside it comes to an argument with Cherry's rich boyfriend. After Dallas separates from his friends, both don't know where to go. Johnny's father rages at home and Ponyboy lives together with his two older brothers after the death of his parents. He doesn't want to go home either. While both spend the cold night in the park, the poppers approach. It comes to a fight and Johnny stabs a popper in self-defense. Both have to flee and go into hiding. We now experience Johnny and Ponyboy in exile reading Margaret Mitchell together, talking about life and dreaming. Both seem convincing and I remembered the poetry of a friendship like the one you have at fifteen. Unfortunately, what Coppola builds around it is less convincing. In artificial poses Coppola shows the two of them in front of a kitschy sunset and does everything to resurrect the classic Hollywood time. The problem with stylizing his characters in this way is the following: They can hardly breathe and seem to be alive. That's why it's difficult for us to immerse ourselves completely in his film. The material of the novel probably only lasts for a film of 90 minutes and Coppola is forced to kill time. Many scenes seem exactly like that, too! Hardly anything in the movie is so motivated that it seems necessary, almost everything just happens out of arbitrariness. Matt Dillon's Dallas seems to be copied from old 50s rebel movies. Dallas is a victim of postmodernism, in which everything is stolen together. Coppola himself doesn't seem to be interested in his production, but only in the "look" of his film: The perfect light, the most incredible pictures, the perfect pose! His Greasers therefore sometimes seem like excerpts from a painting. In short, there is not too much life in The Outsiders. The film resembles a stylistic experiment. But: I remember how successful the film was when it was later shown again on television. Everyone in the schoolyard talked about it, the Bravo brought folding posters of the outsiders. Once it was because all the 80s stars of the Brat-Pack appeared in the film: Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe or very briefly Tom Cruise. On the other hand, we weren't used to realistic narration at that time. That came later with the indie cinema of the 90s. In the 80s everything was just a surface shine and a chic cover! Probably the Outsiders came to life in our fantasy! For me the whole film is part of my memories, my personal nostalgia. Today I'm no different than Coppola was when he shot the film...