All The World’s A Cage: The Outsiders. By Rufus Black.
Welcome once again, to another instalment of All the World’s a Cage, today looking at The Outsiders (1983), directed by none other than Francis Ford Coppola. This one is going to be slightly unusual. Indeed, I realise that in fact I have prefaced every one of these with that very promise, but this is a particularly strange one. Why? Well, Nicolas Cage might not be in this movie. I honestly can’t say for certain.
An explanation is in order. If indeed, Nicolas is in this film, it is as an uncredited extra. IMDb lists him as one, and Wikipedia used to but does no longer. His presence is bandied around in some circles as a fact, but nobody can provide any stills that definitively show he is there. That’s not unusual, as there are a great many extras (‘Soc #1’ would be his role, if he has one) and quite often they are relegated to being quite far back in dark scenes, so you can’t see much of them. In some cases, a limb or so. There were a few instances where I thought I’d found him through careful frame-by-frame searching, only for my suspect to come closer into view to be revealed as some not-Cage. Thus – he may be there, but unclear enough for nobody to know.
Alternatively, he might have been in cut scenes. Heather Langenkamp was an extra in The Outsiders, but whatever scene she was in was left on the cutting room floor, and our intrepid hero may have been in a similar position. Quite a few people had cameo roles here – Flea, for one, S.E. Hinton (who wrote the book) and Sofia Coppola. So there.
Francis Ford Coppola has publicly stated that Cage did audition for this film. From what I can gather, it seems he auditioned for Dally, Matt Dillon’s role. That makes it seem quite likely that he’s in there somewhere, given that he auditioned for Fast Times, didn’t get it, and ended up an extra. Patrick Swayze was asked about this in 2002, but he says he doesn’t really remember and couldn’t say for sure. Hmm.
I think this might be the loosest All the World’s a Cage we do. I think. Probably go back on that later.
Regardless, if we review this and he’s not in it, we’ve just seen an extra movie. If we don’t review it and he was in it, the sky implodes. So, without further ado, let’s get into it.
Review
The Outsiders was released in 1983, directed by Francis Coppola (dropping the ‘Ford’ for this one)and based upon the book, The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton. I’m going to mention here that the cut of it I saw was “The Complete Novel” re-release. I didn’t realise this until the end credits and the 2005 date stamp. Thus, my view of this movie is almost certainly going to be different from anyone primarily familiar with the 1983 theatrical cut.
After The Rain People, two Godfathers and Apocalypse Now, Coppola would be established by this point. On the suggestion of a school librarian he would adapt The Outsiders, and would then direct Rumble Fish released the same year, also based on a work by Hinton, and with some of the same cast (including Nicolas). Speaking of the cast, there’s a veritable Who’s Who in this one. There’s Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane and even Tom Cruise sneaking in there. And at the centre of it all, there’s C. Thomas Howell. I knew C. Thomas from The Hitcher and always wondered why he only seemed to turn up for small roles outside of that. After his thoroughly brilliant performance in this one to boot, I was really scratching my head over why he never became a household name. Well, it seems at roughly the same time as The Hitcher he also starred in Soul Man, wherein his character pretends to be black in order to attain a scholarship. Strangely enough, he seems to have had trouble getting prominent roles in big studio movies from then on. A shame, given how remarkably talented he is, especially here. He’s mastered the line between sweet, impressionable young kid and the tough delinquent he tries to present himself as. He never veers too much into either, so comes off as neither a whelp nor a hammy rogue. Since so much of the film rests on him carrying the audience through it all, he does a fantastic job. As soon as he reaches his house in the movie, we’re greeted with an array of black-haired greasers with similar/identical styles, and I immediately thought I was gonna have a tough job keeping track of who they all are. Pretty quickly, not only do we recognise all of the cast, but they all have such distinct and clear personalities that it becomes dead easy. This is such a strong ensemble cast that forms a cohesive whole, but I will say that of particular note is Matt Dillon giving a wonderfully nuanced performance as Dally. We see over time that, though he first seems obviously the rough and volatile member of the group, is really more open, trustworthy and reliable. Swayze is dynamite as well, you can just tell as soon as he turns up that Darry is under near constant strain holding together his unstable family.
Stephen H. Burum is the DoP, and he loves a big sky. He’d be a favourite of Brian De Palma later on, and you can see why here. Lots of shots you might consider De Palma-y, including one of the most brilliant split focus shots I’ve ever seen. Personally, I do not like split focus that much, or at least prefer it in moderation. I find the out-of-focus portion slaps me right out of the film quite often. In The Outsiders, there are at least two uses of it, and in one I could barely see the out-of-focus area at all. Maybe I just haven’t seen a lot, but I’ve never seen that before. Another De Palma-y shot (although maybe I’ll have to start thinking of it as Burum-y) is the Dutch, a favourite of mine, and there’s a few instances here. All we see of our protagonists’ parents is their car being hit by a train in a rotating Dutch slow motion shot that looks perfect. Lovely flair like that aside, it’s just a lovely looking film overall.
It’s an engaging romp, sort of a Grease with teeth, in a way. I can see why it’s a popular cult movie, anyone with a real taste for ’50s rock and Greaser style could very easily fall in and get immersed. My complaints are nitpicks at best. The ‘rumble’ near the end is chock full of punches and kicks that clearly don’t connect. The choreography for the fight is, from a wide perspective, electric and vibrant, but the blows themselves feel pretty staged. This might also be worse for me than everyone else because I was going over the fight again and again searching for Nicolas. Tom Cruise, though he’s fully committed and present in his scenes, just has a surplus character. I don’t remember his name. He works with his material but that material doesn’t really individualise him or give him anything of any substance or affect to do. I also felt a bit cheated out with the stylistic fade outs at prominent points of violence – the blood fade during the fountain drowning and the flame fade during the burning church sequence. Both felt like a workaround rather than showing pertinent events. Then again, I’m a bit bloodthirsty and it’s not really that kind of film. Still, fading to the aftermath immediately diffuses all the tension and leaves you with a hollow “Oh, I guess that’s what happened” feeling.
Quibbles aside, this is a pretty ironclad film by a master of cinema. Maybe because he’s a master it gets overlooked somewhat by comparison to his previous titanic films. It’s one of those where I can’t fault it, but at the same time it’s not like I kept thinking back to it all week. And yet I’m willing to chalk that up to a matter of personal taste.
8/10
As A Cage Film
Well, I think I’ve already belaboured how difficult it is to dig up any solid evidence on his being in it or otherwise. I’ll ask him if I meet him. If you or anyone you know worked on The Outsiders, please contact BRWC with any information, and you’ll probably get a nice little email from me saying thanks. I don’t know what more I can offer you. No, I don’t have any money. Leave me alone.
Also, if you are Nic Cage, please contact BRWC. Goes without saying, though, really, doesn’t it?
Onto the Cage film assessment.
How much of the motion picture is he in?
Either not at all, entirely cut, or so little nobody can definitively say he’s there. Boo.
0/10
Could anyone else have played this role?
Yes. So much so, they might have, and we can’t tell the difference.
0/5
Does he get Uncaged?
No.
0/5
Would it suck without him?
Again, we can just purloin the score from the review anyway. With or without him, it’s either identical or virtually identical.
8/10
Cage Fight – Could Soc #1 beat Nicolas in a fight?
Now we need to think a bit. Nicolas from The Best of Times was pretty deranged and physically dangerous. Soc #1, well… the Socs get a lot of fights in this film. And they acquit themselves okay… given that they’re just a bunch of popular kids, they brawl nastily and are always bringing out weapons. That said, they also get their asses kicked in the big rumble. So I think Nicolas would probably take this victory. It’s also likely that the fight is a flawless victory for Nicolas due to Soc #1’s lack of existence. I’m going to split the difference and give him a 1.
1/3
Cage Score
Now, this is perhaps higher than it should be for a Cage-less film. It’s also a pain calculating this with a category out of three. This metric may be amended next month for functional reasons.
22.67%
We hope you're enjoying BRWC. You should check us out on our social channels, subscribe to our newsletter, and tell your friends. BRWC is short for battleroyalewithcheese.