"Breaking Away" (1979)

Would it be any surprise to anyone if I told you the only person who didn’t have a massive career after this movie was the lead character played by Dennis Christopher? Yes, that even included the villain of the movie played by an almost unrecognizable Hart Bochner…Ellis from “Die Hard”?

Consider that this movie also yielded Dennis Quaid, Jackie Earle Haley & Daniel Stern and Paul Dooley, you have to admit they hit on something.

It took me a while to watch this movie. Since back in 1993 I got a rejection letter from Indiana University. It was a school that I felt was a pipeline to USC, which is where I would’ve have loved to have done graduate film. But that was not meant to be. The powers that be felt I was too dumb to attend their university. And thus my hatred for anything Bloomington.

They make a big deal about this being on the campus of Indiana University, which…I can’t blame them. The complete support they got seems immeasurable compared to the production value they were able to get. And that’s just Indiana’s style though. Very helpful friendly people.

Directed by Peter Yates (an Englishman), this movie is about growing up in a small college town, having a talent and a passion but within earshot of the locals who believed there’s the college students that will move onto bigger and better things, and the locals who will continue to exist as…worker bees. Such was the attitude back in the day. Such was the attitude of my undergraduate school at Bowling Green State where the town existed simply to support the school. We called the locals “townies” in this movie they are referred to as “Cutters” since they business of the town were stone cutters.

Dennis plays a high school kid at the edge of college years, very focused at being the top of the bike world. His influences are the Italians, as they seemed to have won every bike race…in his mind anyway. He adheres to their lifestyle and mannerisms and inadvertently catches the eye of a college girl. He puts on the Italian ruse, but…as with this particular sitcom moment, the truth will eventually come out.

In lesser (read: Hollywood) hands, it would be a sitcom. In this movie, there is some really seriousness to the hurt he will have to admit to himself and to the girl he fooled. There’s no way getting around it with laughs. The honesty of this movie, is why I believe it endured so long. There is a moment…again in lesser hands, would’ve become a slow-motion grind to the finish line. They decide to pull back and allow you to see the last two laps, in a final charge (which to this day, I’ve not seen in any other race movie). Usually we’d see it in close-ups, slow-motion, just milking it ad nauseum.

This took me back to my college days. We didn’t have as great of a quarry as they have in Bloomington, but my closest friend (to this day) and I still recall the days we’d sit on a platform at the middle of our quarry and drink box wine. It’s unfortunate those days are probably over with, due to political correctness and general rods in asses. As a side note, looking at feathered haired honeys of the late 70’s brings me back to a time of simplicity. To think those women are in their 50’s now…this was a fun ride down memory lane.