The Rain People (Coppola, 1969): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.20pm
This film, which also screens on June 17th and 24th, is part of the Wanda and Beyond season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.
Time Out review:
Francis Ford Coppola's fourth feature, a fascinating early road movie made entirely
on location with a minimal crew and a constantly evolving script. Never
very popular by comparison with Easy Rider probably because it
suggested that dropping out was mere escapism, it has far greater depth
and complexity to its curious admixture of feminist tract and pure
thriller. Shirley Knight is outstanding (in a superb cast) as the pregnant woman
who runs away in quest of the identity she feels she has lost as a Long
Island housewife, and finds herself increasingly tangled in the snares
of responsibility through her encounters with a football player left
mindless by an accident (James Caan) and a darkly amorous traffic cop
(Robert Duvall). Symbolism rumbles beneath the characterisations (Caan as the
baby she is running from and with, Duvall as the sexuality and
domination she is trying to deny) but it is never facile; and the
rhythms of the road movie (leading through wonderfully bizarre locations
to a resonantly melodramatic finale) confirm that Coppola's prime
talent lies in choreographing movement.
Tom Milne
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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