MOVIES & TV

Appleton: I finally watched 'Breaking Away.' Am I now a real Hoosier?

Rory Appleton
Indianapolis Star

When I was first hired here, my editor at the time, Allison Carter, told me three films were essential to understanding Indiana and, in particular, its previous generations: "Rudy," "Hoosiers" and "Breaking Away."

"Rudy" was mandatory viewing in grade school — even in California. Overcoming adversity, beating the odds and all that. It's a sweet movie, even if my younger self had no sense of its time and place. I would probably have guessed South Bend to be a gymnastics position, not a city's name.

I watched "Hoosiers" some years later, as I was running through the sports movie pantheon. It was fine then, but I understand the appeal a lot more now that I live here. The many basketball hoops I saw when driving through any neighborhood prompted me to buy 3-year-old son one right away just in case there was some law I didn't know about.

This week, I finally completed my homework and became a true Hoosier — at least when it comes to pop culture.

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"Breaking Away" has its fairy tale moments as well as a few outright ridiculous scenes, but I was struck by two things: The time spent meticulously hammering out the struggle — with growing up, social structure and their overall lot in life — within the main characters, and the many scenes that highlight the gorgeous Bloomington area.

With one monologue, Dennis Quaid taught me more about class structure and the tension between students and locals in Bloomington at the time than any book probably could.

Quaid's character is no longer the high school quarterback. He's Mike — "20-year-old Mike, 30-year-old Mike, mean old man Mike." He's going to watch wave after wave of new quarterbacks come through IU, and it will never be him.

Mike is now just some guy who needs to get a job and work the rest of his life away. The pejorative term lobbed at the main characters by the snobby frat boys in the film, "cutter," doesn't fit, as Mike explains he can't even cut stone like his father because they've closed most of the quarries.

The scene also perfectly clocks post-high school ennui, regardless of the city it takes place in. I know people like that who graduated 35 years later and 2,000 miles away from the film's time and place.

A 2007 Indiana Public Media article noted "cutter" was invented for the film because the real local term, "stoners" or "stonies," had come to broadly mean something quite different. It still does, of course, so decades of hindsight show that to be a good call.

Breaking Away tells a great story, albeit through a somewhat narrow scope.

My modern college-boy sensibilities lead me to believe there were probably some even deeper inequities within the area for the members of these various classes who happened to not be white men.

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The trees and buildings of Bloomington are also among the film's enduring qualities.

I've walked around Bloomington and Brown County State Park (where some additional scenes were shot) a few times in my first year in Indiana, and the wildlife and colors are so vividly specific. If they'd have shot this somewhere else and tried to call it Bloomington, anyone who had ever set foot in either Monroe or Brown counties would be able to spot the fake. I truly believe that.

It was interesting to see the Monroe County Courthouse and the familiar facades that surround it with totally different storefronts. How many times must those businesses have changed over in the nearly 45 years since this was shot?

I understand the Little 500 race and real-life cyclist Dave Blase are what inspired screenwriter Steve Tesich, who went to IU with Blase, but I was more interested in the fictional characters.

I would have loved an ending that was simply just Dave going to college, Moocher settling in with his wife, Mike growing bitter and Cyril taking a few more years to figure something out. How real is that?

Related:Iconic 'Breaking Away' quarry filled in

But, based on my recommended watching, it does seem essential that a classic Indiana tale include some kind of sport and an uplifting ending. I get it. And Tesich won an Oscar for the screenplay, so I am thoroughly overruled.

I do have to make fun of the last scene, though. The literal last scene, in which Dave's dad is cycling and sees Dave and the French student whizzing by and makes this crazy face then captured in freeze frame.

What is that look? It is surprise? It shouldn't be. His son, a teenager in college, changed his entire personality on a dime solely to impress a woman. Hey, look, I found another timeless aspect of this film.

One other knock: The villain frat guy (Rod, played by Hart Bochner) smiles and applauds the cutter victory. No, sorry, he was too much of a jerk. That character would be like 68 years old now, and he'd still be a jerk. Didn't that guy betray John McClane in "Die Hard" a decade later? I rest my case.

Though its age is apparent — the '70s really were an abhorrent time for fashion and home decor — "Breaking Away" is as good a film as any around which to form part of a state's identity.

Are there any other films necessary to understanding Indiana? Perhaps even something made in this millennium? Please let me know. I don't mind a little more homework.

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Rory Appleton is the pop culture reporter and columnist at IndyStar. Contact him at 317-552-9044 and rappleton@indystar.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RoryDoesPhonics.