'Breaking Away' Showed Growing Up

Main Cast:

Dennis Christopher as Dave Stohler

Dennis Quaid as Mike

Daniel Stern as Cyril

Jackie Earle Haley as Moocher

Paul Dooley as Ray Stohler (Dave's father)

Barbara Barrie as Evelyn Stohler (Dave's mother)

Robyn Douglass as Katherine

Hart Bochner as Rod

 

This film is a dramedy from 1979 directed by Peter Yates, and it won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. It deals with four guys just out of high school in the Bloomington, Indiana area. The four boys are trying to decide what to do as they move into adulthood. Dave Stohler loves bicycle racing, and he idolizes the Italian team so much, he starts to study Italian, although in the meantime, he speaks English with an Italian accent, sings Italian songs, including opera, eats Italian food, calls his dad Papa," and.... well, you get the idea. His father, Ray, has a heart condition and is on a restricted diet. He is a former worker in the declining limestone business of the area, and is now owner of a used car lot, and he can't understand his son's fascination with everything Italian. The boy's mother, Evelyn, wants her son to enjoy this last "youthful" summer, as he decides upon his course in life. She realizes how quickly time passes. She fixes the Italian dishes for the three of them, which only irritates the father, who finally says, "I want some American food, I want French fries!" The father and son have some contentious times, as the father wants his son to prepare for the hard knocks of life; hard knocks he knows all about, as his son's cheerful personality brings his dad to say, "He's never tired, he's never miserable. When I was his age, I was tired and miserable." The dad has a little fear that his son may be more successful than he has been, for when the mother mentions about Dave possibly going to college, the father says, "Why should he go to college? I never went to college."

The four guys, all from working class families, hangout together and swim in one of the now abandoned limestone quarries. The thing is, some of the college students, all from fairly well off families, also go there to swim, a situation that especially troubles one of the guys, Mike, who resents the intrusion into the local swimming place by the college students. Further, the college students often call the townspeople "cutters," a put down term associated with the stone cutting business. Mike, who played football in high school, presents himself as a tough guy, but he fears life now that he is out of high school, and he wants to try to keep things as they've been; to keep that "old gang of mine" together. He makes one of the guys feel uneasy about having a girl friend, as she is a threat to take the guy away from the group. Mike lashes out at the university students, as he feels insecure about his working class identity versus their middle and upper middle class upbringings. In an absolutely great scene, Mike talks about how he was a good football player in high school, but now he will have to hear about the new university "hotshot" player every year, "and it will never be me.....These college kids out here are never going to get old or out of shape." Then he mentions how the students call the the town's people "cutters," as a put down.

Then there is Cyril, who has some smarts, and who makes funny little comments, but in an intelligent sort of way. He is trying for a scholarship. Then there is Moocher, a little guy who claims not to be bothered by his small size, but nothing gets Moocher riled more than someone calling him "shorty." Moocher is the guy with the girlfriend that so bothers Mike. And speaking of girlfriends, Dave meets a girl, Kathy, who attends Indiana University, and he convinces her he is really from Italy. The thing is, she is the girlfriend of one of the university guys, Rod, who likes using the term "cutters" as a snooty put down.

After the boys get into a destructive fight with Rod and his friends in the university cafeteria, the university administration sees how nasty the feelings are between the students and the townspeople, and the decision is made to allow a cycling team from the town into the university race, a decision met with scorn by Rod who tells the university president the townspeople aren't good enough to be in the race. The guys want Dave to be the leader of the team, with them filling out the required four members to enter the race. The problem is, if he enters the race, Kathy will know he's not an Italian, that he made up that story, and that will likely end any chance he has for her. He tells the guys he's getting a job and he goes to work for his dad at the car lot. 

In the meantime, an announcement is made that the Italian team is coming to the Bloomington area to participate in a different race, a race Dave can't wait to enter. With the race only a couple of days off, Dave asks his dad if he can have that day off. His dad refuses. Then, a student who bought a car comes with some friends pushing the car onto the lot. He wants a refund, saying he was told verbally there was a 90 day guarantee. Dave steps in and says his dad should give the refund, causing his dad heart palpitations and the need for bed rest. The car lot is closed while the dad remains at home to recover. Dave races with the Italians, who cheat, and cause him to wreck, and thus be eliminated from the race. Now he sees some of the nasty reality of life. Disillusioned, he goes home to see how his father is. This is a great, great, great scene! Dave's father admonishes him for giving the student the refund. Dave, terribly dejected, apologizes and says, "I'm sorry I gave that guy his money back. Everybody cheats, I just didn't know." His father, now seeing his son's pain, says calmly, "Now you know." * Now the son experiences misery, and he cries and hugs his dad, who says, "I didn't want you to be this miserable." The loss of innocence and idealism is very painful! You may have to hold back some tears yourself.

Turned off by the Italian team's cheating, Dave gives up on his Italian "life." While his father recovers, he takes Dave to the university and tells him how he helped cut the stone for many of the buildings. He and Dave begin to reconnect as father and son. Dave calls himself a "cutter," but his dad corrects him, "You're not a cutter, I'm a cutter." He then encourages Dave to go to college. The resentment is gone and he wants his son to do better than he has done. With Moocher invited to dinner, Dave's parents spring a special surprise on them. They show them t-shirts they have had made for the boys to wear as a team for the university race. Across the front is the word, "CUTTERS." The boys embrace who they are, no phoniness, no trying to be something they are not.

I'll leave it here for the events of the race; plus, there are many things that happen during the film that I haven't touched upon. If you haven't seen this movie, please do so. If you haven't seen it for a long time, be sure to refresh your memory by watching it again. It had no major stars at that time and it wasn't a big budget production, but it is a wonderful movie and I'm certain you'll enjoy it.

* This scene has stuck with me all of these years, and back in, I'll guess, about 1993, there was this very nice lady who lived in an apartment building I managed. She was deeply religious and naive. She came to the office one day and told me she had had some money stolen from her apartment. It hurt her even more, because it was money she had collected for her church. I don't remember the amount now, but this was not like 5 or 10 dollars, but perhaps more like $100 or thereabouts. She had left her apartment door ajar and went down one flight of stairs to the laundry room, which was located right below her apartment. She said she was only gone a few minutes and when she came back, the money was gone from her table. I remember the day well, and I recalled the scene from "Breaking Away," when she said, "I didn't think people were so nasty, that you can't step away for a couple of minutes, but that they won't rob you." I answered as Dave's father did, "Now you know."

Photo is from the 2012 edition 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment DVD

 WORD HISTORY:
Metaphor-This compound, with the "meta" part being distantly related to English "mid," and with the second part, "phor," being distantly related to "bear" (that is the verb meaning, "to carry," usually with the idea of "to carry something heavy," and also, "to give birth to offspring"), goes back to the Indo European root, "medhi" (for the "meta" part), which had the notion of "among, in the midst;" thus, figuratively, "in common with." This gave Greek "metá," which meant, "after, between ('in the midst'), across, in common together." The second part goes back to Indo European ""bher," which meant, "to carry" and "to give birth, or to yield produce." This gave Greek "pherein," meaning, "to carry, to bear" (in the sense, "carry"). Greek then formed the compound, "metaphérein," meaning, "to carry over or across;" thus also, "to carry the meaning of a word over to a word of similar meaning ("in common," sort of). This then produced the Greek noun, "metaphora," meaning, "a transference," again with the, "transfer of word meaning to another word," being one of its meanings. Latin borrowed the word as "metaphora," with the "word transfer" meaning. The word was passed to Latin-based French as "métaphore," and English borrowed the word circa 1500, with Latin likely providing further reinforcement.