Breaking Away

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The title of this film, Breaking Away (1979), not only refers to trying to win a bicycle race but also refers to the characters trying to overcome limitations that others imposed on them, and sometimes, inhibitions that they have imposed on themselves.

Peter Yates directed this movie, and he knows something about four-wheel chases since he also made the Steve McQueen hit, Bullitt. Steve Tesich wrote the screenplay and received an Oscar for his work.

The opening sums up the whole feel of the story. A group of young men walk along a quarry, a place that is a big hole in the ground. Mike (a young Dennis Quaid) sings a funny song about burying his body in the parking lot of the A&P, and having his soul redeemed with trading stamps. Cyril (Daniel Stern who would go on to voice the older version of Fred Savage in The Wonder Years, and act as one of the crooks in the Home Alone films) talks about how he lost all interest in life on this spot when a girl chose another guy. These fellows deal with their difficulties with humor and anger. There is one youth, Dave Stohler (Dennis Christopher), who is different. He speaks with an Italian accent and uses some Italian words. He carries a trophy. He seeks the exotic and is a bike racer who tries to break away from the pedestrian lifestyle that these youths have inherited.

Dave is in stark contrast to the everyday Bloomington, Indiana neighborhood as he rides his bike, singing in Italian. Along with Cyril, Dave’s father, Ray (Paul Dooley) gets most of the funny lines. Ray sees his son as a weirdo bum, wearing “Ity” cologne that attracts flies, saying Italian words, and eating “Ity” food, ending in “eenie,” like “fettuccine.” He humorously says he wants American food like “French fries.” Dave’s mother, Evelyn (Barbara Barrie, who received a Best Supporting Actress nomination) reminds her husband that their son was sickly until he started the bike training, which shows that a dream can aid in escaping life’s obstacles. She is supportive, serving Italian food and calling the cat by his new name, Fellini.

Dad says that he thought Dave would go to college, and then reverses himself by saying why should he go, since Ray never did. Ray says his son should be miserable and tired looking for a job, which is what is supposed to be the working-class way of life. Dad, who has acquiesced to limitations, sees his son’s desire to escape the father’s reality as pointless and a repudiation of the Ray’s reconciling himself to settle for lesser goals. Ray has stooped to working as a stereotypical shady used car salesman. He feels his son is almost like an alien as he shaves his legs like Italian bicycle racers.

The scene shifts to Moocher (Jackie Earl Haley, who later starred in Watchmen and Lincoln among others). He is in love with Nancy (Amy Wright). Moocher is a little guy, but he is dauntless, lifting weights as he talks with her. She hopes to be head cashier at some point. Moocher’s house is run down and needs to be sold since his dad went to Chicago to look for a job. But his wish to find happiness with the girl he loves, whom he later marries, shows another version of finding happiness despite living in poverty.

The young men are unemployed A&P workers. Mike was fired and the others quit, as Mike invokes the Musketeers’ motto of “all for one.” They are loyal to each other, as Dave says Moocher can move in with him when his house is sold. Dave says there are big families in Italy, and they all live together. It shows a desire to have each person supporting the other. Moocher says that Dave is starting to believe he is Italian, to which Cyril says,” I wish I was somebody.” He feels like his life has nothing to distinguish itself. Cyril jokingly says that he wishes he could be a cartoon figure. Behind the humor is another wish to break free of his depressing reality. Mike asks how Cyril became so stupid. Cyril says it was heredity, and then wittingly asks Mike “What’s your excuse?” which shows that Cyril is not as dumb as Mike says.

Mike jumps into the water hole at the excavated quarry and goes into a refrigerator at the bottom of the water as a joke. The others think he is caught and dive to rescue him. However, he already found a way out. It shows the loyalty of the young men to each other, but it also shows the feeling of entrapment and the ability to escape.

The college students show up and Mike is infuriated that they would invade this place that he feels belongs to them. He wants to get revenge by going on campus to stake out the college turf. Mike says that the students have it made because they’re “rich.” Dave says Italians are poor but are happy, to which Mike says, “Maybe in Italy.” It is a minimalist critique of how poverty may take a greater toll in the United States.

On campus, some of the students throw a frisbee around and it gets away from them. It flies into the street and Mike’s car runs over it, to his delight. The male student curses them, calling them “cutters,” which is the term they think is derogatory. It refers to the fact that the local men cut limestone to build the university buildings. So, the implication is that the townies are only fit for labor, not intellectual pursuits. As they watch the college football team practice, Mike laments that he never reached his goal of becoming a famous quarterback despite being a good athlete in high school. He says he must read about the praise of each succeeding football star, and he will never join those ranks. However, he holds onto a cigarette but never lights it because he feels like he should stay in shape. It shows a lingering hope that he may attain recognition someday.

Dave is alone practicing Italian on campus. He is learning in his own way, not as a student, outside the classroom. He sees Katherine (Robyn Douglass) ride away on her scooter. She drops a book, and we have a boy literally chasing after a girl as he bicycles after her to return the book. (Christopher is quite an accomplished bicyclist in this movie). He automatically adopts the Italian accent as he gives her the book, knowing instinctively that his being a simple “cutter” will not win him any points. He says her name is Caterina, and she takes pleasure hearing its musicality in Italian.

Dave gets a flat tire (showing his deflated opinion of his cutter self?) and, in contrast, watches the college boys train for bicycle racing, as Katherine leads them in a Mercedes, an obvious reference to her economic status.

As opera music plays in the background, Ray ponders what he’s going to do about Dave. He says that he’s afraid to look into his son’s eyes because they may twirl like “pinwheels.” Dad is implying the existence of insanity, but those pinwheels may be a reference to Dave’s bicycle, and his desire to ride away from hereditary misery.

A great episode has Dave, after being thrilled to learn that the Italians are going to race in Indiana, goes out on the highway and follows a Cinzano truck. The driver speeds up and holds out fingers to tell Dave how fast he is going. Obviously, this arrangement has been ongoing. It is exhilarating to see Dave literally trying to race away from his limited existence. Humorously, they are going so fast, a policeman stops the truck for speeding.

Another fun scene is when Mooch goes for a job at a car wash. Mike says he’ll have to wash the rich kids’ cars and smile to get tips. They tell him not to forget to write, as if he’s “going away,” which he is from the unemployed gang’s point of view, since they are reluctant to capitulate to defeatism. The boss is nasty because Mooch is a little late and calls him “Shorty,” as he tells him to punch into the time clock. Mooch does so literally, smashing the device with his fist wrapped in a towel. A very short-term job.

There is a hint of Dave wanting to leave the defeatist working-class mentality of his father by wanting to take a college entrance exam just to see if he can pass. The tall Cyril had dreams of getting a basketball scholarship, but it didn’t happen. He says his father always says he “understands,” when Cyril fails. To Cyril it seems his father expects him to fail at everything, and he wants to give him a birthday present by taking and flunking the college test so his dad will have something else to “understand.”

There is an interesting cross-cutting of scenes as Dave serenades Katherine while Evelyn makes a romantic dinner for Ray, complete with romantic music and lit candles. As Dave sings with Cyril accompanying him on guitar, Dave’s parents hear the same words sung that Dave is performing. Evelyn removes the flower from her hair and Ray takes off his pocket protector, a humorous bit of working-class unclothing.

The serenade is a success as Katherine kisses Dave, and they later meet for lunch. She says that, unlike Dave’s exalting the family in Italian life, she says her parents don’t even miss her. Perhaps she, despite her upper social status, is missing something in her life. However, a few college students beat Cyril for his part in the serenade, and Mike vows vengeance. After the cutters and the students, led by snobbish Rod (Hart Bochner), have a brawl in the college cafeteria, the university says instead of fighting, the cutters can compete with the students in the Little 500 bicycle race.

At the quarry hole, Mike thinks Dave will easily win the race, with the others completing the team requirement. But the latter doesn’t want to expose himself as a cutter to Katherine. He continues to devalue his background and hide behind the façade he has created. Mike gets into an argument with the other guys and says he wasn’t planning on wasting his life with them. Cyril then says, “I thought that was the whole plan, that we were going to waste our lives together.” It is an insightful and sad admission. It is at the heart of this story that these young men have lives without dreams, but at least they have each other to share their disappointments.

Then the college students show up on the other side of the quarry hole, which stresses the class divide between the two groups of youths. Dave continues his deception, hiding so that Katherine will not see him with his friends from the town. This arrival adds insult to injury for Mike, and he challenges Rod to a swimming contest. Mike loses, injuring his head on the side of the rockface, a sort of ironic defeat for a hometown cutter of stone.

After that incident, Dave appears to agree to race, which will reveal who he is to Katherine. Mooch says if she really likes him, it will not make a difference. In a perfect world that would be the case, but the world is a flawed place.

After Dave runs a red light that causes his father to stall out one of his test drives with a customer, Ray denigrates his son in the parents’ bedroom, calling him “worthless” and not capable of being smart enough to go to college. Dave hears his father saying these belittling words that could force an offspring to believe in his worthlessness, perpetuating the lack of achievement. However, Dave was inadvertently exposing his father’s deceit since Ray was trying to sell a defective car. They both are confronting their lack of pride in what they are doing.

Which is possibly why what follows is a scene where Ray visits his former friends who still work at the limestone cutting factory. He joins in helping to do some of his former work, which he was proud of performing. When he is walking with Evelyn, she suggests that he give their son a job at the used car business. Ray’s conflicted nature is obvious when he first says the used car business isn’t good enough for Dave, and admits it’s not even good enough for him, but then switches, saying it is worthy of himself. These scenes show that there can be satisfaction in any job or endeavor as long as that is what one aspires to do. Ray does relent and gives him a job washing the cars.

Despite being exhausted at the job, he continues to train with the Italians whenever he has a chance, even in the rain, which shows Dave’s desire to excel. The contrast between his having to overcome obstacles compared to the privileged students is stressed in the shot where he is cleaning the inside of a car while Rod and his crew ride by on their bikes.

When a young man returns a defective car that Ray sold to him, Dave says they must accept the responsibility. Ray keeps repeating “refund,” like it’s some kind of curse word. He suffers a mild heart attack, but is it because of the stress of having to part with money, or is it also due to an unconscious realization that his life is a fraud?

When Dave says he should skip the race with the Italians until his father recuperates, his mother shows him her passport. She says she carries it with her and shows it anytime she needs to present identification. She tells her son that he should do things while he can. The economy of the dialogue here is effective, because just by saying that, she shows she had a dream to travel that wasn’t realized, and that her son should not give up on his dreams.

Director Peter Yates uses music very well here as he employs an Italian classical soundtrack to keep the pace with the bikers. However, the race with the Italian bicyclists does not go well, as the Italians cheat and cause damage to Dave’s bike. Dave rides with the others as Mike says Dave is just a cutter now, like the rest of them. When he comes home, he no longer is talking like an Italian and admits that his father was right about his used car business, since everybody “cheats.” Ray is now upset and hugs his sad son who has lost his innocence and has learned about the unscrupulous reality that can present itself.

He is now ready to show who he really is to Katherine, who when she first sees him in his regular clothes says she liked him the way he “was before,” and he now looks like “everybody else.” They are harsh statements given the context of the movie. But, she, too, wanted to escape from the ordinary, and Dave gave her that. She slaps him as she feels betrayed by his lying performance.

Ray watches Dave tear down the Italian pictures in his room and they go for a walk. Ray says that he helped cut the stones that built the university’s buildings and was young, strong, and proud of his work. But then somehow those buildings  seemed too good for him. He says that all he left Dave and his friends were the “holes” in the ground, which is a metaphor for passing on a feeling of emptiness to the next generation. Dave admits he took the college entrance exam and did well on it. Ray now is encouraging, saying that was “good,” showing how he is proud that Dave excelled on the test.

Mike now admits that maybe those college guys are better than them. Is he serious, or is he using reverse psychology on Dave? In any event, Dave restores the broken bike and becomes committed to entering the Little 500 race.

Katherine approaches Dave on the street and she has now let go of her anger. She says she will be graduating and has a job in Chicago. She will also go to Italy with her parents. The first thought is that she is showing her privileged status. But the fact that she wants to go to Italy, and with her parents, shows how Dave implanted a similar dream into her to escape the ordinary. She wishes him a good trip, and he says he’s not going anywhere. Her knowing response is, “I don’t know about that.” She realizes that Dave is special and will be escaping from his surrounding limitations.

Katherine is not the only one Dave has influenced. Ray admits that Dave’s mother is expecting, so the Italian love of an expanding family has literally taken seed in the Stohler residence. His parents present him and Moocher T-shirts that say “Cutter” on them, which announces that they should be proud of who they are.

The race is not without its drama as Dave injures his foot. The others do their best to help, participating in the race, showing how it is a team effort. Dave has his foot strapped to the pedal which means he must finish the race himself. He does win to the jubilation of his friends and the townspeople. Even Dave’s father leaves his job to cheer his son on, and there is a shot of Rod applauding, revealing he has conceded that the cutters were the best on this day.

The last scene is heartwarming and funny. Dave is now a freshman at the college, and he encounters a French exchange student. They are both riding bikes, and Dave says he is thinking of taking French, acknowledging that the French are the best bicyclists. Dad has come a long way from his previous perception of his son, and is now also riding a bike. As he passes his son, Dave calls out “Bon Jour, Papa,” startling his father, whose expression shows that Dave may have switched from being Italian to becoming French. In any event, Katherine was right, and Dave is most certainly “breaking away.”