I’ve been thinking about the writer Richard Price ever since the film of his novel, Freedomland, was released. So I broke out my DVD of The Wanderers this weekend and watched it again.
The Wanderers was the first novel by Richard Price and it remains one of the most astonishing debuts I’ve ever read. It is very cinematic in structure and it almost seems like it was written with the screen in mind. The Wanderers was a big success and it was inevitable that a movie would be made from it. In lesser hands, it could have merely been another Happy Days-type bullshit nostalgia piece, but thankfully one of the world’s finest directors made it. I’m talking about Philip Kaufman, who did, among other things, the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The Wanderers is a simple story. It centers upon an Italian-American youth in early 1960’s New York. Most kids had to belong to a gang of the same ethnic group as themselves and Richie’s is called The Wanderers. The Wanderers pledge lifetime allegiance to one another and they only wish to cruise, party and chase girls forever. Yet the future slaps Richie in the face when he gets his girlfriend pregnant. He’s torn between his own infatuation with another girl and his fear, fascination and horror of the older goombas of the neighborhood. Is this how Richie wants to end up?
Like I said, The Wanderers is a simple tale, yet the film is rich and beautiful in its depictions of the hope, rage and restlessness of young men on the verge of adulthood. The film is often enormously funny, yet it also features several chilling sequences, as when The Wanderers get lost and find themselves in the hellish domain of the most frightening gang in the city: The Ducky Boys.
The end of Price’s novel is more disquieting than the film, yet Kaufman still shows Richie’s uncertainty and dread of his impending adulthood. Many youths are in no hurry to give up the comfort and security of childhood. Especially when they are on the wrong end of a shotgun wedding.
All in all, The Wanderers is a celebration of a time long past. There is joy and innocence throughout it. Yet the changing tides of the turbulent times leave Richie baffled as he watches Bob Dylan perform The Times They Are A-Changing in a coffee house. Greased hair, do wop and hot rods, the things that sum up his life and personality, are on the way out.
Warner’s DVD of The Wanderers is presented in widescreen format, but not Anamorphic. There’s a trailer and a commentary by Kaufman. But (and this is starting to become a mantra), with such a great soundtrack, I wish the was 5.1 Surround Sound audio.
The Wanderers was the first novel by Richard Price and it remains one of the most astonishing debuts I’ve ever read. It is very cinematic in structure and it almost seems like it was written with the screen in mind. The Wanderers was a big success and it was inevitable that a movie would be made from it. In lesser hands, it could have merely been another Happy Days-type bullshit nostalgia piece, but thankfully one of the world’s finest directors made it. I’m talking about Philip Kaufman, who did, among other things, the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The Wanderers is a simple story. It centers upon an Italian-American youth in early 1960’s New York. Most kids had to belong to a gang of the same ethnic group as themselves and Richie’s is called The Wanderers. The Wanderers pledge lifetime allegiance to one another and they only wish to cruise, party and chase girls forever. Yet the future slaps Richie in the face when he gets his girlfriend pregnant. He’s torn between his own infatuation with another girl and his fear, fascination and horror of the older goombas of the neighborhood. Is this how Richie wants to end up?
Like I said, The Wanderers is a simple tale, yet the film is rich and beautiful in its depictions of the hope, rage and restlessness of young men on the verge of adulthood. The film is often enormously funny, yet it also features several chilling sequences, as when The Wanderers get lost and find themselves in the hellish domain of the most frightening gang in the city: The Ducky Boys.
The end of Price’s novel is more disquieting than the film, yet Kaufman still shows Richie’s uncertainty and dread of his impending adulthood. Many youths are in no hurry to give up the comfort and security of childhood. Especially when they are on the wrong end of a shotgun wedding.
All in all, The Wanderers is a celebration of a time long past. There is joy and innocence throughout it. Yet the changing tides of the turbulent times leave Richie baffled as he watches Bob Dylan perform The Times They Are A-Changing in a coffee house. Greased hair, do wop and hot rods, the things that sum up his life and personality, are on the way out.
Warner’s DVD of The Wanderers is presented in widescreen format, but not Anamorphic. There’s a trailer and a commentary by Kaufman. But (and this is starting to become a mantra), with such a great soundtrack, I wish the was 5.1 Surround Sound audio.
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