howhow truetrue waswas ‘breakingbreaking “I had a lot of feelings about this movie. Not all positive. But, ultimately, they had a major impact on my life,” says Angelo Pizzo, who grew ?? up in Bloomington and went on to write and awayaway’ produce the iconic place-specific films Hoosiers A Hollywood fantasy or an and Rudy. “A number of the characters in that movie seemed to come from another universe. accurate depiction of Bloomington They didn’t seem like Bloomington people at all. I never met a Dennis Christopher [the actor who and its people? played lead character, Dave Stoller]. The parents didn’t ring true. Nothing felt right. by mike leonard “There was something about that movie that really bothered me and actually was the reason I ate last summer, a British film reviewer the Empire State Building to the National wrote Hoosiers. I didn’t want to make the same professed his love for Breaking Away, Cathedral but also gave Bloomington and mistakes,” Pizzo says. “Having grown up as a the Academy Award-winning 1979 Indiana University a distinctive gray-white townie and a gownie, I never felt it was totally movie set in Bloomington that will see limestone appearance. reflective of what was going on. Most of the kids, the 35th anniversary of its premiere in Scott Russell Sanders, author and distin- even at BHS [Bloomington High School], went July. guished professor emeritus of English at IU, to college. I never felt that socioeconomic divide. “I like films with a strong sense of mostly agrees with the British film writer. “One The country people, the hillbillies, versus the place; where the location of the reasons Breaking Away stands out in the people who lived in the city, that was more the is almost a character in minds of many film viewers, viewers not sociocultural difference than town and gown.” its own right,” Xan connected to Bloomington, is that it’s one of Longtime teacher and township trustee, Dan Brooks wrote in The those rare films that’s set in such a distinctive Combs, agrees with this point. “It wasn’t just a Guardian. “Breaking Away cuts between a place that they’ve never heard of. You could divide between town and gown, it was a divide Bloomington campus of lavish college buildings come up with a long list of notable films before between country and town and gown. Harrods- and an abandoned quarry out in the woods. It you’d find one set in such an unpredictable burg, Smithville, Unionville, Stinesville, and then shows us the link between the two. place.” Dolan were much further away than they are Without Bloomington, there would be no But despite the critical praise and wide- now,” he says. Breaking Away. But without the quarry, there spread affection that Breaking Away still Combs also notes that no one outside of the would be no Bloomington.” generates 35 years after the small-budget film university, not even in the city or county, gave a They were just four Bloomington kids contemplating life after high school in Breaking Away. But all four actors — unknowns at the time — went on The limestone quarries that cut through the became a surprise hit, some question just how hoot about the Little 500 bicycle race, and, to successful careers. (l-r) Dennis Quaid (Mike), Daniel Stern (Cyril), Dennis landscape between Bloomington and Bedford accurately the film depicts the real Bloomington contrary to the movie plot, no self-respecting Christopher (Dave), and Jackie Earle Haley (Moocher). Photo courtesy Indiana not only created jobs over much of the 20th and the town-and-gown relationship that is a local pined away for the opportunity to University Archives century and built iconic buildings ranging from major theme in the movie. participate in it.

120 Bloom | June/July 2014 | magbloom.com magbloom.com | June/July 2014 | Bloom 121 One thing everyone agrees the film didn’t get right was the term used for locals — Cutters. validation of the just always felt like an outsider. He said, ‘I just They were really called Stoneys because they film right there.” think if I walked in there someone would say, worked in the stone industry, but IU graduate Scott Russell “What are you doing here? What’s your business and Breaking Away screenwriter Steve Tesich Sanders says, at its here?’” knew he needed a different term because the finest moment, Part of that attitude, the author says, comes drug culture of the ’60s and ’70s had put a new Breaking Away from a humility among the limestone workers and undesirable connotation to the term, beautifully that he found perplexing. “Even the carvers Stoney. compresses wouldn’t accept the notion that they were artists “I was bemused by the fact that Cutters were in any way. You’d treated in the film as a derogatory term for think that if anyone in townies when, in fact, in the stone industry the the quarrying world or cutters were the next to the top of the hierar- milling world would chy,” says Sanders. “The highest are the carvers, have accepted that and right below them are the cutters. These … no one outside they had artistic gifts, were the foremen who knew the stone so well of the university, it would be the they knew what to cut and where to cut. It carvers. But they actually was an honorific to be a cutter.” not even in the always said they were Jon Vickers, director of IU Cinema, smiles only craftsmen: ‘An Youthful conflict at the mention of the extraordinary cast and artist makes things up Filmmaker Angelo city or county, There were inevitable youthful conflicts, just as Pizzo (Hoosiers and says, “For me it still feels like a small movie, out of his head. We go there are in communities that don’t have a town- Rudy) says he had and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It feels like gave a hoot about from drawings and strong feelings about and-gown or a country and town-and-gown split. Breaking Away, “Not an independent film, a very genuine film. The pictures.’” A favorite bit of mischief that Stoneys pulled on all positive.” Photo by film succeeds not only because of the the Little 500 And while there Jim Krause unsuspecting college students was called landscape and the limestone manufacturing could be no deeper “snaking,” says Combs. “Carloads of Stoneys but also the race. Those don’t happen bicycle race … sense of place than a would drive around and through campus armed anywhere else, or at least in this fashion,” he civilization built with 12-foot-long, soft-tipped, bamboo cane says. literally on and out of Breaking Away fishing poles. When a likely target was seen reflects a strong sense “The race is now an integral part of being the sediment of walking in the same direction as the car, the car of place that is unusual here and I think that socioeconomic tension billions of marine in American film, says would slow and a kid would hang out the author Scott Russell [created by Tesich] helps create conflict for the hundreds of hours animals that settled into the ancient tropical window, tapping the pedestrian in the butt with Sanders. Photo by film, which is necessary,” Vickers says. “It’s of interviews that seas, and, over time, became limestone, Sanders Steve Raymer the soft pole tip. Then the entire car would yell, another aspect that makes Breaking Away he and photogra- says his attempts to explain that to quarry ‘Snake!’ Wow. People would jump.” almost required viewing for anyone who’s pher Jeff Wolin workers fell on deaf ears. “They weren’t curious And then there was the positively unnerving moving to Bloomington. We watched it with amassed in about it at all. When I started talking about the practice employed by the local kids with hot IU Cinema Director our kids to get them excited about moving producing their limestone they quarried was 300 million years cars. “The driver would see a pedestrian or two, Jon Vickers says that, here. It makes you feel like there’s a real book, In Lime- old, their eyes would just glaze over. To them, it because of the movie, turn off the key, let off the accelerator, allow the visiting filmmakers community here, that there’s something stone Country (IU was just rock.” engine compression to build, and then turn on often ask if they can special about this place.” Press, 1985). “You Like Sanders, Smithville native Dan Combs visit a Bloomington the key. It was at least as loud as a 12-gauge quarry. Photo by Vickers says that while the race drama is know the moment seized upon the father-son scene filmed in front shotgun,” Combs says. “People were, um, Shannon Zahnle exciting, it still takes a backseat to the setting in the film where of the massive stacked stone architecture of the startled, to say the least.” and the limestone landscape. “The quarries the father tells the Wells Library, as well. “My dad was a planerman are so iconic that many filmmakers who come massive slab of limestone at the Rooftop son he had worked on the buildings on campus in the stone mills. He cut the facade for Wells Required viewing Monroe County native here to visit [Werner Herzog and Crispin Quarry, in documentary filmmaker Chuck but never went to see them?” Library. He would not go look at it,” Combs By any measure, Breaking Away was a highly Dan Combs says, “It Glover included] ask about seeing them, and, Workman’s eight-minute, Academy Award- The exact quote, from the Dad (Paul says. “I always wondered how Tesich got wasn’t just a divide successful film. Tesich won the Academy between town and of course, we try our best to accommodate winning short, Precious Images. Dooley) to his son, Dave (Dennis Christopher), inspired for that scene. Award for Best Original Screenplay and the gown, it was a divide them but they are now so difficult to get to “Precious Images is the greatest love letter to is: “I was proud of my work. And the buildings “Was Breaking Away accurate?” Combs asks. between country and movie was nominated for four others, includ- town and gown.” because they’re on private property.” cinema ever made,” says Vickers. “It was went up. When they were finished, the “I didn’t want to say it back then, but as we all ing Best Picture. It also won a Golden Globe Photo by Jim Krause commissioned by the Directors Guild of damnedest thing happened. It was like the idolize our youths, now, as an IU student for Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy. Its finest moment America and it includes clips from 400 films buildings were too good for us. Nobody told us looking in from outside at Stoney culture, yes, The four young actors who played Blooming- But the most important validation of Breaking covering the entire history of film. Imagine that. that. It just felt uncomfortable, that’s all.” far more than I care to admit.” ton buddies pondering life after high school all Away and its singular sense of place, to Out of the tens of thousands of films ever made, Sanders says that when he interviewed * went on to successful acting careers: Dennis Vickers, is an enduring image of the film’s and all of the moments in those films that many current and retired limestone workers, many Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley, and four young primary actors, leaning back on a of us will remember for the rest of our lives, said they’d never gone to campus to see the Dennis Christopher. Breaking Away is in there. That’s an amazing products of their labor. “One gentleman said he

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