Francis Ford Coppola was at a professional crossroads when he decided to adapt S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. Coppola most recent film had been the risky and expensive romantic movie musical, One From the Heart. For that film, Coppola had sought to make the film on his own, outside the purview of a studio, after being offered a too-small budget by MGM. MGM eventually dropped out of the process, and Coppola had to find alternate means to release and finance the film, which was ultimately met with a very mixed reception. Having been so acclaimed for his direction of The Godfather movies as well as Apocalypse Now, the failure of One From the Heart was a hard blow for Coppola in many ways. After having been sent S.E. Hinton's novel by a school librarian with an attachment to the book, Coppola decided to follow up this critical failure with an adaptation of The Outsiders. Working closely with Hinton, who had written the novel while still in high school, Coppola created an adaptation of The Outsiders that was vivid and action-packed, and launched the careers of a number of young stars. The film is still widely watched in schools and is considered something of a cult classic. While it too received mixed reviews, the popularity of the book as well as the performances of its star-studded cast made The Outsiders a classic.
Coppola had never encountered the book before directing the movie, and later would call the film (affectionately), "a 'Gone With the Wind' for 14-year-old girls." After reading the book, Coppola was convinced of the librarian's urging that it told an important and necessary story for young people. During filming, Coppola resorted to some unconventional methods to encourage authentic performances and depictions. One notable method was to divide the actors playing the Socs from the actors playing the Greasers, even going so far as to give the Soc actors nicer rooms and better quality scripts. Additionally, the fights in the movie sometimes reached an authentically violent pitch, with some actors coming out of filming with black eyes, broken fingers, and split lips. Coppola's investment in creating a realistic depiction made for an exciting on-set dynamic, which translates into the visible youthful energy in the film.
Even after the film's middling reception, young people responded to its frank depiction of adolescent alienation and division, and it remains a classic today. Coppola called the film an "epic for children" in one commentary on the film. Coppola would immediately go on to direct a follow-up to The Outsiders, called Rumble Fish, starring Mickey Rourke, Dennis Hopper, and Nicolas Cage, and retaining actors Matt Dillon and Diane Lane, which also received acclaim. Critics today look back at The Outsiders as an overlooked gem, a heart-warming if tragic tale of youthful resilience and the healing power of storytelling.
