Dave, Mike, Cyril, and Moocher are working-class friends living in the university town of Bloomington, Indiana. Now turning 19, they all graduated from high school the year before, are not sure what to do with their lives, and consider attending university unrealistic. They spend much of their time together swimming in an abandoned water-filled limestone quarry. They sometimes clash with the more affluent Indiana University students in their hometown, who refer to them disparagingly as "cutters," referring to the locals' common work in the limestone industry. (The term was invented for the film because the real-world pejorative "stonies" was deemed unusable for its perceived link to marijuana.)[7]
Dave is obsessed with competitive bicycle racing, Italian racers in particular, because he recently won a Masi bicycle.[8][9] His down-to-earth father, Ray, a former stonecutter who now operates (sometimes unethically) his own used car business, is puzzled and exasperated by his son's love of Italian music and culture, which Dave associates with cycling. However, his mother, Evelyn, is more understanding and prepares Italian dishes for the family, to Ray's annoyance.
Dave develops a crush on a university student named Katherine and masquerades as an Italian exchange student to romance her. One evening, he serenades "Caterina" outside her sorority house by singing Friedrich von Flotow's aria M Apparì Tutt' Amor, with Cyril providing guitar accompaniment. Her boyfriend, Rod, and his fraternity brothers beat Cyril up because they mistake him for the suitor. Cyril wants no trouble, but Mike, a former high school football quarterback, insists on tracking down Rod and starting a brawl. The university president (played by real-life President Dr. John W. Ryan) reprimands the students for their arrogance toward the "cutters" and, over the students' objections, invites the town to field a team for the annual Indiana University Little 500 race.
When an Italian cycling team comes to town for an exhibition race, Dave is thrilled to compete with them. However, the Italians are annoyed by his challenge to their preordained victory and force him to crash, which disillusions him. He subsequently confesses his deception to Katherine, who is heartbroken.
Dave's friends persuade him to join them in racing the Little 500. Ray privately tells his son how, when he was a young stonecutter, he was proud to help provide the material to construct the university though he never felt welcome on campus. Later, Dave runs into Katherine, who is leaving for a job in Chicago. They patch things up.
Dave, the only skilled cyclist among his friends, rides most of the Little 500 without a break unlike the other teams, which switch riders periodically. Nonetheless, he gains a small lead, but is injured in a crash and comes in for a change. Mike, Cyril, and Moocher take turns to the best of their ability, but the team falls behind. Finally, Dave has them tape his feet to the pedals, which commits him to finish the race himself, and makes up lost ground. On the last lap, he overtakes Rod (who is riding for the favored fraternity team) and wins.
Ray is proud of his son and takes to riding a bicycle himself for his health. Dave later enrolls at the university, where he meets a pretty French student. Soon, he is extolling to her the virtues of the Tour de France and of French cyclists.
The bicycling team is based on the 1962 Phi Kappa Psi Little 500 champions, which featured legendary rider and Italian enthusiast Dave Blase, who provided screenwriter and fellow Phi Kappa Psi team member Steve Tesich the inspiration for the main character in the movie.[10] Blase, together with team manager Bob Stohler, provided the name of this character: Dave Stohler.[11] In the 1962 race, Blase rode 139 out of 200 laps[10] and crossed the finish line as the victor, much like the main character in the film. Blase appears in the movie as the race announcer.[12]
The working title of the movie script was Bambino, written in 1978, which originally had Dave's family name as "Blase," which was later changed to "Stohler" for the film.[13]
Filming
Dave's houseRooftop Quarry, originally named Sanders Quarry, near Bloomington
Location filming in and around Bloomington[14] took place during the summer of 1978.
The abandoned limestone quarry in which Dave and his friends swam, called Rooftop Quarry by locals, is at the end of East Empire Mill Road, off the old State Road 37, in Perry Township, south of Bloomington.[15]
Reception
The film received positive reviews upon its release. Roger Ebert called it "a wonderfully sunny, funny, goofy, intelligent movie that makes you feel about as good as any movie in a long time. It is, in fact, a treasure... Movies like this are hardly ever made at all; when they're made this well, they're precious cinematic miracles."[16]The New York Times's Janet Maslin wrote that, even though "the cast is unknown, the director has a spotty history, and the basic premise falls into this year's most hackneyed category ... the finished product is wonderful. Here is a movie so fresh and funny it didn't even need a big budget or a pedigree."[14] A Variety magazine review concluded that "though its plot wins no points for originality, Breaking Away is a thoroughly delightful light comedy, lifted by fine performances from Dennis Christopher and Paul Dooley."[17] Critic Dave Kehr, however, gave a later, somewhat dissenting opinion: "Released at a time when any small-scale film earned critical favor simply by virtue of its unpretentiousness, Breaking Away probably looked better in context than it does now."[18] However, he conceded that "Peter Yates lends the film a fine, unexpected limpidity, and the principals are mostly excellent."[18]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 95% based on 42 reviews, with a rating average of 8.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "At once a touching, funny coming-of-age story and a compelling sports film, Breaking Away is a delightful treat."[19] On Metacritic—which assigns a weighted mean score—the film has a score of 91 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[20]
The film grossed approximately $20 million in North America.[4]
The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.[21]
NBC paid $5 million to screen the film on television on May 5, 1980, bypassing HBO and significantly shortening the normal window between theatrical release and screening on broadcast television, which was generally three years at the time.[22]
A short-lived television series based on the film, also titled Breaking Away, aired in 1980–1981 and starred Shaun Cassidy. Barrie, Haley and Ashton reprised their roles in the prequel series.
The film inspired the song "One for the Cutters" by The Hold Steady, which appeared on their 2008 album Stay Positive.
The 1992 Bollywood film Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, starring Aamir Khan, has certain similarities to Breaking Away.[30] However, the director, Mansoor Khan, stated that he became aware of Breaking Away only after the likeness had been brought to his attention. Both films have several thematic similarities, including friendship, class barriers, bicycle racing, and parental relationship, but they are distinctly different films, with different narratives, characters, motivations, treatment, and racing rules.[31]
Dead End is a 1937 American crime drama film directed by William Wyler. It is an adaptation of the Sidney Kingsley 1935 Broadway play of the same name. It stars Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, Humphrey Bogart, Wendy Barrie, and Claire Trevor. It was the first film appearance of the acting group known as the Dead End Kids.
Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen and produced by Charles H. Joffe from a screenplay written by Allen and Marshall Brickman. Allen co-stars as a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl but falls in love with his best friend's mistress. Meryl Streep and Anne Byrne also star.
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County, Indiana, United States. The population was 79,168 at the 2020 census. It is the seventh-most populous city in Indiana and the fourth-most populous outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. It is the home of Indiana University Bloomington, the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Established in 1820, IU Bloomington enrolls over 45,000 students.
Stojan Steve Tesich was a Serbian-American screenwriter, playwright, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1979 for the film Breaking Away.
Deadly Blessing is a 1981 American slasher film directed by Wes Craven. The film tells the story of a strange figure committing murder in a contemporary community that is not far from another community that believes in ancient evil and curses. It stars Ernest Borgnine, Maren Jensen, Susan Buckner, and Sharon Stone in an early role. AllMovie comments that the film "finds director Wes Craven in a transitional phase between his hard-hitting early work and his later commercial successes."
Barbara Barrie is an American actress and author.
The Little 500, is a track cycling race held annually during the third weekend of April at Bill Armstrong Stadium on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. It is attended by more than 25,000 fans.
Jonathan Ray Banks is an American actor. His breakthrough came with the role of FBI Special Agent Frank McPike in the television series Wiseguy (1987–1990). For his role, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Banks gained renewed recognition for his role as hitman and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut in the television series Breaking Bad (2009–2013). He reprised the role as a lead character in the spin-off series Better Call Saul (2015–2022) and its sequel film, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019). For playing Ehrmantraut, he received five nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
Dennis Christopher Carrelli is an American former actor whose film credits include Breaking Away (1979), Fade to Black (1980), Chariots of Fire (1981), It (1990), and Django Unchained (2012).
Peter James Yates was an English film director and producer, known for his versatility and "attention to detail" across a variety of genres. He received nominations for four Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards.
The 45th New York Film Critics Circle Awards honored the best filmmaking of 1979. The winners were announced on 19 December 1979 and the awards were given on 1 February 1980.
Bill Armstrong Stadium is a 6,500-capacity soccer-specific stadium and velodrome located in Bloomington, Indiana and owned by the Indiana University Bloomington. The stadium is home to the Indiana Hoosiers men's and women's soccer teams.
Tenth Street Stadium was a stadium in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. Originally named Memorial Stadium, it was primarily used for college football, and was the home field of the Indiana University football team between 1925 and 1959, prior to the opening of the new Memorial Stadium. The stadium held 20,000 people and was built in 1925. It replaced Jordan Field which had been the home field for the program since 1887. The stadium was renamed Tenth Street Stadium in 1971. It was later used to host the Little 500 and was used in the 1979 movie Breaking Away. The stadium was demolished in 1982 and the site on which it once stood is now a green space and recreation fields in the center of campus known as The Arboretum.
Dirty Pictures is a 2000 American docudrama television film directed by Frank Pierson, written by Ilene Chaiken, and starring James Woods, Craig T. Nelson, and Diana Scarwid. The film focuses on the 1990 trial of Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center director Dennis Barrie (Woods), who was accused of promoting pornography by presenting an exhibit of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe that included images of naked children and graphic displays of homosexual sadomasochism.
Breaking Away is a 1980 American comedy-drama television series. Based on the 1979 film of the same name, it was created by Steve Tesich, who wrote the original film, and the film's director Peter Yates served as executive producer.
Carl Schultz is a Hungarian-Australian film director.
Roadmaster is an American bicycle brand currently owned by Pacific Cycle, which in turn is owned by Dutch conglomerate Pon Holdings.
Dave Blase is an American cyclist whose story served as the inspiration for the film Breaking Away.
The 14th National Society of Film Critics Awards, given on January 3, 1980, honored the best filmmaking of 1979.
One Day in April is a 2015 feature-length documentary produced by Life Is My Movie Entertainment. The film follows four teams of college cyclists as they prepare for the Indiana University Little 500, a collegiate bicycle race held each year in Bloomington, Indiana.
↑ Zoroya, G. (April 7, 2000). "Breaking 50 in Bloomington, Ind., The Little 500 Bicycle Race Outpaces Even Its Own 'Breaking Away' Myth". USA Today. p.01D.
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