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‘Runaways’ Aims For Bigger Audience
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The Runaways, the film about the rise of teenaged femme rockers Joan Jett and Cherie (Bomb) Currie, is a political act. It is also rock history. And it is a rebellious, comi-tragic drama loaded with sexual energy and ass-kicking I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll music.
“This is not about women’s lib,” Runaways manager Kim Fowley growls as he goads the girls into being real rockers, “this is about women’s libidos!”
The Italian-born, Canadian-raised director of The Runaways gets it. “Speaking with Joan about that stuff,” says Floria Sigismondi, “she really wanted to own her sexuality. At the time (1975, when The Runaways were created in Los Angeles) girls didn’t really do that. So, for her, it was very important to show what was going on in her life. She just wanted to shine a light on what her life was like and what other kids were doing. So that was really the politics behind that.”As a film, The Runaways made its debut this week on DVD and Blu-ray. Each is a single-disc edition with interesting, if limited extras. The main attraction is a commentary combining the still-rockin’ Jett with actress Kristen Stewart, who plays her, and Dakota Fanning, who plays her then-lover and bandmate Currie. Sigismondi’s feature film debut is based on Currie’s biography, Neon Angel, which the director adapted.
Like many edgy movies, The Runaways now has to find a bigger audience in home entertainment than it did in theatres. “I’ll be excited when I actually get a copy in my hands,” Sigismondi says from Los Angeles, where she and rocker husband Lillian Berlin, of Living Things, maintain a home (they also have a residence back in Toronto, where Sigismondi studied and practiced fine art and photography after growing up in Hamilton). “I love owning films so, for me, it will be quite exciting to have that film as part of my collection.”
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‘Runaways’ builds friendship of musicians, young stars
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Kristen Stewart hadn’t become Bella in the “Twilight” series when she signed on to star in “The Runaways.” But between the time she agreed to play rocker Joan Jett in the bio-pic about the ’70s all-girl band and its box office debut, Stewart had become a movie star.
The film, released last spring, is available Tuesday on DVD.
Stewart’s sudden rise to fame had her thinking about the difference between what Jett, singer Cherie Currie and the other Runaways experienced in the ’70s and what she’s gone through in the past few years.
“I think they sought out their fame so aggressively that it was completely different thing,” she said in an interview when the film was released. “It’s not like it was thrust upon them at all. … Musicians really are themselves all the time, in a public way. We’re not. We’re actors. We choose movies for a million different reasons; some of them are because they ‘say’ things. But not the way music does, not so directly. I can say, ‘This is really cool, I’m really lucky.’ They’re like, ‘We own this.’”Dakota Fanning, who has been famous since she broke into movies at age 7, said fame in the ’70s was far different from what she and Stewart experience today.
“Back then you had to do something really important to become famous. That’s what you really wanted,” Fanning said. “Now I feel like you can do anything and become famous.”
Fanning plays Currie and even appears on screen romping through “Cherry Bomb,” the Runaways’ signature song, wearing a white corset, as the teenage Currie did in real life.
“I was most excited about wearing that,” Fanning said. “I really loved wearing the corset. It was exactly like the one she wore. I felt the most in character in the corset because if you do know who Cherie Currie is, I think you think of her performing ‘Cherry Bomb’ in that corset. It was an exciting moment for me.”
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Luka on July 25, 2010
