Johnny Suede (1991)

Director:

Tom DiCillo

Writer:

Tom DiCillo

Stars:

Brad Pitt, Richard Boes, Cheryl Costa

1 win & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Brad Pitt	...	Johnny Suede
Richard Boes	...	Man in Tuxedo
Cheryl Costa	...	Woman in Alley
Michael Luciano	...	Mr. Clepp
Calvin Levels	...	Deke
Nick Cave	...	Freak Storm
Ralph Marrero	...	Bartender
Wilfredo Giovanni Clark	...	Slick
Alison Moir	...	Darlette
Peter McRobbie	...	Flip Doubt
Ron Vawter	...	Winston
Dennis Parlato	...	Dalton
Tina Louise	...	Mrs. Fontaine
Michael Mulheren	...	Fred Business
Wayne Maugans	...	Ned Business

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

hair | watching tv | tape recording | concert | pompadour | 

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Taglines:

Keeping up an image can be a full time job.

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Genres:

Comedy | Music | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and elements of sexuality

Details

Country:

France USA Switzerland

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 April 1992 (France)

Filming Locations:

Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Arena, Balthazar Productions, Starr

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Color:

Black and White Color (Fujicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A few weeks into filming, Tom DiCillo fired the original director of photography after finding all of the footage shot to be worthless. When confronted with this, DiCillo claims the DP confessed to deliberately sabotaging the film due to jealosy.

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Connections

Spoofed in Living in Oblivion (1995)

User Reviews

An unparallelled low-level masterpiece of pure uncompromising weirdness

This is the quintessential weird movie. It would be impossible to duplicate much like David Lynch's "Eraserhead". It has that unmistakable though implacable feeling of something truly original that works based on a logic that is somehow familiar and yet presented in the film as though it is completely unique. Johnny Suede is a perfectly unique individual who none-the-less is still like everyone of us and maybe because of this is all the more fascinating for the idiosyncracies that define him. He is played to utter perfection by Brad Pitt, and personally I think it is Brad Pitt's finest role. I am sad that Mr. Pitt has gone on to bigger though not necessarily better things because I think his acting capabilities would be more evident and impressive in more quirky self-aware films that are tailor-made for character actors. Regardless it is not only Brad Pitt's acting but all the supporting actors including Nick Cave and Catherine Keener who make this movie astounding. On the surface "Johnny Suede" sounds like a rather simple character study. Johnny Suede is a musician, living in poverty, while feverishly dreaming and working on starting a band that would be reminiscent of all the great guitar pop bands of the 1950's. While working away at surviving and composing he dabbles in the dubious challenge of finding true love and while coming to the rescue one day of a woman who is being raped in an alleyway is almost brained by a box of suede shoes that land on the telephone booth he is standing in while calling the police. Thus, the story commences, the shoes, seemingly a heaven sent present for taking a moral stance in a world seemingly without any, and Johnny Suede, his image complete, embarks on an adventure that will blow his mind, his world and his way of life forever. Did I say the story was simple? Now that I think about it...What the hell was I thinking?! Its anything but! But that's what makes Johnny Suede so cool and fun to watch. Even though I never knew exactly what was going to happen in the movie and where it was going every moment while I was watching it was understandable and easy to relate to even as the distracting superficial weirdness of it all augmented the seriousness of its themes and meanings. "Johnny Suede" is a deep, complex and sometimes dark movie but it is presented in such fun, unusual way that the realities of what's happening on screen never succeed in disarming the wondrous weirdness of the world around the characters which despite their seeming indifference of and even participation in saves the characters from ever falling into an ever spiraling pit banality and hopelessness. Anything and everything is always possible in the world of Johnny Suede and it is the characters ability to always marvel at it even as it misleads them into harmful circumstances that allow the characters to continue to thrive and evolve. As Johnny Suede says in defense of his retro-styled musical taste, "Now is a fly's fart in the wind" but even outdated music was once the key notes that defined the attitudes, looks and styles of its age. In Johnny Suede this moment of "the now" always exists, never getting old, and he may be more right than he or any of the other characters know. In the end Johnny Suede is a celebration of innocence and its own odd self-aware inability to fit in with itself as time immortalizes it just for that and that alone.