Light of Day
| Light of Day | |
|---|---|
 Light of Day theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Paul Schrader |
| Written by | Paul Schrader |
| Produced by | Keith Barish Rob Cohen |
| Starring | Michael J. Fox Gena Rowlands Joan Jett |
| Cinematography | John Bailey |
| Edited by | Jacqueline Cambas Rose Kuo Jill Savitt |
| Music by | Thomas Newman |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures |
Release dates | February 6, 1987 |
Running time | 107 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $10,490,000 |
Light of Day is a 1987 drama film starring Michael J. Fox, Gena Rowlands, Joan Jett and Michael McKean. It was written and directed by Paul Schrader. The original music score was composed by Thomas Newman and the cinematography is by John Bailey.
Plot summary
Fox and Jett play a brother and sister who are lead performers in a rock band, The Barbusters, in Cleveland, Ohio. The sister, Patti Rasnick, is an unmarried mother and has a troubled relationship with her own mother, who is deeply religious. Estranged from her parents and struggling to make ends meet, Patti decides to dive headlong into a carefree rock music lifestyle. The brother, Joe Rasnick, pulls away from rock music to provide some stability for her tiny son. It takes a family crisis to bring Patti back home and force her to face the prickly past with her mother.
Cast
- Michael J. Fox - Joe Rasnick
- Gena Rowlands - Jeanette Rasnick
- Joan Jett - Patti Rasnick
- Michael McKean - Bu Montgomery
- Thomas G. Waites - Smittie
- Cherry Jones - Cindy Montgomery
- Michael Dolan - Gene Bodine
- Billy L. Sullivan - Benji Rasnick
- Jason Miller - Benjamin Rasnick
- Tom Irwin - Reverend Ansley
- Michael Rooker - Oogie
Production
The film was shot on location in Chicago, Illinois, Blue Island, Illinois, Lincolnwood, Illinois, Hammond, Indiana and Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
The film is best known as the first real attempt for Fox to escape his image as a slacker that he created in films such as Back to the Future. Light of Day is one of the very few projects where Fox has smoked in front of the camera; although a chain smoker,[1] he avoided being photographed with a cigarette out of fear that it would encourage smoking.
Former 1984 Miss Teen USA Cherise Haugen had a small role as the girl Fox's character brings home as a one-night stand. A young Trent Reznor appears, with other members of Exotic Birds in the film as a member of fictional band The Problems.
Bruce Springsteen wrote the song "(Just Around the Corner to the) Light of Day" for the film; Joan Jett performed the song for the film's soundtrack. Schrader's original working title for the film was "Born in the USA." He showed the script to Springsteen to make sure he got the details right about a blue collar bar band. Springsteen ended up stealing the title for a song he'd been writing about a Vietnam veteran, and in order to make it up to Schrader, he volunteered to provide the Barbusters' signature song, which gave the film its new title. In the 1990s, Springsteen himself began using the song to close his concerts.
Schrader has expressed dissatisfaction with Light of Day, particularly its plain visual style: "I had progressed from being a person with a literary vision to a person with a visual vision, and in that film I tried to... suppress my new literacy" and the casting of Joan Jett: "it's a good performance, but... that piece of casting just did not work."[2]
References
- ^ "Michael Then And Now", Macleans, April 29, 2002]. From macleans.ca, accessed on 25 November, 2006.
- ^ Schrader on Schrader and Other Writings (2004) (ISBN 0-571-22176-9)