‘Catchfire’: The movie Dennis Hopper disliked so much he disowned it
Hollywood isn’t a place that is inherently ‘cool’, with the movie industry that infests its lands coming up with such lame franchises as Transformers and Fast and Furious while debasing classic movies with terrible reimaginings like The Exorcist: Believer. Yet, the industry has, indeed, created a number of genuinely interesting and subversive individuals, from the philosophical sage Harry Dean Stanton, the ceaselessly suave Chloë Sevigny and the utterly bonkers Dennis Hopper.
Rising to fame on the American small screen throughout the 1950s, Hopper steadily built a vivid industry profile, taking bit-parts in a number of iconic movies from 1955 to 1957, including Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Still, it would take the actor another decade to be fully thrust into the public eye, appearing in such classics as Cool Hand Luke and Hang ‘Em High before the release of Easy Rider, Hopper’s subversive Palme d’Or nominee.
Hopper’s directorial debut, Easy Rider, was an iconic movie of late 1960s America, speaking to the anti-establishment movements that were growing across the country in response to controversial foreign policy and general political mistrust. Made following a wild production process in which Hopper and the lead cast members, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, regularly consumed drugs, Easy Rider remains one of Hopper’s most seminal films.
Yet, while it might be his most iconic directorial effort, it’s not the only one he ever produced, helming Out of the Blue in 1980 and Backtrack (titled Catchfire in some countries) in 1990, with the latter being something of a filmmaking fiasco.
The entirely forgettable comedy crime flick told the story of a witness to an assassination who is forced to flee from town to town, switching her identity in the hope that she won’t get caught. Starring Hopper himself alongside Jodie Foster, the movie was considered something of a critical and commercial failure, with the director disowning the film, taking his name from the project due to the fact that the final edit was so different from his original vision.
Speaking about his experience with the edit, he once stated: “I mean, I directed that movie. What can I say, every foot of film I directed, but I didn’t edit it and the editing of a film is directing a film. I mean, a person can take your footage, when I sometimes have 40-45 hours of film, they can make any movie they want, that doesn’t make it a Dennis Hopper film. That doesn’t make it mean that it’s directed by Dennis Hopper…whatever was left suddenly destroyed the meaning of the movie”.
Hopper later reinstated his credit in the movie after releasing a director’s cut in 1992, with the new edition being 18 minutes longer, including an alternate ending.
Hopper wasn’t the only one who disliked his time on the project; Foster also despised the attitude of her co-star and director. “I worked with an actor-director who was a major pain. It was very difficult for me. Very difficult,” Foster later revealed regarding Hopper, adding in a separate interview, “Working with Dennis was completely insane”.
Take a look at the trailer for the 1990 movie starring Jodie Foster below and give it a whirl if you want to see one of Hopper’s worst-ever films.
