On The Edge (DVD)
APPROX. 87 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1985 - MPA RATING: NR
" On the Edge captures the runner's perspective with a blend of music, images, and point-of-view photography which establishes a rhythm that continues until the film's satisfying climax.
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"On the Edge" is a curious blend of mainstream and art-house filmmaking. On the one hand, it's "Rocky" for runners, with a core of clichés—like the wizened old trainer with knit cap, the estranged father-son, the soft-spoken, hard-training athlete, and the triumphant ending we've come to expect from sports films, one which even the director called "Capraesque." On the other hand it's an image-driven film, a poetic montage with dialogue kept to a minimum, replaced by a New Age score that marries images to music. And that surprising Capraesque ending? As a kind of tympanic climax to the near-constant flow of images and music that establishes a rhythm for this film not unlike the pacing and breathing of a runner, it works so well that I couldn't imagine another.
Bruce Dern stars in this 1985 Rob Nilsson film, although "starring" is probably overstated. The scenery and running itself are really the attention-grabbers. The film opens with an unabashed slice of Americana: an implacable and bearded man standing next to an American flag aboard a ferry, with the City of San Francisco receding gradually in the background and, by the end of the title sequence, the image of Mt. Tamalpais erupting from the sea.
Set in Northern California, the film chronicles the unlikely comeback of long-distance runner Wes Holman (Dern), who, 20 years ago, was barred from competition right before the Olympics when he admitted that he accepted the gift of airline tickets and urged other runners to "come clean" as well, to eliminate what Nilsson in his commentary termed the "shamateurism" of the sport.
It turns out you can go home again. When he lands, Holman heads right for the 2 a.m. Club, where he approaches his old mentor, Elmo (John Marley), and tells him he's going to train for the Cielo-Sea. The runner grew up in his father's scrap yard not far from the official starting line for the second oldest race in the country, and he had always enjoyed running in the race. Though the name is fictional, Cielo-Sea is based on the Dipsea Race from Mill Valley over the ridges of Mt. Tamalpais to Stinson Beach, which has been run since 1906. It's the second-oldest race in the nation, after the Boston Marathon, and as such it draws runners from all over the world. It's a grueling race that has runners sprinting up steep wooden steps on the mountainside, running through rainforest over logs and under overhanging branches, slogging through mud, and negotiating perilous descents down steep ravines full of loose rock. The scenery is gorgeous, and that's part of the attraction for runners . . . and viewers.
Elmo leads Holman to an abandoned and partially sunken clam dredger, where he tells the runner he can live for free. So there, with the water level rising on the floor as the tides roll in, he sleeps on a table and walks out onto the half-submerged ship to contemplate. Coach Elmo tells him there are three aspects of this 7 1/2 mile race—philosophy, strategy, and training—and this watery retreat gives him the space for reflection. But the condition Elmo lays out is that Holman must go to see his estranged father, Flash (Bill Bailey). We learn in the commentary that this political-minded character was in real-life a man who was a former member of the American Communist Party who was blacklisted because he refused to name names. He stood up to Franco and was an activist labor leader who became a member of the Communist Party, we learn, because the Republicans and Democrats didn't care enough about workers back then. Bailey brings his natural curmudgeonly fire to the role, though with a macaw as his shoulder-perching companion it's not hard to have flashbacks to the tough-talking Baretta and his Cockatoo.
"On the Edge" has a documentary feel to it, and the realism comes largely from the real people who were used during filming. The runners in the Cielo-Sea are real top-ranked athletes, Dipsea winners, and race officials, and Dern himself has been an avid runner since high school—an ultramarathoner who goes through a yearly training regimen. Director Nilsson ran the Dipsea as a teen, and co-writer Rob Kissin, is a national-class 10-K runner who introduced the director to some of the top runners at the time the film was made, and a number of recognizable faces and names turn up.
