Mask
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Bogdanovich
Produced by	Martin Starger
Written by	Anna Hamilton Phelan
Starring	Cher Eric Stoltz Sam Elliott Laura Dern
Music by	Dennis Ricotta
Cinematography	Lászlo Kovács
Editing by	Barbara Ford
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	March 8 1985
Running time	120 min/127 min. (director's cut)
Country	United States
Language	English

This article is about the 1985 Peter Bogdanovich film. For the 1994 comedy starring Jim Carrey, see The Mask.

Mask is a 1985 drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, and starring Cher and Eric Stoltz. Sam Elliott, Dennis Burkley, and Laura Dern are featured in supporting roles. Cher received the 1985 Cannes Film Festival award for Best Actress.^[1]

The film is based on the life and early death of Roy L. "Rocky" Dennis, a boy who suffered from craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, an extremely rare disorder known commonly as lionitis due to the disfiguring cranial enlargements that it causes.

[edit] Plot summary

As son of a freewheeling biker mom, Rocky Dennis (Eric Stoltz) is accepted without question by his mother's boyfriends and extended motorcycle family but treated with fear, pity, awkwardness, and teasing by those unaware of his humanity, humor, and intelligence. Rocky's mother, Rusty Dennis (Cher) is determined to give Rocky as normal a life as possible, in spite of her own wild ways as a member of the biker gang. She fights for Rocky's inclusion in a mainstream junior high school, and she confronts a principal who would rather classify Rocky with mental retardation and relegated to a special education school to fulfill his special needs. Rusty asks the principal if they teach "Algebra, Science, English and History" at this school, they do, and these are "Rocky's needs".

Rocky goes on to thrive at school. He wins friends by assisting a locker neighbor in remembering his combination. Using humor when faced with an awkward silence during roll call. Rocky just repeats the prior new student's line "Gee, thanks a lot." The class turns to smile and laugh with Rocky. He shows his brilliance in History class by giving a terrific rendition of the Greek myth about the Trojan Horse and it being the starting point of the Trojan Wars. Gradually overcoming discrimination and tutoring his classmates for $3 per hour, the principal asks Rocky to accept a job as a counselor's aide at a summer camp for the junior blind. At his graduation from junior high Rocky takes home the academic achievement prizes in Mathematics, History and Science.

Rocky feels the need to leave his chronically depressed and addicted mother, and in a tough love way he helps Rusty help herself break her drug habit. At camp Rocky falls in love with Diana Adams (Laura Dern), a blind girl who cannot see his deformed countenance and is entranced by the boy's kindness and compassion. Rocky uses his intelligence to bring to life the sighted words like billowy, clouds, and red by using cotton balls as a touchable vision of billowy clouds, a boiling hot rock to explain red hot.

Near the end of the film, Rocky faces the pain of separation from his girlfriend, the collapse of his dream motorbike trip through Europe with his best friend and while fighting a fierce headache, quietly withdraws to his room and dies in his sleep at age 16. Finding her cold son, Rusty re-pins Rocky's map of Europe and poetically says, "Now you can go anywhere you want, Baby."

The movie ends with Rocky's biker family, Rusty, Gar and Dozer visiting his grave, leaving flowers and some 1955 Brooklyn Dodger baseball cards by his headstone. A prized poem Rocky penned earlier in the movie closes the film.

"These things are good: ice cream and cake, a ride on a Harley, seeing monkeys in the trees, the rain on my tongue, and the sun shining on my face. These things are a drag: dust in my hair, holes in my shoes, no money in my pocket, and the sun shining on my face."

[edit] See also

Elephant Man

[edit] Main cast

[edit] Box Office

The film was a box office success grossing $42,400,000 in the US alone, with a further $20,478,600 in rentals with a North American Box Office gross of $62,878,600.^[2]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mask (film)

• Mask at the Internet Movie Database
• Mask at Allmovie
• Mask at Rotten Tomatoes