--- Spoilers ---
I bought the DVD of this film 4$ on the web and boy, what a disappointment even for such a bargain... It's long, it's boring, it's too colorful and bright, it lacks rhythm and emotions, and to top it all, it doesn't even have this strange dark glow that gives some movies an intact power 30 years after their release ("Blade Runner" for example), a glow that could be a definition of what viewers call "cult status". It's been completely forgotten.
The making-of on the second DVD is more interesting than the motion picture itself, and it explains a lot about this big fiasco.
Back in 1982, Francis Ford Coppola was one of the jewels shining on the crown of the New Hollywood era, along with Spielberg, Lucas, De Palma and so, thinking it was maybe the dawn of something big. It was not, and the sun was about to go down on him.
By something big, I think he wanted to build, inside Zooetrope Studios, a safe haven for filmmakers, far away from major studios and tycoon producers who were then rushing from professional domains like banking, industry, big corporations, anything but movie making, to make big Hollywood dollars.
A touching moment from the documentary shows accomplished directors like Steven Spielberg, Jean-Luc Godard and others, partying and having cocktails among fans and Coppola's family members... Another one shows an aerial view of the studios alleys, named "Frederico Fellini street" or "Nino Rota street". Yeah, the dream had almost come true, as for those amazed kids allowed to visit the stages for an afternoon.
But Coppola is definitely a man of movies, an "artist" - I mean a man of arts, who lives by Art, certainly not a business man. Looking at his distraught face when he announces to the press that his N-th investor just backed out his financial support, which meant for him the need to contract even more debts to finish "One from the heart" is kinda sad because it's the face of a dream wrecked on the shores of reality.
To live thru this even more intensely, he'll have built more and more stages, more and more cranes, he'll have hired more and more extras, dancers, to create his "Citizen Kane", his Xanadu, his Disneyland, a runaway straight forward, without any decent script, a cast incompatible with a love story (average Frederic Forrest and unattractive Teri Garr), a gifted composer (Tom Waits) who doesn't even seem to understand the purpose of the whole project.
The critics will be a blood bath, the audience won't follow, the movie will bomb. Not even a compensation : Francis Ford Coppola's ideas will be stolen for more than a decade to be recycled in 99% of the MTV music videos...
It was in 1982 and Gondry, Burton, etc... had yet to catch on. Coppola started his purgatory journey, selling Zooetrope back lot, falling down from acclaimed "Apocalypse Now" director and independent studio owner to contract director, shooting impersonal movies for others, while Star Wars 7 or Indy 2 were making billions.
Life is hard with poets.
I bought the DVD of this film 4$ on the web and boy, what a disappointment even for such a bargain... It's long, it's boring, it's too colorful and bright, it lacks rhythm and emotions, and to top it all, it doesn't even have this strange dark glow that gives some movies an intact power 30 years after their release ("Blade Runner" for example), a glow that could be a definition of what viewers call "cult status". It's been completely forgotten.
The making-of on the second DVD is more interesting than the motion picture itself, and it explains a lot about this big fiasco.
Back in 1982, Francis Ford Coppola was one of the jewels shining on the crown of the New Hollywood era, along with Spielberg, Lucas, De Palma and so, thinking it was maybe the dawn of something big. It was not, and the sun was about to go down on him.
By something big, I think he wanted to build, inside Zooetrope Studios, a safe haven for filmmakers, far away from major studios and tycoon producers who were then rushing from professional domains like banking, industry, big corporations, anything but movie making, to make big Hollywood dollars.
A touching moment from the documentary shows accomplished directors like Steven Spielberg, Jean-Luc Godard and others, partying and having cocktails among fans and Coppola's family members... Another one shows an aerial view of the studios alleys, named "Frederico Fellini street" or "Nino Rota street". Yeah, the dream had almost come true, as for those amazed kids allowed to visit the stages for an afternoon.
But Coppola is definitely a man of movies, an "artist" - I mean a man of arts, who lives by Art, certainly not a business man. Looking at his distraught face when he announces to the press that his N-th investor just backed out his financial support, which meant for him the need to contract even more debts to finish "One from the heart" is kinda sad because it's the face of a dream wrecked on the shores of reality.
To live thru this even more intensely, he'll have built more and more stages, more and more cranes, he'll have hired more and more extras, dancers, to create his "Citizen Kane", his Xanadu, his Disneyland, a runaway straight forward, without any decent script, a cast incompatible with a love story (average Frederic Forrest and unattractive Teri Garr), a gifted composer (Tom Waits) who doesn't even seem to understand the purpose of the whole project.
The critics will be a blood bath, the audience won't follow, the movie will bomb. Not even a compensation : Francis Ford Coppola's ideas will be stolen for more than a decade to be recycled in 99% of the MTV music videos...
It was in 1982 and Gondry, Burton, etc... had yet to catch on. Coppola started his purgatory journey, selling Zooetrope back lot, falling down from acclaimed "Apocalypse Now" director and independent studio owner to contract director, shooting impersonal movies for others, while Star Wars 7 or Indy 2 were making billions.
Life is hard with poets.