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Coppola is Back with Tetro by Reynard Seifert & Doniphan B lair
'Tetro''s stars Alden Ehrenreich, Maribel Verdú and Vincent Gallo as an odd and semi-incestous 'family'. photo: courtesy F.F. Coppola
Every year the San Francisco Film Festival gives an award to honor a filmmaker of such depth and breadth that no one can argue with the immensity of their contribution to the art of motion pictures. Past awards went to the likes of Spike Lee, Werner Herzog and Mike Leigh - good company - and this year, the festival finally recognized Bay Area legend Francis Ford Coppola, who turned 70 on April 7.
In the last interview of "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse", a masterful documentary, produced by Coppola's wife Eleanor, about the heroic difficulty of filming "Apocalypse Now", Coppola says that when regular people can make their own low-budget films, "the 'so-called' professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever... and it will really become an art form."
Coppola himself was one of the first of the 60s feature filmmakers to be rather alternative and spontaneous. Indeed, he pulled "Apocalypse Now"'s opening shots out of a garbage bin, did drunken regression therapy with Martin Sheen to get its delirious first scene and shot various endings. Nevertheless, we wondered if he still stands behind this rather idealistic statement, given the rise of YouTube and the Mumblecore movement. Alas, he's been awfully busy of late—"Tetro" is releasing in the US on June 11—and he didn't respond to our interview requests.
"Tetro" is Coppola's first Cannes debut since "Apocalypse Now" took the Palme d'Or there in 1979, and his first film after the modest and self-financed 2007 "Youth Without Youth", a love story set in pre-WWII Europe which was not that well received by the critics. "Tetro" stars Vincent Gallo, a controversial actor and cineaste known for his edgy "Buffalo '66". A bohemian overwhelmed by art and family demons, notably his conductor father, played by the great German actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, the "Tetro" character, Gallo, runs away to Buenos Aires, and his brother, an interesting newcomer, Alden Ehrenreich, comes looking for him.
Coppola wanted to film in Argentina because of its rich cultural history and immigrants, where "you usually find creative people to work with," like the acclaimed Uruguayan opera singer, Adriana Mastrangelo, who does a cameo. But he admits the decision was partly financial, in an interview with Hollywood Reporter.
"I needed a place where I could get a co-production set-up where the U.S. dollar had a little oomph," according to The Reporter, which also notes tensions between his international cast and crew and the powerful Argentine Actors's Union, leading to delays. "Tetro" publicist Kathleen Talbert denied it, however, and Coppola had many good things to say about that tango- and wine- suffused nation.
Coppola and 'Tetro''s cinematographer Mihai Malaimare. photo: courtesy F.F. Coppola
Carrying a "spritual connection" to his 1983 "Rumble Fish", according to Coppola, "Tetro" was shot in gritty black and white and even originally cast Matt Dillon as the lead. To develop its style, Romanian cinematographer, Mihai Malaimare Jr. (who shot "Youth Without Youth") and Coppola reviewed some favorites films, like Anonioni's "La Notte" and Kazan's "On The Waterfront".
"Tetro" is the first original screenplay from Coppola since his brilliant 1974 film, "The Conversation", starring Gene Hackman. He claims it is "quite fictionalized," although it seems ladened with references to his sinuous career. "My story deals with almost mythic proportions... the classic Greek domineering father, rivalry between brothers, lots of things out of my own life, although in truth I did not have a domineering father." Although that is true, in another sense he did: Hollywood.
As a boy bedridden by polio, Coppola started in film by using his father's 8mm camera to film puppets. Although from Detroit (hence the Francis Ford Coppola), the Coppolas were intensely artistic. His father, Carmine, played flute for the local symphony, his sister Talia Shire became a versatile actress (the "Godfather" and "Rocky" movies and lots of television), and his brother, August, a musician and composer, became the dean and inspiration behind San Francisco State's School of Creative Arts, as well as composer on a couple of Coppola films.
Coppola can sound 60s-esque—naturally, he is one of the first of the hippie generation of filmmakers, but also one of the first to come out of film school. In the early 60s, after graduating from UCLA, where he hung with Jim Morrison, he began working on some Poe-based horror movies for Roger "King of the Bs" Corman. His first feature, "Dementia 13", used the same writer (Jack Hill), same cast and crew, and the same set as Corman's "The Terror", his day job, which he was directing! After he wrote Patton and directed the musical Finian's Rainbow, starring Petula Clark, in the late 60s, he became the first film school alumnus to reach the industry's heights.
Despite being considered a hippie by the front office, his acclaim and Italian heritage set him up for The Godfather. Coppola was reluctant, due to ethnic sensitivities and the project's scope, but it was "an offer he couldn't refuse." He parsed Mario Puzo's brilliant story in bold 60s strokes, and in terms of America capitalism, a metaphor that holds today, as indicated by the recent book, The Godfather Doctrine: Understanding American Foreign Policy. With humanized Mafiosi portrayed by masters Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and Coppola's sister, Talia, The Godfather became an example of zeitgeist-perfect art, often ranked second only to Wells's Citizen Kane in the pantheon of American filmmaking.
By the 70s, Coppola was sick of Hollywood. Having already filmed parts of "Finian's Rainbow" in Napa, he and his filmmaker friends George Lucas, Saul Zaentz, Phil Kaufman, and Walter Murch, adjourned north. Lucas and Coppola pioneered the possibilities with The Rain People, a road film which also addressed responsibility. It was shot comparatively guerilla, with a nine-person crew, using a customized camera/hippie van. Everyone helped each other, and the tiny Northern Californian community soon produced a renaissance rarely equaled in film history—see "Star Wars" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Lucas and Zaentz respectively—and rendered in fascinating sex-, drug- and vision-infused detail by Gary Leva in "Fog City Mavericks". But Coppola's career proved more difficult.
"Apocalypse Now" was also amazingly archetypal: the ultimate off-the-grid, drink-the-Kool-Aid 60s story, from its Vietnam insanity script, written by John Milius in 1969, to its difficult Phillipine production, the subject of "Hearts of Darkness". There was Sheen's heart-attack and nervous breakdown, Brando's bloated figure and greed, 70 rain days in a row and the loss of expensive sets, Francis's nightly battles to write the next day's dialogue as well as the endings (it has various). Ultimately, it was laboriously pieced together, with Michael Herr (Dispatches) writing the narration and local sound master Murch doing Herculean sound design.
Acclaimed the world over as well as at Cannes, and culturally healing for the nation, "Apocalypse" exhausted Coppola. Although "Rumble Fish" resonated, "One From the Heart" (1982), ballooned insanely over budget, was shot entirely on set and flopped. For a time, Coppola turned to producing wine at his vineyard in Napa, where American Zoetrope moved (after its beautiful North Beach building got too expensive), the outstanding literary quarterly All-Story, and his own artistic family.
While not yet authoring one of the top films of all time, Sofia and Roman Coppola (along with cousin Nicholas Cage) have added to the family oeuvre. Sofia has directed three major pictures, including the acclaimed "The Virgin Suicides" (1999) and "Lost in Translation" (2003), which won an Academy Award for its screenplay and a nomination for her directing, only the third woman so honored. Roman acted various roles for Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson, and co-wrote and produced the latter's "Darjeeling Limited". He is currently helping sis on pre-produce Somewhere, her next outing, set to star Dakota Fanning's sister, Elle, as the daughter of a Hollywood actor reexamining her life.
Speaking of self-reflection, Coppola is currently in pre-production with an AMC series adaptation of "The Conversation", set in San Francisco, to be made by Tony Krantz. Moreover, he will be producing "On The Road", Jack Kerouac's lost-in-American-space bohemian novel, which he optioned in 1980, fresh from his "Apocalypse" triumph. But he didn't decide to make it until after seeing Brazilian Walter Salles's "The Motorcycle Diaries".
Adapting "On The Road" may be the dream of most filmmakers of Coppola's age but one of its central questions - whether or not one needs to "grow up" and stop having adventures - could easily trouble filmmakers on their own quixotic journeys. Perhaps Coppola sees himself, as many do, behind the wheel of a beat-up Cadillac, adrift on an American road that is getting ever more cookie-cutter and oblivious to what really matters. What brought on this sudden impulse to make older projects - a jolt of youthful idealism from the "Motorcycle Diaries"? Of course, Coppola began thinking about "Tetro" while working on "The Conversation" and always wanted to continue as a writer-director.
It's hard to believe that no one was willing to fund his pet projects during the 1970s, especially after "The Godfather", or in the 1990s. But studio execs were leery of the ambitions of the first of the great film-school graduate directors. No wonder he moved to the Bay Area, experimented with alternate financing, and tackled Apocalypse. Tetro could be a continuation of what Coppola wanted to do thirty years ago. Whether or not it is a hit, it will be a personal triumph of self-expression and of getting back to his true love: auteur filmmaking.Posted on Jun 19, 2009 - 05:32 AM