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Francis Ford Coppola looks back on his youth
[Wed 17/09/2008 02:04:35]
By David Michael
I thought if I had a life of an older director when I was young, maybe I can have a life of a younger director when I'm old - says Francis Ford Coppola, at Rome Film Festival, where his film Youth Without Youth had it's world premiere, and marked the director's first film in a decade. 
Based on Mircea Eliade’s novella of the same name, Youth Without Youth is a Faustian tale of Nazi scientists, dreams and dopplegängers, in which Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), a 70-year linguist who fears he will not complete his magnum opus, is afforded a second chance when a bolt of lighting volts him back to the age of 30 in a miraculous rejuvenation,
Shot in Romania the film offers lavish sets, locations, and the director’s trademark classy sheen, but Coppola admits he “borrowed back a more independent style of production”, which he taught to his filmmaking offspring Roman and Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation). While no expense is spared on Roth’s and co-star Alexandra Marie Lara’s aging make-up to make their character’s look span decades, Coppola opted to simplify his approach when tackling the film’s multi-layed dream sequences.
“At first, I thought we’ll make it all purple or all woozy,” reflects Coppola. “Then I thought what’s happening is strange, but it’s the same as reality apart from context and behaviour. I thought if I just turn the picture upside down or sideways, then you would understand it was a dream and it could be done realistically. Of course, that’s something easy cinematically to experiment with, and if it doesn’t work or you don’t like it, you can always turn it back!”
Coppola’s enthusiasm for simplistic film student-like experimentation is rooted in recapturing the spirit of his early years. “I tried to be more of the kind of filmmaker I wanted to be when I was around 19-years-old,” says Coppola. “I wanted to be more of this European style filmmaker that was coming to the United States in the 1950’s and 1960’s.” Coppola’s initial success with The Godfather in 1972 (projected to fail at the time), had by his own admission, propelled him “unwittingly into a big time movie making career”, which the well-documented Herculean struggle that was Apocalypse Now, almost brought to an abrupt end in 1979. Ironically, One From the Heart, a downsized step onto safer ground, then almost bankrupted his production company Zoetrope, before his diversification into the wine industry - which he describes as “a business to help support the making of personal films” - ultimately saved him from financial ruin.
Before his 10-year hiatus Coppola played it safe as a director-for-hire on the critically derided Jack and the by-the-numbers adaptation of John Grishmam’s Rainmaker, distracting him from his own self-proclaimed Magnus Opus, ‘Megalopolis’ - which threatened to dwarf Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and perhaps open another chapter in the design and realisation of sci-fi. “It’s better to be overly ambitious and fail, then to be under ambitious and succeed in a mundane way,” says Coppola, of the unfulfilled project.
With ‘Megalopolis’ in limbo for over 20 years, the most celebrated “personal films” from the Zoetrope stable have been directed by his daughter Sofia Coppola, but Coppola with his thirst back and enthused by the potential of downsizing, hopes to redress the balance despite being 68-years-old.
“They do say, trees make more fruit when they think their time is going to be over,” chuckles the fatalist portly director. “My next film Tetro will be stricter in following the philosophy of low end production. Youth Without Youth ended up quite ambitious and required some production effort. So I’ve now put together a group of people who can work in a low cost production environment.”
Tetro, that charts the conflict of an artist Italian immigrant family and stars Coppola stalwart Matt Dillon as the eponymous lead, is currently shooting in Argentina, but suffered a hiccup late last year when Coppola’s South American production office were raided and all the computers containing the film’s research and script were stolen.
“It wasn’t the only copy of the script, but unfortunately, they stole the back-up drives too; which you keep near the computer, because you have to back-up everyday. I’m pretty good about multiple backups, but I did loose about a year and a half of notes and photographs.”
Still, recovered from the mini-crisis Coppola admits, albeit coyly, that this time he’ll be literally capturing his own youth on film.
“I can’t say it’s autobiographical, because if I did, the ghost of my father and my family would attack and their furies would come after me,” he laughs in conclusion. “It was certainly inspired by things I observed and felt as a kid, and it’s something I felt I’d like to work out.”
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