Francis Ford Coppola’s Declaration of Independence
“I’m no longer dependent on the movie business to make a living.
So if I want to make movies as other old guys would play golf, I can.”
- Francis Ford Coppola, Vanity Fair December 2007
Many filmmakers work on small independent films with dreams of one day making it big in Hollywood, but Francis Ford Coppola appears to have it backward. He scored major critical and box office successes in the pre-blockbuster era of mainstream Hollywood with the Godfather films and he has seemingly dreamed of true independence ever since.
After Coppola’s own studio dreams collapsed into bankruptcy and a $25 million debt following the failure of his 1982 experimental musical One From the Heart, he spent the next decade and a half working on small pet projects and as a director-for-hire. His last film was in 1997.
In the ensuing years, his non-film businesses grew and now pull in half a billion dollars a year. The result is that 10 years since the John Grisham adaptation The Rainmaker, the 68-year-old Coppola can make the movies he wants to make exactly the way he wants to make them. The first result is Youth Without Youth, now playing in limited release.
Ari at The Aspect Ratio recently pointed out an interesting interview by Bruce Handy in December’s Vanity Fair wherein Coppola talks about a number of subjects including working as a director-for-hire, his current film and also what happened with Megalopolis, the one that got away.
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Go, Coppola! I like that quote.
Nice interview. Thanks for posting the link.
I’m a little slow getting to it, but I liked it and it felt right having just seen the movie.
He has the right attitude. Whether I end up liking this film or not I will never lose respect for the man.
When Coppola makes a movie, I go, no questions asked. He has one of the most interesting filmographies of all time (more interesting than some who can claim masterpiece after masterpiece) and he appears to be one of the most curious, unpretentious directors of our time. He puts his money where his mouth is, and that marks him as undeniably courageous. That he does happen to have three major masterpieces of his own certainly doesn’t hurt either.
Also just wanted to say that The Rainmaker is actually a little underrated. Grisham didn’t do the director any favors with the story, but the execution is leisurely, confident and appealing, with Mickey Rourke stealing scenes eight years before it was hip for him to do so.
I’m really happy to see a bunch of shared respect for Coppola. I really kind of worried I was going out on a bit of a limb with the Youth Without Youth review, especially when I saw how badly some people were trashing it.
Weird that Coppola typically gets villified for doing anything experimental but other directors, who I suppose are just viewed as being more indie/artsy and therefore less commercial (like Lynch, Greenaway, Catherine Breillat, Guy Madden), actually garner an amazing amount of leeway with critics in general. I assume part of it is that Coppola is viewed as being more mainstream and commercial, but shouldn’t a mainstream director be applauded for doing something that isn’t inherently mainstream?
I guess it’s easy to forget how subjective film criticism is and how much ego is involved in the process of being a professional critic.
Good point Joel. That’s because critics can be just as inflexible as the uneducated masses they like to vilify so often. They want their art house directors arty and their commerical directors commercial. Any criss crossing of the circuits can result in trouble.
Ego and expectation.
It’s also easier and more defensible to write a snarky, negative review than a glowingly positive one.
I think a lot of critics went to bat on Youth because it’s an easy target. I won’t tell you it’s the perfect film, but it deserves better than its getting.
The critics have just plain and simple failed certain movies of the last few years. The Fountain was an impassioned, flawed, daring little movie. Daring not in its effects, but in the fact that it is about one simple love story, and life as viewed through the prism of that little love story. It was a leap for an already gifted filmmaker, and most told it to fuck off. I thought it was one of the best of 2006.
This year that movie is Lust, Caution, Ang Lee’s best, rawest film, and no one cares, and the critics didn’t try to make them care either.
They fucked Jesse James in the ass too.
I never really paid that careful attention before I started trying to write them myself, but some of these critics should be embarassed. They’re so paranoid about their own irrelevance, that they’re ensuring it.
Well said Craig. This is also why I get irritated with certain “critic movies” that everyone seems to love. I mentioned that I didn’t care for Children of Men the other day and never clarified. Its a well told story, and Cuaron is very gifted. But its a movie designed to placate the critics.
The jump cuts, the heavy handed, easy to spot symbolism, the tracking shots, the grit, the grim, all in the service of looking cool, and telling a story that’s been done a thousand times before, but those prior thousand attempts didn’t give the critics so much to congratulate themselves for catching. Children is a perfectly ok movie, but while the critics were fighting one another to proclaim it a masterpiece, they ignored four other movies that made even less than Children did.
I didn’t finish it, but A Mighty Heart seemed to be a similar kind of picture.
Obviously this is all my opionion, but it feels good to vent.
Venting is good.
As for CoM, I enjoyed it on a purely visceral level. I never really stopped and thought about it that much. I wouldn’t be surprised if what you say is true and it’ll be interesting to see if it still works for me when I get around to watching it again.
Chuck, you’re the first person to critcize CoM that I’ve read who didn’t just focus on small aspects of the narrative. I can see your points and while I don’t agree, I appreciate that you actually had rational reasons for not liking the movie.
OK, so I hesitated in my earlier post and not having seen Youth Without Youth, I can’t really compare but is Youth Without Youth really all that more convoluted or difficult than I’m Not There?
I ask because I saw I’m Not There two weeks ago and I’m still struggling to get my head around it. Parts of it I liked, parts of it I could appreciate but didn’t enjoy, and some parts of it I really didn’t like. And here’s the reason I ask: Most of the critics that are praising Todd Haynes and I’m Not There don’t really seem to be saying much about what all of it means, just that they liked it.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, just that it seems like Haynes got something of a free pass for making a movie on Bob Dylan that dissects the biopic genre, two things most baby boomer critics are going to really appreciate. But does that mean it’s a good movie?
And I don’t mean to sidetrack this discussion of Coppola, just that I think the critical reception to his film may be unfairly biased by many critics. Course, I’m not trying to say there’s an anti-Coppola conspiracy out there but I think you could make the argument for one with all the circumstantial evidence available.
I’ll just go back into the corner and but on my aluminum foil hat now, ward off those nagging voices…
In many ways, I’m Not There and Inland Empire are WAY more out there than Youth Without Youth.
There is a lot to Youth that is very conventional and old fashioned. It may have gone down better if it had more willfully flown off the rails.
I’m Not There got a lot of mileage out of the music, which for me put it over the top. I like the music and it really held the whole thing together for me.
Inland Empire…well I just surrendered to it and it blew my f’ing mind. This is not something I can analyze or justify.
Youth Without Youth strikes more of a middle ground that may be less ultimately satisfying to people who would prefer either extreme.
Does that make any sense?
You should try boxers made of reynolds wrap…
And you should never worry about sidetracking the comments section. Their Wild West nature is half the fun.
I also don’t share your opinions of CoM, Chuck. All the things you describe as being in the service of looking cool and winning critical praise were the very things that for me played a critical role in making the story thought provoking, visceral, and deeply moving. The descent with the baby through the shelled out building with everyone temporarily awestruck by what they see chokes me up just to think about it. And I could happily bore anyone with lengthy observations about the richness of the film’s ideas. Just goes to show - what’s profound to one viewer is banal or unexceptional to another. And who would want it any other way?
And I should add that with regards Lust, Caution we’re in considerable agreement.
oh, nice! thanks for the link.
And I agree about Lust, Caution, Chuck. I think it’s easily Ang Lee’s finest work.
OK Craig, I see where you’re going. I’m not saying I’m Not There isn’t good, just that it didn’t agree with me. And I will never be able to explain Inland Empire to anyone, why I like it, or why I will probably refuse to ever see it again unless I can replicate the experience I had the night I saw it.
Youth Without Youth: Love it or hate it, I’m going to give it a try.
And Chuck, I agree that Lust, Caution was unfairly ignored by critics and generally panned for no good reason.
I glazed over your finer point that Todd Haynes is getting a free pass that Coppola clearly isn’t getting Joel, but I still think it’s a fair one.
Whatever one thinks of I’m Not There (you know I liked it), I’m still a little surprised by the free ride it seemed to get from so many critics. It’s almost as if it’s cool to bag on Coppola but not Haynes.
Also, happy to see much love for Lust, Caution…the movie I almost started writing a bad review of and ended up flip-flopping on even as I wrote.
Weird, I know.
Confessions of a dangerous mind.
You have no idea…
Again with the cryptic comments. Craig, are you a serial killer? We won’t judge, come out of the closet.
Back on topic, did anyone else think the recut Outsiders with the rock score was a much, much better film than the theatrical release? It seemed to be an entirely different movie to me.
It’s funny how the addition of a scene or two can sometimes make a movie feel shorter. I think it’s because a film you can’t invest in emotionally — because the characters are ciphers — seems endless at any length, because you just don’t care what happens.
I haven’t caught the recut Outsiders and I haven’t seen the original for years (though I have fond memories based largely on a huge Diane Lane crush), but I know what you’re saying Frank.
Sometimes the extras weigh a movie down (I still dislike the Aliens Director’s Cut…blasphemy I know), but other times they make it better.