When Coppola made "Finian's Rainbow" quite early in his career he took the hokiest of old Broadway shows and revamped it for the hippies so why suppose his next musical would be any different? Knowing that the musical as a genre is pure fantasy from the very start, with "One From the Heart" he created a Las Vegas that didn't exist, (he built it in the studio), with a pair of star-crossed lovers who couldn't sing, or at least didn't sing, but rather than dub them he got Tom Waits to write an original song score and then sing it off-screen with he and Crystal Gale standing in the for leads, Frederic Forrest and Teri Garr.
This was a musical for cineastes and jazz aficionados. It cost a fortune and it lost a fortune and it bankrupted Coppola but it was obviously 'one from the heart', as filled with Coppolaesque passion as his 'Godfather' movies or "Apocalypse Now" and it looks ravishing, (Vittorio Storaro and Ronald V. Garcia did the cinematography and Dean Tavoularis and Angelo Graham designed it).
If Coppola's films can be divided into 'the big successes' and 'the smaller cult movies' then this is the cult movie to end them all. Is it a masterpiece? Perhaps, but I think it is let down just a little by Armyan Bernstein and Coppola's screenplay which is formulaic and banal. Of course, could this be part of the fantasy, Coppola's way of divorcing everything, including what's said, from the real world? Again, perhaps. It's certainly a movie you will either relate to totally or run a mile from but if you liked "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" you'll love this.
No comments:
Post a Comment