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If there is one filmmaker responsible for the independent spirit of films, it is Francis Ford Coppola. From the GODFATHER films to APOCALYPSE NOW to BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, Francis Ford Coppola is a living legend in film. After ten years since his last directorial effort, Coppola has returned to movies with a personal film, YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH, based on the novel by Mircea Eliade. Shooting on a low budget with his own money, Coppola had a freedom he felt he hadn't experienced in ages on a film. Starring Tim Roth, the film is a complex science fiction, drama, and romance about a man's passion between his long love and his desire to complete his life's work on discovering the origins of language. To promote the film, Coppola took part in a special roundtable that the Colonel's Crypt was a part of. The following are highlights from the roundtable. Enjoy.
How were you introduced to YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH and what was it about the story that wanted you to make this film? FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: Well I read the story for other reasons. I had never really heard of the author, Mircea Eliade, but a good friend of mine had suggested the story to me. I fell in love with it and started writing, but the script hadn't been going well. I sent it to Wendy Doniger who is a professor at the University of Chicago, and her mentor was Eliade. I felt I needed feedback from somebody other than movie people. Inevitably movie people would go "Is this commercial, well commercially it may be fine but is it really any good?" So I sent it to her and she wrote back with some good comments that were different from the typical movie reaction and she sent me some quotes from Mircea Eliade about time. Part of what I was having trouble with my script had to do with how you would express these things in a movie, the language that movies have to speak with dreams. There's not a lot you can with that in a movie. In a novel you can do that, but in a film you have to deal with actors and actresses who can give you what they're feeling, but do they have a thought process that you can't really film and having a voice. So I needed to find a way for the audience to get inside the characters. So she sent me the notes on Eliade and then I got the story because it isn't easy to get. It turns out that Eliade was more of a religious philosopher and scholar, but he used to write these little fables that he could maybe play around, get some ideas that would come out of these parables. So to make a long story short, when I got the actual story it felt to me like THE TWILIGHT ZONE, every two pages something extraordinary would happen to this man. First he gets struck by lightning, then he becomes a young man again, then he studies Chinese and by putting a hand over a book, he's able to speak Chinese. Then he turns into two personalities and finds a way to discover the origin of the language but at the cost of losing his love again. This was the craziest story I ever read and I started to get excited for it. Tim Roth had mentioned that he sent a fan letter to you at the age of 16 and that you showed it to him on set. FFC: It wasn't even a fan letter, it was "I am a young actor and I love your movies," all written when he was 16. He's terrific. He says he hasn't gotten the letter back. FFC: He won't get it back, he sent it to me. It's my letter. (Laughs) Would you say that the character of Dominic had many parallels to you in terms of being at an age to be able to go back and have time to complete more work? FFC: I would say yes. I was always in a larval state of whether to pick it up again or not do it anymore. I think there are people who want to do things their way but I just think that cinema, the movies have a magical feel to them. It's amazing, film is only a hundred years old and we've seen such masterpieces made. It seems to me that the language of film is becoming so structured that maybe fifty years from now we will see movies that will try to get completely get inside a person's head in a way that I don't know how to. I would always be enthusiastic about moviemaking as well as other people my age do, my friends. They haven't gotten over what a treat it is to imagine a film, get a script written, and put everything together. I would have to say I'm in a larval stage until I don't want to do this anymore. The dream sequences with Dominic have a very interesting approach to them. Why did you decide to film it in the way that you did? FFC: I stumbled on some things that I felt did what I decided to do. There are a lot dreams in the film, and in having these dreams I felt, "I guess I have to make things all wavy or color it pink or something," but these are not how dreams are to most people. Dreams are very realistic so what's happening is that it feels real so I started to see the dreams upside down as a way to say that they are dreams but you don't get used to it. That was something that I haven't done before. I'm trying to remember because now I'm so immersed in my upcoming film TETRO. The way I dealt with the double, the double is an interesting figure in the film. He's in the story as well but I used the double more extensively in the film than in the story, in the story he disappears quite early. I felt the double could be helpful throughout the film and I thought how should I do the double, should I have another actor play him? Then I thought wouldn't it be interesting if I just added in Tim himself so when he's talking as the double he's looking right to left which is exactly the same way talking as Dominic from left to right and cut those together and see if it looks like he's talking to someone. At first, we thought maybe there was another way we could do it, but I found that when I actually had him in bed talking to himself that it was like he was talking to someone else. Did you film this in the same way that you filmed BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, with the effects of lights and shadows? FFC: No, not at all, DRACULA was made entirely on camera with effects that were done at the turn of the century. The effects that are in YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH, and probably with most modern movies, more of them than you think, are very subtle. We altered the sky and made the buildings in Romania look like the way we did in 1938. Then we began to do things that I found it very exciting that we used effects in a very subtle way. For example, we of course did not go to India with the cast but we were shooting one scene where the characters are walking along the outskirts of a cave in India. We shot the majority of the scene in Romania. Then we went to India and shot a temple. The temple had very colored shadows and it had sounds of decay inside the temple. When they were walking right after you see the temple, walking along the water, you barely see it but you can see a huge sort of married shot where part of the shot was in India and part of it was in Romania. We used the effects in a way that was complimentary and very easy to do. You financed this film entirely on your own under your Zoetrope label. Did you ever think you'd be able to do so and was this the film you had the most creative freedom on? FFC: I didn't count on being so successful so young with THE GODFATHER. Of course I didn't have money then all of a sudden I had this status and THE GODFATHER started this bigger deal than I originally thought when I started as a filmmaker. I had bent my career out of shape. I had done THE RAIN PEOPLE and THE CONVERSATION which were more personal films that I financed. I had turned 65 and I thought that I would like to see a European style director make a unique, beautiful film and I never got to do that so I figured why don't I do that now. And so I went to Romania with the attitude that I would shoot the film the way that I did. If I could just make one personal film after another even if I have to finance it myself, what else could I do with the money? Someone would ask you after you win the lottery and buy a Ferrari and a summer home, then what? If I won the lottery, I would make personal films, so that's what I did. This was your first film shot with High Definition. Why did you decide to shoot it in HD and will you work with the medium again? FFC: Yes I will only shoot with HD from now on. I frankly think in four years that's all that's going to be made. I don't think anyone would've particularly known seeing the picture how it was made. What I learned about it was the beauty to keep with the important things with the photographer as the eye of the lens. We shot with some very high quality, beautifully made lenses with a lot of care. In fact the same equipment that made this picture was all trucked away and it's in Argentina now, the same stock. I'll be using it on TETRO. In a way I have a mobile film studio with me where I can take it with me wherever I want to film. But I think you'll find that in four or five years every movie will be made in that medium. Was YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH made because of the difficulties of MEGAPOLIS? FFC: That's partly what happened. I was very frustrated on MEGAPOLIS. Where was I going to get $80 million, who was I going to get to be in it, and then the Twin Towers tragedy happened, and a movie that was supposed to be in New York became harder to make, and the New York Exchange in particular was changed and you have to deal with it and there's a huge grey area involved. I had to bend the story to accommodate them, and I just didn't know how to. I tried very hard, I had exhaustive rewrites. Finally I became a litle depressed about making this film successful so I just one day heard about these fabulous little films that were all financed internally and I decided to make that commitment. Then I thought to myself "What movies am I going to make," and then when I read YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH I thought we'll go to Romania and we've got all these rights, then we started to shoot on this side, all the lights should be on that side, and I became excited to make films again. You've made films that deal with the horrors of war and violence with THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE NOW. Would you consider making a film based on the current state of our country? FFC: A lot of people ask me if I would want to do that and I always answer no. If I were to make a film about Iraq, what I would think of is that I would want to make a very peaceful film. You have to understand that the biggest films of my life, THE GODFATHER movies and APOCALYPSE NOW are very violent movies, and violent movies are successful commercially, I guess it's always been since the Greek plays. You can make some very powerful films with violence and I suppose I would do it again if it would be successful but I don't see the relevance in violent films and if I would make another war film, it wouldn't be as graphic as APOCALYPSE. What about your status as a director in making these films and were you aware of the attention the film would get being it's your first in ten years? FFC: I am aware that when I am invited somewhere like a big awards banquet and I walk onstage, they play THE GODFATHER theme so I know, I almost want to say that I know THE GODATHER was this fabulous movie but I'm known for other things and realize that not all of my films have been widely hailed. Any unusual movie has been criticized, even THE GODFATHER when you read the VARIETY review of THE GODFATHER, you would be shocked. I won't even mention the initial reaction to APOCALYPSE NOW. I am used to films that are not of the type that are presently the mainstream, so you hope that later you get a much greater respect where I hope I'm alive to see what movies will be like years from now. Thank you. FFC: Thank you all very much. (Special thanks to Jeff Hill at International House of Publicity and to Heidi Martinuzzi at Pretty-Scary.net)
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