ITALY: Director Francis Ford Coppola unveils first film in 10 years, "Youth Without Youth"

Francis Ford Coppola's first film in ten years is not exactly similar to any of his past films. Unlike "Apocalypse Now" and "The Godfather" trilogy, Coppola says he ventured into new territory in "Youth Without Youth." The film revolves around Dominic Matei - an elderly Romanian linguistics professor who feels he has wasted his life, lost the woman he loved and failed to produce a great academic work. Then, just before the outbreak of World War Two, Matei -- played by British actor Tim Roth -- is struck by lightning and becomes young again, getting a new lease of life and a second chance to fulfill his dreams. The film, which premiered on Saturday (October 20) at the Rome festival, is based on a short novel by Romanian historian of religion Mircea Eliade. In the production notes, Coppola says that when he came across the book he was, a bit like its main character, "beginning to feel at the end of the road", frustrated by his inability to finish the screenplay for his long-cherished utopia project "Megalopolis". Coppola financed the film with his own Californian winery business and went to shoot in Romania as if "I was making a student film", with an almost entirely local cast and crew and a specially fitted van to carry all the equipment. The result is a complex, elaborate story mixing the ingredients of a spy thriller, including mad Nazi scientists studying genetic mutations, with philosophical meditations on time, language and reincarnation. "It wasn't like a regular story. It was like a journey through a series of one , like those Russian things, like one fairy tale inside another fairy tale and I have never seen a film like that and I thought it would be wonderful. I think would be enjoyable to see a movie like that and I was aware that of course, just as I wanted to make a more student film, or a young person's film more out of the of making a film, I would have to become young again. And here was the story of a man who did become young again so there was a kind of coincidental interest, and I felt that I didn't really understand the story, but I thought maybe if I worked on it, I would come to understand it better and I would come to understand as a director how to better tell such a story or in maybe new ways to reveal what he was thinking or to know when he was dreaming or not dreaming, or this whole question of perception and time, I would be able to learn more about it," 68-year old Coppola said during an interview with Reuters Television on Sunday (October 21). Roth says observing and learning from people who helped him prepare for his role, which went from age 26 to 101, and required long hours in the make-up room. "I used to try and imagine what it would feel like to be that old. We had a long rehearsal period but that was like really a way for Francis to feel like a director again. I think it was more that. So for me, it was really watching people in their late years of life," said Roth who thought the initial phone call from Coppola ahead of the casting was a practical joke played by one his friends. Romanian actress Alexandra Maria Lara, whose performance in The Downfall earned her recognition, says working with Coppola was a dream come true. "To work, for me as a young actress, to work with Mr. Coppola was and still is such a dream and I think I will be still, from now on as scared as I always am the first time when I go to a new set. But I think it will help me in some moments when I'm down or when I don't feel so good that one of the most incredible directors on earth offered me work already once. This is incredible," said the 29-year-old actress who plays three different characters in the film. Coppola teamed up with old colleagues in making the film, but this time, his family, including his Academy Award filmmaker daughter Sofia, did not participate in pre-production. "No, no, I pretty much did it on my own. I wanted to go and surprise them all, just make the film. And you know, sometimes with your family, the more opinion you get on what you're doing, the more it's going to become more conservative. 'Oh you're going to have philosophy in it, people don't like philosophy in it. Let them read it in the books.' So you might become more cautious," said Coppola who was joined on the red carpet by Sofia, his wife Eleanor, and his son Roman during the premier on Saturday. Critics' reaction at Saturday's press screening was muted, with some feeling the film was erratic and over ambitious. One American magazine criticised its "mishmash plotting" and "stilted script." But Coppola, who after his early triumphs has had his fair share of flops -- in the 1980s his production company was taken over by creditors -- said artists should never worry about the public's knee-jerk reaction to their works. He also asks the audience for "patience" and "tolerance" as filmmakers break new ground. "The filmmaker wants to bring the audience further and to give them some new ways to see films like they haven't seen already. I don't think the last ten years had been very good at that. Most of the films in the last ten years had been sequels. They're deliberately done so that there's less risk and make more money," Coppola said, repeating his criticism of a Hollywood flurry towards remakes and sequels.

ITN Source | October 25, 2007

Tags:. .complex. .unveils. .dominic. .plotting. .havent