One from the Heart

One of the most famous productions of its time, Francis Coppola's One from the Heart is a "little movie" that grew into a gigantic, studio-bankrupting behemoth. Entirely shot on glorious sets in Coppola's Zoetrope studio, the teeny story follows a bickering Las Vegas couple (Teri Garr and Frederic Forrest) during a night's madness with others. It would be nice to recommend the film to romantics, or movie-musical mavens, but really this film is for the technologically minded: it's a flashy display of camera trickery and painted sets (anticipating Moulin Rouge). Alas, the techno-dazzle is somewhat at odds with the clunky performances and choppy editorial flow... and it has all the warmth of neon. Since its initial botched release, the film has developed a small but devoted following, in part because of the terrific song score by Tom Waits (sung by Waits and Crystal Gayle). It should be seen, not least as a case study in bravado. --Robert Horton Amazon.com

How could I have forgotten this???

I was reading another obscure Copplia movie review, when I came on this movie and just came to a stop. This quirky movie stopped me dead in my tracks 20 or so years ago and instigated a extended discussion about it with my companion for hours over dinner. I bought the album because the Tom Watts and Crystal Gayle soundtrack was just so captivating and bluesy ( maybe it was the music and not Terri Garr you think?) Or perhaps it's just an unconventional telling of an ordinary tale with visually amazing sets. Definitely a "character piece" ( no action what so ever ). For people who want to think and be entertained.
December 14, 2007

How people yearn for a romantic ideal, supreme happiness, a utopia

ONE FROM THE HEART (1982) iill attract a viewership on account of
Francis Ford Coppola's fame, or perhaps from its talented, sincere
cast, comprising Nastassja Kinski, here shown very young, with a
ballerina's physique, yet still very green in her emotional, human
aspects ons screen.

What works best, is the strong dream-like atmosphere that it brings
forth, taking viewers into another dimension, and the romanticism of
the actual story. Indeed, after 5 years in a monogamous
relationship, as each partner consciously grows older, seeing each
other turning into furniture so to speak, this aging and boredom
stress-tests each partner into finding out who they are, what they
are they made of, their character, what is the key to happiness.

For the girl, played superbly by Teri Garr, (in fine physical
shape), with a mature yet youthful, realistic approach in her
acting, happiness is a husband singing, dancing, going to a remote
tropical resort, in sum, the presence of romanticism. For the man,
Frederic Forrest, happiness is maintaining a routine, living
day-to-day, with limited ambition or possibilities of variance in
the agenda, paying the bills on time, seeing reality.

There are multiple aspects that bring the picture down. The first,
and foremost, is the astounding lack of subtlety in the "crooner"
song numbers, such that the audience is left with the impression
that the story, and the singing revolving about "feelings" and "lack
of utopic, perfect love" is onanistic, an irritation. There is a
whining attitude, over-the-top, deranged singing, reminscient of
Barbara Streisand's hysterical "Woman in Love" for example.

Secondly, the opening and closing credits, publicize the Zoetrope
Studios, as if this means anything to the audience in the US, Canada
or around the world. It's silly.

Third, the exteriors, backdrops filmed of many kinds (sunset,
sunrise, simulated motel and streets) are blatantly and obviously
fake, as the audience can see it's a studio, not the real thing.
Only a photographer can prefer a set like this to the real thing,
filmed in a neighborhood. Simply because there is "no dust" or
"photographic imperfections" of any kind, doesn't mean Zoetrope was
better because it's made in a sterile, artificial room vs. the real
thing.

Fourth, the real shocker, and unrealistic aspect, is the complete
lack of moral, religous dimension to the behavior of the characters,
including Raul Julia, who seduces Garr, much like Kinsky seduces
Forrest. The film suggests people are zombies, only obeying to a
"master", an internal compass instructing them to maximize and
reach a "utopic, supreme level of pleasure, happiness, excitement"
as if human life was only about a day at the amusement park,
figuring out which ride is the most fun.

Fifth, although some may disagree, over 90 mins, over and over
again, the actors and actresses are shown either dressing up or
taking their clothes off, with frequent upper nudity of both Kinsky
and Garr, and when not the case, in pajamas, intimate night wear,
underpants or stockings. This brings forth an intimate setting with
the audience, and sensuality (as does Garr's lovely red dress, on
her figure), but there is an unsettling, queasy voyeuristic aspect
to this.

As for Julia, he's clearly in supreme form, slim, youthful,
energetic, charismatic, and enjoying every moment, especially the
scenes filmed with the crowds in the street. A fair bit of humor is
present, such as Julia's stint as a waiter.

Overall, this picture is very human, feminine in its outlook,
showing how people in relationships yearn for a romantic ideal, a
supreme happiness, a utopia, to the point of one night stands. July 2, 2007

Still my favorite movie..

Back in the '80s I was fond of telling people this was my favorite movie of all time. (Well, maybe in a tie with The Wild Bunch) but the years passed and I suspected that like so much of what I valued then, I would now see this movie in a much harsher light.

Boy, was I wrong! I remain baffled by the way Coppola was mocked and vilified for hurling his whole creative (and financial) being into this little dream of his. But it remains a beautiful dream. While at once creating vivid, indelible characters so perfectly flawed as to resemble no one and everyone, it functions as a sort of second chance for Adam & Eve. Yielding to temptation, Hank and Frannie ultimately learn what matters most. I still end up in tears. Tears of redemptive joy.

Needless to say, Tom Waits' music functions beautifully as wry commentary on the ill-fated blunders of the principals. Waits here is at the peak of his powers as heir to the great American songwriter tradition. This is before he wandered off to the junkyard to pursue the ghost of Harry Partch.

In an era that scorns the very concept of beauty, when film critics rave over "documentaries" about men who have sex with horses, this little jewel of a movie might as well come from a million years ago. If you've loved and lost, (or won), if there's a trace of a heart left in you, you can't be unmoved by this film. January 23, 2007

a mood piece more than a movie

Like the real city of Las Vegas, you have to be in the right mood to allow yourself to sink beneath the flashy, dazzling, and artificial veneer that made up this dream-like cinematic mood piece. You have to let go. Stop thinking about why the hell would Francis Coppola made a movie like this. Stop thinking about the almost absurd acting and outsider-art like directions. Go chug down that two finger of bourbon, and sink into the neons. Which mood am I talking about exactly? I think looking at the DVD cover or listening to the nocturnal soundtracks done by the unlikely duo of Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle gives you a pretty good idea. It's not exactly fancy-pants snobby cinematic high art, but it has more of a three AM Fremont Street on a cold winter night kinda feel to it. This movie is jazzy, smoky, humorous (in a midnight carnival type of way), and there is a nary sense of melancholy to it. On that note, I think nobody but Tom Waits could have done the scores for a film like this. I love this movie and almost everything about it - the first time I watched it and ever since. January 18, 2007

One from the Heart of Darkness

A huge roll of the dice that wiped out Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope studio and saw him spending the next decade churning out pictures to pay off the debts the $28m flop left him with, One From the Heart is one of those films I really want to like - to love, even - but which just won't let me. Visually it's a triumph, but the Tom Waits suicide blues score rarely works as a screen musical and as a human drama its kept firmly on the ground by the fact these characters just aren't likeable. Coppola seems more interested in his lavish studio settings than what's happening in them, with even the most mundane sequences shot like an imaginatively staged theatrical musical with intricate shifts of lighting and colour, dissolving walls and neon dreams. But perhaps the biggest problem of all is that Coppola doesn't seem to have made this film for the audience but for himself, and so it probably never connects with anyone not on his personal wavelength. The trailers give away a big part of the problem: the 1982 release stresses the Godfather and Apocalypse Now as evidence of Coppola's genius while the 2003 reissue trailer runs off a list of critical superlatives in a sternly unemotional voice: joy isn't on the menu here.

That the story is so simple as to be almost invisible - a couple split up over the 4th July weekend and become involved with new partners - needn't be a problem: after all, three sailors on furlough looking for Miss Turnstiles or a backwoodsman convincing his six bachelors to kidnap six local girls to marry aren't exactly complex. With good casting, good writing and good musical numbers, there's no real reason it shouldn't work. Unfortunately it doesn't get them. The argument that kicks off the split is atrociously written and just as badly acted - you've seen more vicious spats on The Dick Van Dyke Show - and because we never buy it for a moment the film is handicapped almost from the start. The fact that either lead can carry a movie, is even more of a problem, leaving you with a film without any heart at its center: Raul Julia is the only member of the cast who really shines, and he probably has the least screen time of anyone in the picture. The constant crosscutting doesn't help, with Coppola cutting away as soon as one scene starts to gel to focus on an awkward one that never does. Despite input from Gene Kelly (barely noticeable) and Michael Powell (visually very noticeable), it's not even quite a musical - aside from a couple of fantasy numbers it opts Yentl-like to keep the singing as an invisible chorus/underscore not so much commenting as setting the melancholy tone that counterpoints the bright, garish visuals. The film's one promising musical number, where Julia's serenade of Teri Garr spills out onto the streets of Las Vegas, is never allowed to play uninterrupted without meandering shots of Frederic Forrest wandering through the neon streets.

Coppola's 2003 re-edit of the film does nothing to improve matters. The revised opening is a little smoother but at the expense of Forrest's character, removing all remaining traces of color to make him even more of a boring homebody. It's an excellent DVD, however, with everything you could want to know and more and offering some fairly frank insights into the failure of Coppola's attempt to ally the expertise of the old studio contract system with the modern advances of electronic cinema, not to mention the constant financing problems. It's just a shame that the film itself is so damn hard to love.

January 15, 2007

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