ONE FROM THE HEART 1982lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2012/05/one-from-heart-1982.html

Stephen Sondheim’s onetime-flop/now-revered 1971 Broadway musical, Follies: a tuneful, dark-hued elegy to agingand its attendant lost illusions, has always been one of my favorites. At age 14, my adolescent arrogance (aredundancy if ever there was one) convinced me that I had fully understood the show’s themes, when in honesty, allthat my then-limited life experience could reasonably have brought to the table was sympathy. Now that I’m roughlythe same age as Follies’ representative cast, I find the show to be not only infinitely smarter and more insightful thaninitially thought, but the passing years have added empathy to the mix. What I know now that I couldn’t have knownat 14 is that the follies of one’s life aren’t regrets; they’re just youthful dreams that have just grown tooburdensomely heavy to continue to carry with us as into old age.

This all calls to mind Francis Ford Coppola’s ambitious but flawed dream-project, One from the Heart being dubbed“Coppola’s Folly” on release, and the irony of its creation being instrumental in the demise of that other Coppoladream: his American Zoetrope Studios. As someone who came of age and developed a love for movies during theyouth-centric, formative years of The New Hollywood out of which Coppola emerged (roughly 1967 to1979), I've discovered one of the more sobering realities of aging has been bearing witness to what’s become of theideals and ambitions of the golden boys of the Hollywood Renaissance.

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Francis Ford Coppola takes an ordinary couple and places them at the center ofan extraordinary, fantasy vision of Las Vegas

George Lucas, the once-venturesome director of the lively American Graffiti, now seems a virtual prisoner of hisown success, holed up in Skywalker Ranch like Charles Foster Kane in Xanadu, content to spend his daysendlessly tweaking and re-tweaking the same movie; film geek Peter Bogdanovich, after a couple of ill-fatedSvengali episodes, reached creative stasis after exhausting his fan-boy catalog of borrowed film styles; MartinScorsese is making kid’s films in order to stay relevant; and Steven Spielberg, always more a company man thanmaverick, has emerged more quotidian and old-guard than the most journeyman of filmmakers from the rigid days ofthe studio system.

Of all the directors of the era, the trajectory of director Francis Ford Coppola’s career is perhaps most indicative ofwhat was right (individualistic, innovative, artistic) and wrong (arrogant, undisciplined, insulated, and out-of-touch)with the American New Wave in cinema of the '70s. His Godfather films (1972 & 1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979)all made good on the movement’s assertion that commercial film was a viable medium for artistic and personalexpression. Of any of that film-school breed to proffer themselves as the worthy heir to the throne of the deposedmoguls of yesteryear, Coppola alone seemed to possess the requisite business smarts and creative vision to see itthrough. Or so it seemed.

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Raul Julia and Teri Garr lead a cast of seeming hundreds through a dance numberstaged on one of the meticulously recreated Las Vegas street sets

Throughout his career, Coppola has spoken out (exhaustively) about the levels of studio interference he’s had tobattle in order to get his films made. His unparalleled track record of critical and commercial successes only seemedto confirm his contention that meddlesome studio heads were the enemies of art. When, in 1980, Coppolapurchased Hollywood General Studios to form his own, independent motion picture studio—American Zoetrope—itwas the realization of a groundbreaking New Hollywood ideal: a space to make films independent of the interferenceof the Hollywood money men. Oh, but that Coppola could have had such interference. As the studio’s debut feature, Coppola envisioned a simple, old-fashioned Hollywood musical given a modern twistthrough the employment of cutting-edge digital filmmaking innovations Coppola would come to dub “ElectronicCinema.” This allegedly creativity-enhancing/money-saving innovation proved no match for a director unable tounderstand that technology fetishism is never a viable substitute for basic storytelling skills.

Teri Garr as Frannie

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Frederic Forrest as Hank

Nastassja Kinski as Leila

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Raul Julia as Ray

Have you ever had a McDonald’s hamburger served to you on an antique sterling silver salver tray? No? Well, if youhad you would have some sense of what it’s like to watch One from the Heart; an intimate, almost inconsequential,character-driven dramatic musical about a young couple as ordinary and uninteresting as any you’re likely tomeet, inflated to near-bursting by a staggeringly inappropriate $23 million budget. Frannie works at a travel agencywhile Hank is co-owner of an auto junkyard. After five years together, on the eve of their July 4th anniversary, thecouple finds themselves at a romantic crossroads: she wants adventure, he wants stability. How each works throughtheir respective five-year itches is beautifully rendered in a meticulously recreated Las Vegas (everything was shoton the Hollywood sound stages), but the content never justifies the presentation.

It’s my guess that One from the Heart, in all its brobdingnagian excess, is attempting to comment on thetransformative power of love and its ability to make even the most unprepossessing of souls feel as though theyhave suddenly stepped into one of those lushly romantic, old-fashioned MGM musicals. A charming idea,conceptually speaking, that holds a great deal of potential. It’s only in the practical application where things start tohit a snag. Where a feather-light touch and considerable wit is required for this kind of material, One from the Heartkeeps tripping over its own intentions because Coppola’s directorial approach to tender matters of the heart is topound you over the head with his tinker-toy infatuation with the technological.To anyone who has ever actually experienced the pains and joys of life, love, and romance, it’s plain that the onlyintensely felt passions on display in One from the Heart are the hots Francis Ford Coppola has for his “ElectronicCinema” gadgetry. A prime example of a man so lost in an onanistic orgy of film love that, $23 million later, he failedto even notice that he hadn’t yet made a movie.

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Frannie finds her idealized vision of romance in singing (and apparently dancing)waiter, Ray

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILMBy 1982, bad word of mouth preceding the release of a Francis Ford Coppola film was as common an occurrenceas an appearance by Charo on The Love Boat. From The Godfather to Apocalypse Now, Coppola seemed towillfully perpetuate the image of himself as the wild cannon maverick who could pull a masterpiece out of the ashesof months of troubled production rumors and bad press. It’s in light of all this that Coppola’s long-held assertion thatOne from the Heart didn’t get a fair shake from the press has never quite rang true.I remember being among the throngs of people clogging the streets of Westwood Village in Los Angeles, excitedbeyond all reason at the prospect of getting a pre-release glimpse of One from the Heart in January of 1982. Thecrowd was abuzz, each of us parroting to the other Coppola’s rhetoric hype about being eyewitnesses to thebeginning of a new era in filmmaking.

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One of the many miniatures of Las Vegas signs used in the film's clever titlesequence. I got the opportunity to see this and many of the other props from One

from the Heart when, in 1984, American Zoetrope auctioned off its assetsafter declaring bankruptcy. As staggeringly beautiful as it all was, it was also very

sad.

As is typical at these kinds of preview screenings, a general atmosphere of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” takes overand everybody loves EVERYTHING. Each set, dissolve, and digital camera trick was greeted with thunderousapplause (in part, I suspect, because we all thought Coppola was somewhere in the audience) and we were allconvinced that we were watching the Citizen Kane of the '80s. It wasn’t until I was walking back to my car that Irealized that all of my laughter had been forced, all of my emotional responses self-generated; and though dazzledby the visuals, a great many of the much-touted innovations were in reality, age-old theatrical stage effects (wallsdissolving, color fades). I love romantic films and anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sentimental slob who criesat the drop of a hat...and yet the only sequence that brought forth waterworks was the finale…and even that wasdue more to the still-touching-to-me instrumental theme "Take Me Home," arranged to sound like a child’s musicbox. Reluctantly I had to admit that all of my positive feelings about One from the Heart were keyed in to my anticipationof the project and to the artistic potential Coppola’s candy-colored confection presented. One from the Heart’svisuals and technology were indeed impressive, but as evidenced by the audience’s meeting each display ofcinema magic with a round of applause; none of us got lost in the magic enough to stop taking notice of it. Shades ofMartin Scorsese’s New York, New York!

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PERFORMANCESThe structure of a great many musicals is to have at their center, incredibly ordinary, if not downright dull characters(e.g., Bells are Ringing, Sweet Charity, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever , Oklahoma) who find their livesmagically transformed by love. However, few, if any, of the people involved in the making of these movies have everbeen so ill-advised as to actually cast dull, ordinary people in these roles. Both Frederic Forrest and Teri Garr arewonderful, talented character actors, but neither has the requisite something (star-quality?) to make watching themmore interesting than, say, spying on my neighbors over the back fence. (Imagine the 1949 Stanley Donen musical,On the Town with the emphasis placed on the Ann Miller/Jules Munshin romance instead of Gene Kelly and VeraEllen.) Hammering home the obviousness of this fact are One from the Heart’s stupendously charismatic co-stars,Nastassja Kinski and Raul Julia. Both actors have in abundance what the film’s leads lack: screen presence. I keptwishing the story would somehow shift gears and magically become a love story about the circus girl and singingwaiter.

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Harry Dean Stanton and Lainie Kazan are terrific in their brief roles as thesupportive friends of the constantly bickering lead couple

THE STUFF OF FANTASYFor good reason this blog isn’t titled “Levelheadedness is What Le Cinema is For…”, because movies, like dreams,have this ability to get to us on so many different levels…even when said dream or movie doesn’t make a lick ofsense. By the same alchemy that interprets movement from still images flickering past one’s eyes at 24-frames persecond (precisely the way a zoetrope works, the magic lantern device from which Coppola’s production companyderives its name), One from the Heart’s almost non-stop flashes of technical brilliance do much to mitigate theemotional hollowness at the center of the whole enterprise. The shimmering images Coppola devises for One fromthe Heart enchant in a way not dissimilar to mentally flipping through an expensive coffee table book onphotography; beauty in no need of context.

Fanciful imagery abounds: Hank finds his romantic ideal in circus performer,Leila - here seen dancing in a martini glass

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THE STUFF OF DREAMSWhen it all began, the New Hollywood presented itself as the antidote to the bloated, outmoded, assembly-linemethods of studio system filmmaking. With minimal budgets but ingenuity and talent to spare, a veritable army ofyoung and enthusiastic movie-makers succeeded for a time in rejuvenating American motion pictures in a way wewill likely never see again. Unfortunately, success begat money, money was met with unbridled freedom, and with freedom came arrogance, alack of discipline, and even respect for the principles that inspired the revolution in the first place. Directors once upin arms over the fact that the budget for a single over-inflated bomb like Paint Your Wagon ($20 million) could havefinanced 20 smaller, perhaps better films, themselves nearly brought the industry to its knees due to their own ego-driven excesses.

Of all the golden boys who imploded when given a big budget and free-rein (Michael Cimino -Heaven’s Gate,Stephen Spielberg – 1941, Martin Scorsese - New York, New York) it can at least be said of Francis Ford Coppolathat he bankrupted his own studio and wasted his own money.

The version of One from the Heart currently available on DVD has been re-edited and is a tighter, and in some ways,better film than the one I saw in previews back in 1982. Alas, there’s just no getting past the fact that this neon hearthas no real pulse. One from the Heart feels like a film made by someone who knows an awful lot about movies, butnot much about life.

One from the Heart would have benefited greatly from the intimacy Coppolabrought to The Conversation. Instead, this simple romance was handled with the

bombast and overkill of Apocalypse Now

Today, One from the Heart still has the power to thrill me as eye candy, and pleases with its sometimes hauntinglybeautiful jazz-tinged score, but in an odd way, it offends me in its epic waste.In The Towering Inferno Paul Newman says of the smoldering shell of the skyscraper that needlessly took the livesof so many: “I don’t know. Maybe they ought to just leave it the way it is. Kind of a shrine to all the bullshit in theworld.”

Maybe that’s One from the Heart’s ultimate merit: it stands as a melancholy shrine to all the tarnished optimism andcorrupted ideals of the Hollywood New Wave of the '70s.

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Teri Garr autograph from when I wasworking at a bookstore on Sunset Blvd.

THE AUTOGRAPH FILES

Copyright © Ken Anderson

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Harry Dean Stanton autograph I got when he came to the Hondadealership where I used to work

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