As one of the leading lights of the '70s American film renaissance, director Francis Ford Coppola proved that it was possible, at least for a time, to make ambitious personal statements from within the studio system. Though he was nearly fired during production, Coppola fashioned Mario Puzo's gangster pulp The Godfather into a classic American epic, winning the first two of his five Academy Awards. From there, Coppola finished out the decade with a string of modern masterpieces, including The Godfather, Part II, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, the latter a famously troubled production that found him staking his own fortune in pursuit of his vision. After sinking more of his own money in 1982's less successful One From The Heart, Coppola began dividing his time between personal projects and work as a director-for-hire, though his style is so unmistakable that it's sometimes hard to separate one from the other. Though his commercial and critical track record over the subsequent 15 years is spotty, debates still rage over the relative merits of films like The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club, Tucker: A Man And His Dream, The Godfather Part III, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. (Jack, on the other hand, is a little short on apologists.)
It's been ten years since Coppola's last film, an adaptation of John Grisham's novel The Rainmaker, and he's spent much of that time trying fruitlessly to crack an ambitious project called Megalopolis. He's also extended his empire in other ventures, most notably his prominent Napa Valley wine label, his literary magazine All Story, and numerous upscale restaurants and resorts. After a long time away from the camera, Coppola has finally returned to filmmaking with Youth Without Youth, an ambitious self-financed odyssey based on a novella by the late Romanian philosopher and religious scholar Mircea Eliade, Tim Roth stars as a 70-year-old linguistic professor in pre-WWII Romania who gets struck by a bolt of lightning and returns to consciousness 30 years younger. Coppola recently spoke with The A.V. Club about how the challenges of shooting with his own money, defying viewers' expectations, and making movies within and without the studio system.
The A.V. Club: You've said that you start every movie with a question, and the movie hopefully provides the answer. What was the question with this film, and what did you learn during the process of making it?
Francis Ford Coppola: [Mircea] Eliade's story was so rich in ideas that I was always thinking, "Can I include all this, or will I have to cut something out?," although I pretty much included all of it. But the question for me was: What is this miraculous thing, human consciousness? What enables us, this complicated animal, to have this thinking process which is self-knowing, and which ties into memory and expectations, and enables people to have the ability to have concepts like the future and the past? And we all have it. You, sitting there, know what I mean by "consciousness" because you have it. But what if I had to explain it to someone, and in the process, understand it myself? How would I explain it? What I learned in the course of the movie and what satisfies me is that consciousness is a combination of the incredibly complex brain that we have, with all of its nuances, and synapses, and connections that intersect with so many different bodily activities that include memory and emotion, and that magic link is language. When we took that complexity and learned how to express it with language, consciousness, almost like critical mass, was born. Like a flame. Even back when I was little and they called me "Francie," I remember my thoughts and the way I viewed everything very well. I asked myself, "When did that happen? When did I become this Francie consciousness that I have now?" And I realized that it was around three-and-a-half, four years old, and that's when I had a little bit of language. So that's what I learned, or what I think I learned.
AVC: Was the main challenge to find ways to express those concepts visually, to translate what are abstract ideas into something that is going to work as a movie, or as a narrative?
FFC: Well, in terms of how one expresses ideas or observations in a film, the first thing is that the story itself is amusing or interesting or exciting. I read [Eliade's novella] and felt something exciting happened every few pages: [Tim Roth's character] becomes young, his intellectual ability increases, he comes in to contact with his lost love, he turns into a double. All of these fascinating things happen. I just found it entertaining. So I wanted to tell a fairy tale, or a fable, that you could enjoy on that level. But underneath it were layers and layers of other notions that we could talk about or better yet, someone could see the film, and think about when they go to sleep and apply it to their own lives. Did you ever wonder what, really, reality was, and how the dreams you have at night differ from experiences you have during the day, which in fact were reality for you? Is there such a thing as reincarnation? What is the role that language plays in our thinking? I feel that many thoughts that relate to those things don't have to be understood when you just enjoy the story. But it's there, underneath, and you can think about it for yourself when you see the film again, or see it with someone else, or discuss it with someone else, sort of like when you read a great book, you enjoy it, but it leaves you with other thoughts. Many times, I have read books and wonder if I ever understood it at all, even if I may have enjoyed the love story.
AVC: In a way, a few movies you made in the '90s like Bram Stoker's Dracula and Jack could be also called Youth Without Youth. What has compelled you to return to these themes of time and of age so frequently?
FFC: I have no idea. I think that's the Rorschach test. It happens when you choose a subject matter. The ones you talk about, some of them I had nothing to do with—I was basically offered a job when I needed a job, and the script was written and it was cast and they said, "Would you direct it? We'll give you a job." And I said sure. Whereas with something like The Godfather, I looked at it in my own way. I saw it as a family in a story of succession. But it's true that the things you choose tell you a lot about yourself. I don't necessarily understand those things. It really falls to someone—a critic, or a thinker outside of me—to say "Hmmm, look at that. Youth Without Youth has a theme about time and so does Rumble Fish." But I didn't know that. Now, when I think about it, I can say, "Yeah, I guess I am interested in those kinds of stories." I'm sure as hell not interested in gangsters. I had plenty of chances to direct other gangster movies, and I never wanted to. So something about me must rather pick certain kinds of stories. Whenever I meet a couple, and I get to talk to the wife—because usually they sit you next to the wife—I always think "Gee, what a smart woman. What an interesting woman." And then my estimation of the husband goes way up, because she chose him. And I think that the stuff you choose as a director is a Rorschach test as to who you are.
AVC: In the film, Tim Roth is given the time and supernatural abilities to pursue his research on the origins of language, which is a project he would not be able to complete in the span of an ordinary lifetime. Is that a fantasy that has gone through your mind at times? Have you thought about what you would do if time wasn't an issue?
FFC: Well, in a way, time isn't an issue. Death, although a certainty, is not an absolute certainty. I've never died. So someone might say to me that my time is up, and they'd reveal a curtain, and say "Guess what? There is a new phase of life that no one ever tells us about. But you're not going to die. You're going to go into this other thing to evolve as a soul, or as an angel, and you're going to get to continue to pursue what is your greatest pleasure, which is to learn." Who knows? The fun is to speculate. I don't feel particularly imprisoned by the everyday world. I accept it. I am sure if I jump out this window, it's not going to be pleasant, and I am probably going to die, but I don't know for sure. As an older guy, although I have a lot in common with a six-year-old, I read more, I think more, I enjoy innovation more, and I'm more accepting that life doesn't have to be the way I always thought it had to be. I think most people today are imprisoned by what they have been told movies have to be. I think, after seeing serial television for 40 years, people have been told that movies have to be a certain way. They have to be a thriller or a love story, they have to have violence, there has to be a character arc, there has to be a certain continuity of storyline. I don't know that that's true, I don't think it's true. But everyone accepts it, and certainly films that follow the rules often are more commercial, and films that don't are often more rewarding. At this age, and since I have become particularly wealthy, I don't particularly care what everybody's prejudice about what a movie has to be is. I am going to make the movies that I love and hope that people will see them, just as if I made you dinner I would hope that you liked it. But in the end, I am not going to serve you fast food just because it's more likely you will say it was great. I'm dismayed that the film business has become more narrow, that there isn't more variety in it.
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