“What has happened to our family? We were so promising!”
So ponders one elder member of the artistic clan at the center of Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro –– and so, one imagines, the film’s detractors will be eager to snark about the director and his filmmaking progeny. FFC is oft-mocked for having whored himself out to studios in the 90s, only to squander the generosity of an indie arm with his pretentious “return to personal filmmaking,” 2007’s Youth Without Youth. As for the younger Coppola generation, Roman went from making highly-cinematic music videos to directing the promising mod homage CQ, but has since apparently done little but shoot second until for his dad, sister and Wes Anderson. After winning an Oscar for the beyond-slight Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola made a personal gesture of her own with the masterfully stylish Marie Antoinette — which subsequently dropped her from the favor of much of the critical class.
Marie Antoinette is a useful film to talk about in the same breath as Tetro, not because they’re similar in terms of means of production (they’re not: the former was a studio-funded biopic banked on North American stars that was considered a disappointment when it failed to build on Lost’s box office and awards tally, the latter a self-financed, self-distributed late-career experiment that can substantively please or disappoint only its maker), but because the finished projects nonetheless share a common DNA. Both films are so drunk on the melding of disparate cultural references (for the daughter, corset porn and Gang of Four; for the father, partner dance musicals and Fellini) that they read as dewy confessions from the filmmaker, feature-length love letters to their own aesthetics, the specific things they personally think are beautiful.
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In a bit of an about-face, after issuing a press release announcing his intention to decline an invitation to screen his Tetro out of competition at Cannes, Francis Ford Coppola has agreed to allow the film to open that festival’s non-competitive Director Fortnight sidebar. For that reason and many more, the Fortnight lineup is terribly exciting: new movies from Josh and Benny Safdie, Pedro Costa and Hong Sang Soo will screen alongside Lynn Shelton’s Humpday and the still distributor-less Sundance comedy I Love You Phillip Morris. The full lineup, including shorts, after the jump.
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While I very much appreciate the invitation, this is an independent film, self-financed and self released, and I felt that being invited for a non-competition gala screening wasn’t true to the personal and independent nature of this film. More important than Cannes, our team can focus all our time, energy and resources into the U.S. release this June 11th
Above: in a statement published on Mike Jones’ Blog, Francis Ford Coppola explains why he’s not going to bring his next film, Tetro, to the Cannes Film Festival next month. Remember, the one that inspired him to vlog about the brilliance of Vincent Gallo? The phrasing of the statement makes one wonder if Coppola’s indie spirit would have remained as paramount if Tetro had been invted to compete…
Same family, very different headline: FFC’s daughter Sofia has inked a deal to make her fourth film. Somewhere is described in Variety as a “dramedy” in about “a bad-boy actor stumbling through a life of excess at the Chateau Marmont. With an unexpected visit from his 11-year-old daughter, he is forced to reexamine his life.” Stephen Dorff plays the father, Elle Fanning plays the daughter. Sounds potentially unwatchable!
A site for Francis Ford Coppola’s upcoming, Argentina-shot, Vincent Gallo-starring Tetro has launched, complete with a video missive from the director himself. In the clip, Coppola says the film “deals with almost mythic proportions,” calls Gallo “really quite a brilliant man”, and promises more video in the near future. Bated breath, etc.
