ONE FROM THE HEART – francis coppola – 3.9 / 10

This is by no means a good film. However, having seen it I wouldn’t hesitate to offer Francis Coppola (as he’s billed here) just about anything else to direct. It’s clear from the first frames of the film that there is someone with real talent behind this film. Almost every scene’s master shot is a winding, circuitous tour de force. And once the couple at the heart of the film splits up, there are glorious transitions between their now separate lives that simultaneously show how close they still are and how distant they've become.

Additionally, the way the sets and tone of the film are constructed create a comprehensive magical realist world unlike anything I’ve seen before. Lights change color and fade away during shots. People burst into song in the middle of the street and everyone joins in. Everything is just magical.

But that bit about bursting into song hints at the film’s major problem, namely that it’s a more or less a musical and I mostly hate musicals. That’s especially true if most of the songs are sung by Tom Waits, a musician I simply cannot stand. Some people find some sort of magic in his gravelly voice but all I hear are nails on a chalkboard.

The music stuff isn’t the only problem with the film, however. The events of the film (a break up and subsequent (completely predictable) reconciliation) are not believable in the least. True, the whole world of the film is unbelievable but the idea that a woman would break up with her boyfriend then, on the same day, meet a guy (who lies to her with the very first words he utters) and go to bed with him and then agree to go to Bora Bora with him the following morning is ludicrous. There’s also the moment where the girl tries to make her boyfriend jealous by saying she wanted to sleep with his ridiculously ugly best friend. And then the guy meets a girl who sees that he’s still in love with his girlfriend but decides to sleep with him anyway.

The reason this stuff ruins the film is because magical realism needs to be grounded in character reality in order to be effective. Take something like Punch-Drunk Love as an example. The only way the more ridiculous elements can work is if they're offset by the realistic interactions between the people involved. This film doesn’t do that and suffers because of it. Overall, though, the film is a showcase for Coppola’s nascent talent. And I guess some other people noticed too because he got to direct The Godfather not too long after this.

THE OUTSIDERS – francis ford coppola – 6.9 / 10

Quite possibly the gayest film ever made, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders concerns the extraordinarily close relationship between a bunch of kids known as greasers who have no parents to speak of. They sleep in the same beds (even spooning!) talking about their hopes for the future and how pretty the sunsets are. They care deeply about each other and do so openly in a way that would never fly these days.

In the documentaries that accompany the film on the DVD release (which is entitled “The Complete Novel” for some reason), everyone talks about how much time and effort the actors put into the process and how great Coppola was in facilitating their performances. From the auditions where all the kids hung out in one room and swapped parts with each other to the weeks they spent taping the scenes from the movie on video before they started filming, everyone is in agreement that this was the most fun, safe and nurturing environment. The thing is, though, that everyone’s performance is laughable. I guess twenty-five years ago people bought the idea that badass kids from the wrong side of the tracks would run around doing cartwheels and back flips and crying at the drop of a hat but that shit don’t fly these days. It’s ridiculous, homoerotic and plain silly.

But I was also thinking as I watched it about the mythologization of juvenile delinquent behavior. How would we feel about this film and book if it were about a bunch of black gangsters?