Cinema Canada (Aug 1979)

People come to Los Angeles to re-invent themselves and indulge in form at the exclusion of substance. Those who come armed with the best of intentions are often ravaged by the time they get near the top, their principles reduced to nostalgic reminiscences. Their films often reflect that the dross is the only thing left after the mill. Fresh from UCLA in the early sixties, Coppola had garnered, by the mid-seventies, enough gold to turn the best of principles and intentions to mush. But, despite at times becoming inebriated by his own power, he walked the fine line over which many before him have tripped. He stayed in San Francisco where his American Zoetrope Company has its headquarters; he produced films for then-unknown directors; he made films that challenged rather than pandered to his audiences; and he sent his company off in what he terms “odd directions” to investigate and develop bold new technology for the medium he understands so well. His earlier claim that the future cinema will be an electronic and digital space-traveller is one that can be backed by advances in the field, some of which are taking place under Coppola’s patronage. His electronic editing table, marrying video flexibility with film, has been credited for much of Apocalypse Now’s surrealist texture. A far more sophisticated table, being developed by Laurie Post in L.A., will interface a computer’s memory bank and retrieval system with laser-coded video-disks for film. Digital transmission through binary coding is in the works, a distribution system that will eliminate the static and interference seemingly inherent in video transmission, and make possible the use of large, flat wall-mounted viewing screens. Out in space, a Canadian-built Director—Centre for the Arts Simon Fraser University seeks a Director for the Centre for the Arts, a recently formed Fine and Performing Arts Department within the Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies. The Director has academic and administrative * authority over a multi-faceted department which includes undergraduate programs in dance, film, theatre and visual art; a music program is proposed. Each program is expected to develop further, while retaining an interdisciplinary approach in which practical experience is balanced by critical investigation of the contemporary arts. With the assistance of faculty and staff, the Director also has administrative and budgetary responsibility for an extensive public events program, the Simon Fraser Gallery, and management of the University Theatre. Candidates for the position should have qualifications appropriate to a senior faculty appointment within the Department plus substantial administrative experience. The salary will be appropriate to the appointee’s qualifications and the appointment will take effect September 1, 1980. Nominations or applications should be sent to: Dr. T.W. Calvert, Dean Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies Simon Fraser University Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6 Canada from who information can be obtained. 14/Cinema Canada CTS satellite, being tested for broadcast purposes, will clear the way for consumer-owned mini-dish receivers. These and other developments represent a quantum leap towards a faithful and more forceful representation of a director’s vision, and towards a more direct link between filmmaker and audience. With freer means of expression at the direetor’s disposal and a more powerful experience of that expression by the audience cinema will become, in Coppola’s words, “more so the collective consciousness that will link us in the future.” After San Francisco and four years in the jungle, Coppola is back in L.A. on his own terms. He has recently bought the old Hollywood General Studios and plans to turn part of it into comfortable workshops for new writers .and directors, a far cry from the bad old days when scriptwriters were crammed six at a time into sparsely-furnished footlockers to bang out scripts by the light of short candles. From this Hollywood base, Coppola intends to continue and enlarge his role as producer for new or neglected filmmakers. He has said recently that those with money can’t make good films while those who can make good films usually don’t have the money, and that producers-directors like himself have a responsibility to produce films for those who don’t have the money. With this idea in mind, he is producing Monte Hellman’s (The Shooting, Two-Lane Blacktop, China 9 Liberty 37) next film entitled King of White Lady. Coppola has also said that, as far as he’s concerned, the only national cinema around at present is German. Putting his money where his mouth is, he’s producing Wim Wenders’ first American film, Hammett, based on an incident in roman noir novelist Dashiell Hammett’s life. And he’s recently picked up the American distribution rights for Hans-Hurgen Syberberg’s seven-hour monologue marathon Our Hitler. It’s hard to think of a tougher film to distribute in America, but it’s harder still to think of a film more worthy of American distribution. It is a bold move on Coppola’s part to take the initiative in Hollywood, a place known more for its pack filmmaking than its innovation. Without denigrating needlessly the many, though sometimes thin, virtues of the American film process, the opportunities to learn and work intelligently are few and far between in Hollywood; those that supply those opportunities, however self-serving they might seem to some, are to be treasured. Another thing to consider is that Coppola has followed through on his stated commitment to a film renaissance, from the technological developments fostered through his company to producing bold films that would otherwise not be madé. And now, he has made Apocalypse Now, an ambitious, unconventional and ultimately successful master work that incorporates much of the coming technology and much of Coppola’s peculiar psyche. More ambitious, expensive and theatrical films have been made but none have proved so challenging or so clear-headed and none have offered such hallucinations, such beauty and such a journey as that on which Apocalypse Now takes its audience. “I wanted to make a stylized movie, For me that means that it can be theatrical, it can be kabuki and opera. I felt that to make a realistic film about Vietnam would be too small, so I made a theatrical film to try to get more of the sensation of what it was like. I felt that my audiences were familiar with war films so I wanted to win their confidence at first and say, ‘Come with me, we start in a movie you understand, that you've seen