(1981, USA, 95')
After the international success of titles like The Godfather’ (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), and Apocalypse Now (1979), Francis Ford Coppola, inaugurating the newly established production company American Zoetrope, which he co-founded with George Lucas, released this film, aiming to make the most of the new technologies that Zoetrope had just acquired. In this proletarian drama set to music (with a soundtrack by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle as the female vocalist), Coppola creates a pastel-colored aesthetic with a composition bordering on the surreal, utilizing the technique of rear projection. Why Coppola decided not only to restore but also to recalibrate a film with a plot that some critics consider almost superfluous and a box office flop could be explained by the director’s own words in an interview with GQ: “Dreams are not long. I’ll tell you something about dreams: they don’t have time”.
