Is Francis Ford Coppola dead?

[Gamblour.]

I just watched Dracula and was blown away by how amazing and how awful it is simultaneously. Visually, it's stunning and audacious, but then the acting is so poor, the interpretation of the text is very bizarre, and it's just a huge mess. But it's so consistently a mess, you start to believe whatever it is trying to convince you of. But I think I fucking loved it, it's just so committed to its intention, and I think I like commitment in directors more than anything.

[MacGuffin]

I just watched Dracula and was blown away by how amazing and how awful it is simultaneously. Visually, it's stunning and audacious, but then the acting is so poor, the interpretation of the text is very bizarre, and it's just a huge mess. But it's so consistently a mess, you start to believe whatever it is trying to convince you of. But I think I fucking loved it, it's just so committed to its intention, and I think I like commitment in directors more than anything.

Now watch Kenneth Brannah's Frankenstein, which Coppola was supposed to do as a follow up to Dracula, and later regretted not doing after Brannah and he had disagreements.

[SiliasRuby]

I just watched 'Hearts of Darkness' yesterday and man, it is slight peer into the frustrations of making a film the way you want to make it. Its truly a revelation, but its way too short. I wanted it to be much longer. Is that wrong?

[socketlevel]

Hell no that's a great flick. UNKLE sampled that cannes speach, which is sick.

my fav part is when he hits his head on the 10k light and keeps walking.  didn't turn around and shit on the AD or the grip, he just kept moving thinking about the scene.

gotta love that man.

[MacGuffin]

Godfather director disses 3-D as "tiresome"
Source: SciFi Wire

Director Francis Ford Coppola flanked by his Captain EO co-creators Michael Jackson and executive producer George Lucas
Looks like Roger Ebert has company. Ebert—who last month told us why he hated 3-D (and why he thought you should, too)—has been joined in his anti-3-D crusade by Francis Ford Coppola, director of The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and (ironically enough) the 3-D Captain Eo, made with Michael Jackson back in 1986.

"I feel that until you can watch 3-D without glasses, it's the same thing we know," Coppola told Electronic House. "I personally do not want to watch a movie with glasses. It's tiresome."

Turns out the director even took off his 3-D glasses during parts of Avatar—even though that meant he was watching the film out of focus.

Coppola did call Cameron's blockbuster "fantastic," but said that "I don't see why a movie is better in 3-D."

[socketlevel]

one of many reasons i like this man.

[Gold Trumpet]

He's correct but I think in five years we could have 3D without the glasses so people like Roger Ebert (if he is still alive) will have to come to new opinions on 3D because it will be very different.

[socketlevel]

even though i haven't seen this technology you speak of GT, if it's anything like a 3D movie is now just without the glasses, i'm probably still against it. it's a strain on my eyes that i don't want. i'd rather just watch the film without the headache.

[Gold Trumpet]

James Cameron speaks about the future of 3D often and mentioned that one day 3D will just be the norm, but 3D can be made to feel more seamless than it is now. In films like Minority Report where images pop out everywhere to people and they don't notice a difference can be like how 3D will feel. I'm not saying images will start popping out of the screen in that fashion, but the juxtaposition of images appearing closer to us can feel a lot more normal. Roger Ebert fears we will be forced to use all of our eye concentration all the time, but if the presentation changes and it's no longer based on current standards where it's working against visualized 2D models, then it doesn't have be to just straining. The 3D we have now is based on principles of classical models from the 1950s that haven't be altered dramatically enough to limit the strain on the eye. We see things in life in 3D all the time so technology can work to help make 3D feel more like how we experience life.

[Stefen]

3D just seems like the new CG to me. It gets rid of creativity for a gimmick. Aw, fuck it, we'll just add it in CG. Same with 3D. It's just gimmicky. It's a sad day when a film has to be in 3D in order for an audience to give a shit about it.

I cant ever imagine a time when every movie is in 3D. God, I don't want to imagine that.

[Gold Trumpet]

CG just added more believability to fantastic elements in a film by making special effects work better. If all goes well, 3D can actually change the dimensions of how we see a film. Film stories will have to change their structure to work with 3D. There can be a lot of positives in that. I think people who are complaining are often just believing 3D as it stands now will be what the future is. There will be a lot of updates and I think it 3D will feel more like life on screen.

Technology is updating itself beyond capability these days. 10 years ago everyone knew what a personal computer and what it could be if things developed, but a lot things that are reality now were just "Yea, that would be cool if it happened, but I don't see it coming" back then and if 3D is allowed to develop, it can be made be a really wonderful technology that challenges film structure more than anything ever before. I don't think anyone feels 3D will be all about huge effects and dumb glasses. Some day it will feel as natural to use for a low budget dramatic story as a special effect film. That's how much it can change the natural story of a film.

[Stefen]

CG took away the creativity. Nobody ever had to say, "Hmm, how the fuck am I going to do this? How do I pull this off?" They just said, "Fuck it. CG it up!"

[Pubrick]

the arguments against CG, apart from being bullshit, are irrelevant to the discussion of 3D.

3D is an altogether different way to look at movies. CG was just a natural integration of technology in order to do anything that is imaginable. the use of CG is obviously not limiting creativity as you can see the seamless and amazing ways it has been used by Fincher or Blomkamp. there will always be bad or exploitative directors who will use any new technology simply to make a buck and who never really cared about the art of cinema - so NOTHING will change on that front.

3D will never be the way all films are made, its popularity might increase but other than being another way to charge more for a movie (coppola is right on this, and it's obviously the cynical truth of it) it's gonna be just another way to make a movie. it won't ever mean the end of 2D, just like colour film didn't mean the end of black and white. for budget and artistic reasons ppl will still choose 2D over 3D, glasses or no glasses.

what GT is talking about in minority report is more about holograms, that shit is also advancing but it doesn't mean that everything will hav to be holographic bullshit.

[pete]

color film was kinda the end of black and white.  just as it took about 40 or so years for cinematography to regain its sophistication after sound came out.
but um, 3d will take a while before anyone can clearly see a future for it.

[socketlevel]

even though stefen's argument against CG is broad, i still think it holds some merit. I strongly disagree, and feel his point was uneducated when he addressed the "oh fuck it, just CG it", that's an over simplification. the spirit of his post i do however agree with. what CG did was change the mentality of the film makers. for the most part what was seen on the frame became the payoff. i believe this changed (or at least cemented) the audiences reasons to go to the theatre. it also changed the water-cooler-conversations regarding the merits of the experience. people seemed to go to the movie more for how it looked then ever before. the detail of the CG and the photo realism is what so many film makers strived for after Jurassic park, and we've come to a point that it pretty much exists photo real in all movies that use CG. this progression is only logical because it was in fact very impressive, for a while there you could see the strives go leaps and bounds year to year. however, the hitchcockian principle of what you don't see makes for a richer experience was lost in this advancement.  audiences now wanna see the cool shit, when in the past (consciously or subconsciously) what they didn't see was the payoff. the emotion or thrill of the moment was talked about more than the quality of the special effects.

maybe I'm a sentimentalist, but i prefer what you don't see. It forces the artists to be more creative. CG makes the effect easier to reproduce because attention is put on the detail of the image, and not the rhetoric of the storytelling. or at least a more sophisticated rhetoric by my standards. just look at redletter's reviews of the star wars movies, pretty much addresses this very point.

regarding 3D, if it doesn't make me get migraines and i can still relax during the experience (if the movie warrents this reaction) then I'm all for it. i fear the tricks that it plays on my eyes will always be something that requires my full attention and ultimately makes for a tiring experience.