One from the Heart (1981)

One from the Heart is Francis Ford Coppola’s insane wildly inventive romantic musical that gleefully breaks every single rule of filmmaking. It doesn’t just reject the concept of cinematic realism - it knocks it to the ground, puts the boot into it and stomps on its head. Lots of filmmakers have been hailed as crazed visionary geniuses. Coppola really is a crazed visionary genius. He’s the real deal.

While all movie-lovers are aware of the way the making of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now became an epic of chaos and madness it’s One from the Heart that is Coppola’s great cinematic folly. It was one of the most spectacular box-office flops of all time. It’s also his greatest film and one of the greatest Hollywood movies of the past fifty years.

It’s easy to see why it flopped and why critics were mystified and enraged. This is not the way you make a movie. It bears no resemblance to any Hollywood movie of its era. Coppola didn’t care. He went ahead and did it anyway.

One of the things Coppola trying to do was to recapture the magic of the classic studio era, and particularly the magic of musicals like An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain. It’s no coincidence that many of the musical sequences in One from the Heart were in fact partly conceived by - Gene Kelly.

The setting is Vegas, but this is the Vegas of the imagination, created entirely on a sound stage. The entire movie was shot on a sound stage.

The plot is very simple and straightforward, and deliberately so. It’s not the story that matters, it’s the way it’s told. Frannie (Teri Garr) and Hank (Frederic Forrest) have been living together for five years and their relationship is slowly falling apart. The magic has gone. They have a big fight. Frannie has an affair with an exotic romantic singer/piano player named Ray (Raul Julia). He’s actually a waiter but he gets an occasional gig as a performer. Like the other characters he lives in a kind of fantasy world.

Hank has an affair with a circus girl, Leila (Nastassja Kinski). She’s like his dream girl. Maybe she is a dream girl. It’s that kind of movie.

Eventually Frannie and Hank will have to decide whether they should find happiness with each other or with their new lovers. That’s all that the plot consists of.

If there’s one major weakness it’s the fact that while Teri Garr and Frederic Forrest are likeable they don’t have the necessary star power. They are totally overshadowed by the charisma overload of Raul Julia and Kinski.

Nastassja Kinski is magnificent. She exudes so much star power that it’s terrifying. As far as the performances are concerned this movie belongs to her.

While there’s no other movie quite like One from the Heart if I had to pick a couple of movies with a slightly similar feel I’d probably have to go for Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva (1981) and Luc Besson’s Subway (1985). I think Coppola’s film does have that slight affinity with the French cinéma du look movement. You’ll probably think I’m really crazy now but I’d also throw Xanadu into the mix. These are all movies which seem to me to represent an 80s rejection of 70s mainstream cinema aesthetics.

One from the Heart might also perhaps have been an influence on David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.

Coppola was also influenced by Hitchcock’s Rope. Coppola’s dream was to shoot the movie live. It’s much more bold and experimental than Rope. There are ten-minute takes shot on multiple sets. Coppola used double sets - one set built behind another separated by a screen so that the action could move from one set to another without a cut. He was trying to be totally theatrical and totally cinematic at the same time. And he succeeded. The technique was however too unconventional for audiences and critics. They were bewildered by it.

This is a film that makes zero concessions to realism. It looks, deliberately, like theatre but it also looks like a dream or a fantasy. The use of colour is breathtakingly bold.

Coppola’s decision to shoot in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio was totally correct. It really is the best ratio for a musical (as he points out you have to be able to see the dancers’ feet in a dance number) and in fact it’s the best ratio for all movies except perhaps westerns.

Tom Waits did the music. I don’t like his music ordinarily but it does add to the odd feel. And it was a smart move to avoid having overtly contemporary music. That would have dated the movie quickly. Waits’ bluesy music does give it a timeless feel.

This is a stunningly inventive movie that really does totally reinvent the musical. And it shatters the conventional mould of Hollywood filmmaking.

I could easily become obsessed with One from the Heart. Very highly recommended.

The Studiocanal Blu-Ray releases includes the original cut and Coppola’s much later “Reprise” recut plus a host of extras. Coppola’s audio commentary is fascinating. And wile I don’t think of myself as a Baz Luhrmann fan his extended interview on the revolutionary effect of One from the Heart on the movie musical is actually very worthwhile.