Talk to any true Francis Ford Coppola fan and it’ll take inside three minutes until they sing praises of One from the Heart, a film whose oddity and majesty is mirrored by its troubles: shot with the man’s own money on a post-Apocalypse jolt of creative energy, it caused such immense financial precarity that the next fifteen-or-so years were spent, in part, recouping what it took. (And hobbling ambitions to make Megalopolis in the process.) Its specter in his legacy is such that even fans who’d likely prefer it go untouched might understand why a recut-happy Coppola would next set his sights on the 1982 musical, which has been reshaped into One from the Heart: Reprise, now on a nationwide tour ahead of a (U.K.) 4K release arriving March 4.
During which time there’s a new trailer––not spelling-out any revisions but showing the extent of American Zoetrope and Roundabout Entertainment’s restoration. Even in compressed 1080p this looks spectacular, well above anything readily available the last 40 years. As for the recut? Richard Brody has a nice rundown, albeit one tinged with skepticism: to hear him tell it, a certain rearranging of / fiddling with key scenes “renders them dim,” and in the process even “creates an embarrassing continuity error.” Good fortune that Rialto’s disc will have the original version on a second disc. Here, as elsewhere, Coppola is a better student of film history than his protegé George Lucas.
Find preview and poster below:
Hank (Frederic Forrest) and Frannie (Teri Garr) argue while celebrating their fifth anniversary. Yearning for a life of excitement and romance, Frannie fears that she is wasting her life on a man who shows no interest in her dreams of traveling to far-off places. The argument escalates and they break up. Heading in separate ways and taking to the streets, they both meet and spend the night with strangers. Hank with the seductive Leila (Nastassja Kinski), a runaway circus performer, and Frannie with Ray (Raul Julia), a handsome waiter who moonlights as a cocktail pianist and singer.
