MY HIT LIST # 3 One from The Heart

Francis Ford Coppola's One from the heart is beautiful. I say beauty in the sense that you almost fall in love with it. Its vibrancy and neon saturated colour, its sheer art of set and design, its wonderful Oscar® nominated soundtrack from Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle; its musical longing and delicacy. But it is a flawed beauty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1BgvrKn1Zs
title song

I could just talk about the soundtrack as it is an amazing accompaniment to the visuals and I would recommend you listen to it on its own sometime, preferably late in the evening.

Entirely shot on marvelous sets in Coppola's Zoetrope studio the film was met with indifference amid stories of the production going out of control. It is a technically amazing movie with the stunning work of Vittorio Storaro, and clearly a labour of love from Coppola. Much in the same way, as with Apocalypse now, his vision may have been over indulged leaving an imperfect end result, however there is much to admire.

Alongside One from the heart Coppola stepped into another musical format with the Cotton Club; also flawed. But his talent is clear to see. The story of 'heart. is of a Las Vegas couple (Teri Garr, Frederic Forrest) whose break-up on independence day leads them to the Vegas strip in search of romantic fantasy in the form of Raul Julia and Nastassia Kinski. From then on its about gambling on love. There are extravagant musical set pieces amid the neon explosion of colour and sound.
One critic described it perfectly; 'a cinematic valentine for all movie lovers'. To my mind real beauty is flawed.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAiJqFhylDQ
intro