Did you know that father Coppola publishes his musings online? I don’t remember what chain of links I followed to get there, but I found this year-old diary on the Web site for his latest film, Youth Without Youth. Apparently, it is an adaptation of a novella by the same name (Tinereţe fără de tinereţe) which concerns an old man who is struck by a bolt of lightning and becomes young again. Now endowed with a fantastic memory and comprehension, he receives thought messages from the supernatural.

Along similar lines, Coppola comments:

I’ve been thinking about what seems to be a repeating pattern: artists who distinguish themselves when they are young, and then never can quite reach those levels again…
Why is this? What are the reasons? Is it only that genius at the level of Shakespeare, Verdi, Kurosawa and Picasso is as rare and precious as it would seem, or are there other factors as well? More on this subject will come …

The film appears quite autobiographical; Coppola has taken Woody Allen’s film-as-therapy approach. To me the problem is clear: eventually one runs out of interesting things to say. I think the best antidote is a healthy curiosity, and a desire to learn. I know I spend a lot of time reading the news (just watch it fly by you on the blog’s sidebar).

The movie, starring the great Bruno Ganz (from Der Untergang), was supposed to be out by now, but the IMDB lists it as being in production for reshoots as of today.

Even better was a video of him with his notes from The Godfather! He goes over each section of the notebook:

1. Synopsis. If you pause the video, you can read a whole page.
2. The Times: Establishing the scene, based on when the story is set.
3. Imagery and Tone.
4. The Core: What the scene is about.
5. Pitfalls: What not to do when directing the scene.

Tracking pitfalls is one habit I am going to copy; you can never be too organized. One of his concerns was avoiding the cliche of “Italians who-a, talka like-a dis”! Didn’t, uh, Brando commit that crime, once or twice?