THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 11, 1996 TAG: 9608100038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: 171 lines
AT FIRST GLANCE, Francis Ford Coppola and Robin Williams would seem to be the odd couple. Coppola is the godfather who seems to have one apocalypse after another, one of the great showmen of modern film. Williams is the child-man who improvises better than writers could have written.
One is epic, the other is comedic.
``Jack,'' however, has brought them together. ``Jack'' is a fable about childhood in which the theme is no more grandiose than life's simplicities. Williams plays a fifth-grader who has aged at a rapid pace and looks like a 40-year-old man.
Coppola has gone through several bankruptcies (after investing his own money in ``One from the Heart'' and ``Apocalypse Now'') as well as five Oscars (for writing ``Patton'' and ``The Godfather'' and for producing, directing and writing ``The Godfather, Part II'').
When we reached him by phone in Rome, he was smoking a ``very good'' cigar and ready, with an operatic grandness all his own, to field questions on why ``Jack'' is not an odd film for him.
It has been five years since ``Dracula,'' your last film. Why, after all this time, did you choose ``Jack'' as your next project?
After ``Dracula,'' I very much wanted to get back to a screenplay of my own. But the deciding factor was that I also very much wanted to work with Robin Williams. I have known Robin for years. We live in the same area (San Francisco) and we are partners in the restaurant Rubicon. I had told my agent that he should be on the lookout for any opportunity to work with Robin. Aside from that, I found the script touching. The challenge was bringing out Robin's personality in the form of a 10-year-old.
In my career, I've always tried to experiment in different genres. All of my films are different. The one that is most like this one is ``Peggy Sue Got Married,'' which was a kind of fable about marriage and romance. When I work as a professional director, I try to tackle the story with as much love and devotion as I can, even though I didn't write the story.
But certainly neither this nor ``Peggy Sue'' is a comedy. The aim was not to make a rip-roaring comedy but to make a fable about life.
Why are you in Rome?
I am here on a trip with my 9-year-old granddaughter, Gia. We started in San Francisco, went to New York, across on the QE II, on the Orient Express to Venice and now Rome. Next, we go to Istanbul - just a 9-year-old and me. ``Jack'' is dedicated to Gia. I wanted to make something about childhood - something that she would understand.
What was your approach to directing children?
They were very bright kids and they were ready to have fun. I told them, ``Even though Robin is a very big movie star you have to protect him and help him have fun.'' We'd go out to stores and playgrounds and people would come up to Robin. The kids would say ``Just call him Jack. He's not Robin, he's Jack.'' In a sense, they helped Robin a lot to immerse himself in the role.
The trick was not to let the father come out in Robin. Robin is childlike, but he's certainly not a child. He would be with the boys, but if they'd be in danger, he'd suddenly become the father. The effort was to escape this. He once told them to wear their helmets when biking and I asked, ``Robin, is that you speaking, or is that Jack?''
I, personally, identified with the movie. As a young man, I was a camp counselor for 9-year-old boys and headed a drama program for them in the summer. This gave me experience working with kids. I find them very interesting. I'm very comfortable with them.
What do you think is the message of ``Jack?''
That the successful life is the life that is lived in the moment - that's lived for the fun and joy of it. If those are childlike qualities, then yes, we should try to hold on to them. We shouldn't waste time thinking in the long term the way adults do. The important thing is not the length of time on this earth but how you live it.
In the 1970s you and Martin Scorsese and a few others were regarded as the cutting edge of the film world. Now, you are filming a script for Disney - a script not your own. Do you worry about being called complacent? Of any claims that you've sold out?
One would expect that a new young group of filmmakers are going to turn things on their head. To give myself credit, I have to remain viable. When you're a young guy, and working on a low budget, you can afford to break some new ground.
As a child, you were alone, much like ``Jack.'' Did that have an affect on your choosing this subject matter?
I was confined in a room for a year when I was 9 years old. I had polio. Because it was a child's disease, they kept all children away from me. That is the way Jack is. At 9, you live for your friends - other children. I had been a child who moved from place to place a great deal. I didn't have any friends. I began playing with a ventriloquist's dummy, which was as close to a playmate as I could find. When I read the script for ``Jack,'' it, understandably, touched me.
I was always the new kid who had to stand in front and be introduced as Francis. They'd kid me about my name.
When I was a kid I used to look at bugs and puzzle that someone told me some of them only live for one day. I used to think ``Gee, that bug lives only a day. Does it know it lives only a day? When a tree lives 700 years does it know that?'' The answer is no. A lifetime is a lifetime. The film celebrates that point of view - and it is childlike.
Aren't you afraid that someone will compare ``Jack'' to ``Big''? Or bring up the fact that Robin Williams has often played boy-men before this?
There are certain basic ideas that can't be avoided. When I read ``Mrs. Doubtfire,'' I thought, gee, isn't that like ``Tootsie''? But it wasn't. I loved ``Big,'' but the big difference is that it is about a child who goes into an adult world and ``Jack'' is about a man who goes into a child's world. What were the child-like films that Robin did? I don't remember them.
``Jumanji,'' ``Hook'' and a few others. What was your biggest challenge in doing ``Jack?''
I felt from the beginning that if the premise didn't work, all was lost. You had to feel that Robin was a child. If you felt that he was putting it on, just with the outward appearance of a child, it wouldn't work.
What kind of movies would you like to be making?
I would very much like to make a personal film, sort of like on the scale of ``Apocalypse Now,'' but on the personal scale of ``The Conversation.'' I have such a project in the works. I've been writing the script for years, but it's very difficult to get something like that made right now. Movies tend to be very similar to other movies that have already been made.
To do a mature film with real ideas about life and our time, an original screenplay, is very difficult to finance. I went into debt for 10 years because of ``One From the Heart.'' I've just paid off all that.
Now I have the wine business to support my family. It's very successful. The plan is that the wine business will take care of us. Any money I make from ``Jack'' and other movies will go back into the dream of making my own movie. I will finance my own ideas with money from films I make for others. I'm very grateful to be able to work for Disney and other studios to make their films.
In my life, I have only made two films of my own, from my own stories. One was ``The Conversation.'' The other was ``The Rain People.'' It's very difficult for anyone to maintain their independence with an art film that costs so much money.
It seems that ``Jack'' is on a smaller scale. Would you like to work on a larger canvas again?
I always tried to make the style of the movie BE the movie. ``The Godfather'' was on a grand sale, certainly different from ``Tucker.'' Of course, my great dream is to work on a great scale again. I feel I am two filmmakers. On the one hand, I am a writer who would like to make contemporary films about life. On the other hand, I feel I am a commercial, professional director who will do my best to make the films offered by studios but yet lend my own viewpoint. I've never made a film that I didn't feel some personal love for.
I wanted to do a film version of Jack Kerouac's ``On the Road.'' I could do it for only $1.5 million, but I can't even raise that little bit of money for something that different - a movie that isn't the usual narrative style. But we are going to do it. My son, Roman, is going to direct it.
The filmmaker I admire most is Woody Allen. He writes a new film every year. He doesn't have a giant audience and he doesn't worry about it. My hat is off to him. I think he is one of our greatest filmmakers.
What are you doing next?
I'm directing the adaptation of John Grisham's book ``The Rainmaker.'' I was attracted to the poverty-ridden status of the young lawyer. I think he's like a modern knight. In America, we've never had chivalry as a part of our culture. Our knights have been private detectives, but they operate in the underworld of writers like Chandler.
Of the Grisham books that have been adapted to movies, I've only seen ``The Firm.'' I hope this one is very different. I met with Grisham recently and found him a very charming young man. He said he liked the way I planned not to change the book. As far as casting goes, I'd like Sean Penn. I'd like very much to work with him. Or, again, my nephew, Nicolas Cage.
Do you think critics will find ``Jack'' too sentimental and too simple?
Ambiguity was not the goal here. I was aware when I read it that the script was very sentimental. My goal was to give it a kind of eccentricity that would get around that. But it gives us things to think about too. Like Jack, my life has just zoomed by. I had so many plans as a 20-year-old and here I am at 57. I don't know what happened. Adults get too concerned with what's going to happen. You can be on a train and not look out the window, waiting for the last stop. Well, the last stop is death. So look out the window. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MERRICK MORTON
Francis Ford Coppola directs ``Jack,'' starring Robin Williams.
Photo
MERRICK MORTON
In ``Jack,'' Robin Williams stars as a 10-year-old who has a big
problem: He looks older than his age - way older.
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