Jungbrunnen

Francis Ford Coppola hat einen neuen Film gemacht, der Gerüchten zufolge in Cannes Premiere haben wird. „Youth Without Youth” basiert auf dem rumänischen Roman „Tinerete fara de Tinerete” von Mircea Eliade und handelt von einem Mann auf der Flucht, der von einem Blitz getroffen wird und in Folge jünger und jünger wird. Die Hauptrolle spielt Tim Roth, in weiteren Rollen sind Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara und André Hennecke zu sehen.

Coppola schreibt auf der offiziellen Webseite (www.ywyfilm.com) über das Verhältnis von Jugend und Begabung und spekuliert darüber, warum bestimmte Künstler ein Leben lang produktiv sind, andere aber nur für eine relativ kurze Zeit. Zu Letzteren zählt er sich übrigens selbst, wobei das Projekt, sein erstes seit 10 Jahren, offensichtlich als Verjüngungskur gedacht ist.

Auszüge aus Coppolas Tagebuch:

„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.”

„What could be the reason that the same person, later in life, is unable to compete with himself as a younger artist? Is anything missing at all, or is the answer simpler — that each person is given only one or two truly worthy ideas, like a couple of arrows in a quiver.”

„Originally, I didn't intend to make more than one Godfather film; yet economic forces at the studio were insistent: "Francis, you have the formula for Coca-Cola; are you not going to make more?" But the first film expended most of the arrows in my quiver or, more aptly, the slugs in my revolver. So, the second film had to stretch into new and more ambitious territory to show a few more; otherwise, it would have been weaker than the first. By the time the third arrived, the basic ideas that made the first fresh and excited were all but used up.”

„I've begun to think that the only sensible way to deal with this dilemma is to become young again, to forget everything I know and try to have the mind of a student. To re-invent myself by forgetting I ever had any film career at all, and instead to dream about having one.”

„I've decided the best course is to become an amateur and accept that I know next to nothing and love almost everything. Recently I realized that the favorite decade of my life was 50, a wonderful age for a man — at—he peak of his health and experience, yet flexible enough to enjoy and also temper it. So reluctant was I to give up being in my fifties, that I began to call myself 'fifty-ten' or 'fifty-eleven '. Now I'm 'fiftysixteen'. And so today, like some inflated East European currency that gets two zeros lopped off, I've decided to lose the '50' and just be sixteen. Next year I'll be seventeen, which is exactly the age that I was when I very seriously began to direct plays.”