Thanks for the memories!

Memorable, crazy movie

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This film is infused with cool jazz music, but after the first hour you get tired of it and wish they would increase the tempo. It feels sad and depressing, no mean feat given the thousands of watts of lighting that Coppola throws at the elaborate sets. There are exhaustingly long, wordless scenes that add nothing to the story: Teri Garr getting dressed, for example. The underlying story, meanwhile, gasps for air as it tries to bubble to the surface, but is quickly submerged underneath Coppola's fades, double exposures, and pointless transitions. It's pretty to look at, but has no nutritional value.Most of the scenes are Altmanesque, with no clear starting or stopping point, characters walking away mid-sentence, or puzzling logic gaps in the storyline that leave you wondering if they were really following a script or just ad-libbing the whole thing; I wonder if the vacant stares from the actors are real or part of the performance. If the former, one wonders what kind of directions that Coppola was giving them on the set.It's easy to see why this film flopped, it's quite a boring movie, and I wonder what people thought way back when, when they saw the names of character actors on the marquee. Frederick who? Casting top names wouldn't have saved this film, however, it seems more an exercise in set design and artistic direction than a cohesive, engaging film.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this film. My father told me it was great, common opinion told me it wasn't. So I watched it today, and I have to agree with my father. "One From The Heart" is a beautiful, lavish film. The cinematography is superb, the performances are top notch and the soundtrack is incredibly great. After seeing Coppola's most famous film, "The Godfather", this film really showed me how diverse good old Francis can be. "When Francis Ford Coppola makes a love story, don't expect hearts and flowers", the back of the DVD says; and how right it is. The story follows the tension between Hank (Frederic Forrest) and Frannie (Teri Garr) on their five- year "unmarriage" anniversary, just before the Fourth of July, and how they go their separate ways in the glitter of nighttime Las Vegas, finding different lovers but all the while, missing the others touch. This film is funny, spectacular and touching and I couldn't ask for anymore from it. Watch it and realize the beauty the world is missing in ignoring "One From The Heart". Such a beautiful film, and so underrated as well.

One of the most unconventional musicals of all time "One From the Heart" is a criminally underrated film that needs to be rediscovered by all generations and by authentic film lovers out there. Francis Ford Coppola's extravagant and luxurious film is a imaginative tale of a true and down-to-earth love struggling to survive the flames of perfect but false love affairs. They've met on a nice 4th of July, they remained married for five years, but then while celebrating their fifth anniversary together, something died and they couldn't go on together. That's the story of Frannie (Teri Garr) and Hank (Frederick Forrest), a happy couple that after an little argument decides to break-up, finding comfort and love with other partners on the dreamy and magical Las Vegas. She goes out with a talented pianist/waiter named Ray (Raul Julia), a romantic Latin lover with lots of qualities; while Hank goes after Leila (Nastassja Kinski) an sexy dancer with lots of appeal. Both affairs look and sound perfect but will Hank and Frannie ever realize they really belong with each other and that this fantasies shouldn't been taken so seriously? Surprises, surprises... Elegant, beautiful and amazingly colorful with its neon lights shining and sparkling everywhere, all the time in a Las Vegas built on the American Zoetrope's sound stage, company that went to bankruptcy due to the enormous costs spent on this film, "One from the Heart" is a outstanding film, way above the average that never was placed in the place it should have been, among with the greatest works of art of all time. It was a financial and critical failure for Francis and the films he made until the 1990's were mostly for covering those costs (original budget planning was U$2 million, but the real money spent reach U$25 million which was a very high cost in the 1980's). But these are minor concerns. It's a film with lots of qualities, it gives us so much and the emotions it sets on us is priceless. His vision is absolutely perfect for the eyes. A visually stunning film and an orgasm to our eyes and senses that rare films can achieve. The dream-like Vegas comes to represent a fictionalization of love as something happy, colorful, never ending, love Hollywood style. Then we have to compare with our own love stories, our own perception of what love's like. Love is really like a endless magic where everything happens perfectly or it has some flaws, some danger and some unfortunate parts? Hank and Frannie story is more realistic if we have to compare with the romantic evenings they have with Ray and Leila, musical sequences made to look just like 1940's MGM musicals. Coppola couldn't go on filming these in the real Las Vegas, he had to present us a larger than life fantasy, dreams becoming true, and he succeed it (sadly, many didn't get that idea). Even not including huge superstars in the main roles, the casting is impeccable (which also includes Harry Dean Stanton and Lainie Kazan in funny roles as the main couple friends). Vittorio Storaro's innovative cinematography, Dean Tavoularis art-direction, the special effects used, Tom Waits & Crystal Gayle songs and the soundtrack, everything is perfectly put together. And best sequences are: the musical number involving Frannie and Ray dancing in the crowded Vegas; their fabulous tango; Leila's number to Hank on top of a tightrope; the ending, kind of corny, but acceptable. Everything is so phony, so unbelievable and that's the movie's point: it's an optic of what love should be, or perhaps that's the way love is seen for those who fell in love, that everything is or must be perfect. But if you think real love is just like the ones you see in the movies than you need to open your eyes better and see from another perspective. You need to see the difficulties, the twists and turns just like the ones Frannie and Hank had right in the first scenes where one complain about not standing each other anymore.The poor criticism this film got is the same one that killed "Heaven's Gate" years earlier, a big budget film for too little result, critics not even focused on the film's idea, although I think Coppola made something better with all the money spent and his career didn't sink so low like Cimino did. But I must say that this was only restricted to the U.S. and some other countries, since here "One from the Heart" is lauded as one of the greatest films directed by Francis, receiving impeccable and positive reviews, most of them so good to make me run to see this film. The wait was over, and it fulfilled my expectations and more. I loved it! 10/10

--- Spoilers ---I bought the DVD of this film 4$ on the web and boy, what a disappointment even for such a bargain... It's long, it's boring, it's too colorful and bright, it lacks rhythm and emotions, and to top it all, it doesn't even have this strange dark glow that gives some movies an intact power 30 years after their release ("Blade Runner" for example), a glow that could be a definition of what viewers call "cult status". It's been completely forgotten.The making-of on the second DVD is more interesting than the motion picture itself, and it explains a lot about this big fiasco.Back in 1982, Francis Ford Coppola was one of the jewels shining on the crown of the New Hollywood era, along with Spielberg, Lucas, De Palma and so, thinking it was maybe the dawn of something big. It was not, and the sun was about to go down on him.By something big, I think he wanted to build, inside Zooetrope Studios, a safe haven for filmmakers, far away from major studios and tycoon producers who were then rushing from professional domains like banking, industry, big corporations, anything but movie making, to make big Hollywood dollars.A touching moment from the documentary shows accomplished directors like Steven Spielberg, Jean-Luc Godard and others, partying and having cocktails among fans and Coppola's family members... Another one shows an aerial view of the studios alleys, named "Frederico Fellini street" or "Nino Rota street". Yeah, the dream had almost come true, as for those amazed kids allowed to visit the stages for an afternoon.But Coppola is definitely a man of movies, an "artist" - I mean a man of arts, who lives by Art, certainly not a business man. Looking at his distraught face when he announces to the press that his N-th investor just backed out his financial support, which meant for him the need to contract even more debts to finish "One from the heart" is kinda sad because it's the face of a dream wrecked on the shores of reality.To live thru this even more intensely, he'll have built more and more stages, more and more cranes, he'll have hired more and more extras, dancers, to create his "Citizen Kane", his Xanadu, his Disneyland, a runaway straight forward, without any decent script, a cast incompatible with a love story (average Frederic Forrest and unattractive Teri Garr), a gifted composer (Tom Waits) who doesn't even seem to understand the purpose of the whole project.The critics will be a blood bath, the audience won't follow, the movie will bomb. Not even a compensation : Francis Ford Coppola's ideas will be stolen for more than a decade to be recycled in 99% of the MTV music videos...It was in 1982 and Gondry, Burton, etc... had yet to catch on. Coppola started his purgatory journey, selling Zooetrope back lot, falling down from acclaimed "Apocalypse Now" director and independent studio owner to contract director, shooting impersonal movies for others, while Star Wars 7 or Indy 2 were making billions.Life is hard with poets.