Hacker Cinema
Youth Without Youth
2007 · Film · 125 min
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Professor of language and philosophy Dominic Matei is struck by lightning and ages backwards from 70 to 40 in a week, attracting the world and the Nazis. While on the run, the professor meets a young woman who has her own experience with a lightning storm. Not only does Dominic find love again, but her new abilities hold the key to his research.
2 positive1 negative1 mixedfrom 4 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
4 comments on Hacker News
Many of the movies you've listed are indeed excellent, for example The Outsiders is by now a cult icon for how many future stars it launched and both Tetro and Twixt made it to the Cahiers du Cinema top 10 movies of the year (and Youth Without Youth was also very highly received there).
I think most people are unaware that Coppola has also directed the following: Twixt (2011), Tetro (2009), Youth Without Youth (2007), The Rainmaker (1997), Bram Stokers' Dracula (1992), The Godfather Part III (1990), Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), Gardens of Stone (1987), The Cotton Club (1984), Rumble Fish (1983), The Outsiders (1983), and One from the Heart (1981).
In other words, Coppola has directed plenty of bad to mediocre films after his incredible run from The Godfather through Apocalypse Now (1972 to 1979). Granted, that run was enough to forever ensconce him in Pantheon of great films directors. I think Megalopis is getting so much (undeserved press) because Coppola says its his last film and it was self financed. The trend line in his movies, however, has been negative for a long time. So, were it not for those two remarkable attributes, Megalopis would probably have come and gone with little notice, much like the rest of his since the 90s.
> There would be no Godfather without Hollywood. No Apocalypse Now. (also no Taxi Driver, no Star Wars, no Indiana Jones, no MASH or Nashville) In the absence of Hollywood, you get movies like Youth Without Youth and Tetro - two wonderful oddities, but you'd be hard pressed to make the case for them against Coppola's early masterpieces.
Those movies you mentioned were a result of being within/outside Hollywood, not a function of Hollywood's existence.
I love FFC. I'm a current UCLA film student - Coppola's alma mater. One thing to think about: UCLA has always been the "indy, intellectual" film school. It's our rep, internally and (to an extent) externally. When Coppola left UCLA to work in Hollywood, he was branded a sell-out by his fellow students.
One thing to think about w/ this whole "crush Hollywood" thing is this: most of your favorite movies (assuming you've got a boner for the New Hollywood period like I do) were a result of an aging, out-of-touch entertainment monopoly making desperate, reactionary moves to save itself. The old system didn't work, the people in charge had no idea how to fix it, so they went crazy taking risks on young directors. FFC, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman, de Palma, Lucas - all the really top-drawer American filmmakers, honestly - were a result of this period of blind desperation.
There would be no Godfather without Hollywood. No Apocalypse Now. (also no Taxi Driver, no Star Wars, no Indiana Jones, no MASH or Nashville) In the absence of Hollywood, you get movies like Youth Without Youth and Tetro - two wonderful oddities, but you'd be hard pressed to make the case for them against Coppola's early masterpieces.
The beautiful and horrible thing about Hollywood is that it's a system designed to throw huge stacks of cash at storytelling problems. It's fucking absurd, because money has never been capable of solving those kinds of problems - practice and gut instinct are what create good stories. But when strong storytellers are placed in an environment which supplies nearly unlimited resources, totally amazing things happen. Yes, we can all point to Heaven's Gate, New York New York, and Coppola's own One From the Heart, but flops like those are the inevitable flip side of the system I've just described: talented people can abuse unlimited resources just like anybody else.
I guess what I'm saying is: I'd be seriously depressed if Hollywood were to vanish. Yeah, it produces a lot of shit, but its high water marks have never really been replicated by any other mode of production.