Francis Ford Coppola’s Cotton Club Encore

When it was originally released, it nearly killed Francis Ford Coppola’s career—yet again, even though it was sufficiently well-received in the jazz world to win a Grammy for its soundtrack. Most frustratingly, the filmmaker knew it could have been great if the studio and producer Robert Evans hadn’t done so much to kill. Like the opposite of George Lucas, Coppola went back and fixed a lot of the problems (much like he recently did with The Godfather III), resulting in the director’s cut known as The Cotton Club Encore, which airs on Bounce TV.

In the late 1920s, Harlem’s Cotton Club featured African American talent on stage, but they are not allowed to enter the club as paying guests. This fact comes through loud and clear in the Encore cut. Delbert “Sandman” Owens and his brother Clay (clearly inspired by the Nicholas Brothers) have just been hired there as featured tap-dancers. Recently back in town, the scuffling white cornet player Michael “Dixie” Dwyer is naturally drawn there, but he will wish he had steered clear.

Dwyer has the questionable fortune of saving Dutch Schultz’s life. Regrettably, the gangster’s subsequent patronage quickly becomes controlling and emasculating. It is especially awkward when he orders the musician to accompany Vera Cicero, his not-so-secret mistress. The sexual tension between them is obvious and therefore quite dangerous. Meanwhile, Sandman Owens’ attempts to romance vocalist Lila Rose Oliver have been nearly as rocky. As a source of tension, the Cotton Club performer has been trying to pass for white, so she can accept more profitable work in downtown clubs.

Evans should have been ashamed of himself, because Coppola’s recut Cotton Club is a great film. It definitely provides more balance to both sides of the Club’s color line, which is clearly significant. It also fully restores entire musical numbers, which are terrific. (If you don’t see Lonette McKee’s rendition of “Stormy Weather,” as Oliver, you’re watching the wrong cut.) Their inclusion makes Encore a musical in the fullest sense. A number like Ellington’s “Creole Love Call,” performed by Priscilla Baskerville, expresses so much about the club’s place in Harlem. Likewise, McKee’s “Ill Wind” and “Stormy Weather” establish Oliver’s character far more than any dialogue.

Anyone who isn’t grinning from ear to ear after watching Gregory Hines lead a one-upping tap contest at the Hoofer’s Club needs serious anti-depressants. The closing fantasia of “Daybreak Express” is also a nifty piece of throwback movie musical magic. Perhaps the exception that proves the rule is the dramatic cross-cutting between Hines’ solo tap “improvography” [as the credits refer to it] and a climatic gangland hit.

Gregory and Maurice Hines were always the show-stoppers on-stage, but now their conflicted sibling relationship comes to satisfying fruition in Encore. In a deliberate irony, Dixie Dwyer and his wannabe gangster brother Vincent are denied that opportunity by their underworld entanglements. Yet, it is a lot of fun to see the crazy Nic Cage we know so well bubbling out of the manic Vincent (we can imagine his Uncle Francis begging him not to yell “top of the world, Mom!”). It is also good to see Richard Gere in the sort of matinee idol role he was meant to play, since his support for Tibet and the Dalai Lama has gotten him blacklisted from studio tent-poles (seriously Hollywood, he was in Chicago, Pretty Woman, and An Officer and a Gentleman). It should also be noted Larry Marshall is an absolutely spooky dead-ringer for Cab Calloway.

Coppola’s Tetro

Francis Ford Coppola would like to introduce you to La Boca, the Buenos Aires neighborhood with a storied history as an artist colony and the traditional home of the city’s Italian immigrant community. It is easy to understand how its old world heritage and bohemian spirit would appeal to Coppola, serving as a distinctive backdrop to his latest family drama, Tetro (trailer here), which has an unconventional midweek New York and Los Angles opening this Thursday, in honor of the birthday of Coppola’s father.

In truth, Tetro seems like a strange paternal tribute considering it presents such poisoned father-son relationships. Carlo Tetrocini might be a great conductor, but he has been a lousy father. For reasons initially shrouded in mystery, the oldest son Angie ran away from home, leaving behind Benny, the kid brother who idolizes him. As soon as he looks old enough (barely), Benny takes a job as a cruise ship waiter to follow his brother’s example. When the ship docks in Buenos Aires for repairs, Benny sets off in search of his prodigal brother, but finds him less than welcoming. Now simply known as Tetro, the elder Tetrocini brother is coldly dismissive of Benny, but at least his sympathetic girlfriend Miranda does her best to console the disappointed brother.

Snooping around the flat, Benny finds a suitcase full of Tetro’s unfinished stories, which seem to hold clues to the Tetrocini family’s secrets. Again due to the influence of his long absent brother, Benny also harbors literary ambitions and sees genius in his brother’s furtive work. However, Tetro’s stories and the truth they conceal might ultimately divide the brothers permanently.

Tetro is a lovingly crafted, stylistically distinctive film, featuring the striking black-and-white cinematography of Mihai Malamaire, Jr. In a deliberate reversal of customary practice, Coppola reserves the use of color photography solely for flashback scenes, which gives them a strange vitality, emphasizing their continuing influence on the characters’ present lives.

Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s lush symphonic score effectively combines a myriad of influences, including traditional Argentine musical forms, including milonga, the predecessor to the tango, and features Dawn Upshaw as his vocal soloist. Unfortunately, the story itself, Coppola’s first original screenplay in thirty years, is often burdened with obscure motivations and a parade of barely distinguishable minor characters.

For his Italian and Argentine characters, Coppola recruited an international cast, the most famous being Vincent Gallo as Tetro, whose unsettling screen presence well suits the haunted title character. The Austrian Klaus Maria Brandauer will also be recognizable as the Mephistophelean father. Rounding out the damaged Tetrocini family, American newcomer Alden Ehrenreich is surprisingly effective as Benny, bearing a strong physical resemblance to Leonardo Dicaprio, but displaying greater emotional directness and far less affectation in his performance than typically seen from the Blood Diamond star.

Tetro is an ambitious work, even incorporating an original ballet choreographed by Ana Maria Stekelman, in homage to the films of Powell & Pressburger. Coppola’s legions of admirers will be relieved to learn Tetro is a pretty engaging film, but it is not the new masterpiece they are still waiting and hoping for. However, Coppola addresses themes of family and artistic development in such a dark, psychologically tempestuous context, it will be impossible to ignore the film in any serious study of his work. Though at times it borders on outright melodrama, Tetro is consistently fascinating viewing. It opens in New York at the Sunshine Cinema this Thursday.