Coppola Chides 3 Oscar-Winning Actors

Everyone wants to work with Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson except Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola who directed Pacino and De Niro in "The Godfather" trilogy says the trio of Oscar-winning actors have become apathetic.

"I don't feel that kind of passion to do a role and be great coming from those guys, because if it was there, they would do it! I mean, they're all in a position to do it," the 68-year-old filmmaker tells GQ magazine in its November issue, on newsstands Tuesday.

"Pacino always wanted to do theater. He wanted to do `Peer Gynt.' He wanted to do Shakespeare. Pacino will say, `Oh, I was raised next to a furnace in New York, and I'm never going to L.A.,' but they all live off the fat of the land," Coppola says.

He calls De Niro "wealthy and powerful" and more ambitious than Nicholson.

"I think if there was a role that De Niro was hungry for, he would come after it. I don't think Jack would," he says. "Jack has money and influence and girls, and I think he's a little bit like (Marlon) Brando, except Brando went through some tough times."

Nicholson a front-row regular at the Oscars and at Los Angeles Laker games "was always kind of a joker" and a Hollywood schmooze, says Coppola.

"He's got a little bit of a mean streak," he says. "He's intelligent, always wired in with the big guys and the big bosses of the studios."

Adds Coppola: "I don't know what any of them want anymore."

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

Coppola's New Movie to Premiere in Rome

Francis Ford Coppola's first movie in a decade, "Youth Without Youth," will have its world premiere at the Rome Film Festival next month, organizers said Thursday. The five-time Academy Award winner's first movie since 1997's "The Rainmaker" stars Tim Roth as a professor-turned-fugitive as World War II approaches. Filmed in Romania, the movie is adapted from a novella by Romanian philosopher-author Mircea Eliade and will be screened out of competition.
"It is a film that we strongly wanted. ... Coppola, who is back with a philosophical noir, will be here. It's a film that will leave a sign and will make people talk," said Piera Detassis, one of the festival's directors. Also being presented out of competition will be "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," starring Oscar winner Cate Blanchett in the role of Queen Elizabeth I. This follow-up to 1998's "Elizabeth," which earned Blanchett her first nomination, tells the life of the 16th-century English monarch as she juggles romantic temptation, political opposition and the threat of conquest by Spain.

Besides Blanchett, other stars who are expected include Clive Owen, Reese Witherspoon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Halle Berry, Robert Redford, Gerard Depardieu, as well as Coppola's daughter, fellow director Sofia Coppola.

The second annual festival, running Oct. 18-27, features 14 movies in competition, including "La Deuxieme Souffle" ("Second Wind"), starring Daniel Auteuil and Monica Bellucci, and "El Pasado" ("The Past"), with Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal.

Other festival events include public meetings and conferences with Jane Fonda, Terrence Malick and Sophia Loren.

The competition's 50-member public jury is made up of selected moviegoers from Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, who won the best foreign film Oscar with 2001's "No Man's Land," will preside over the jury.
Source: www.cinema-pedia.com