“You can enjoy the film like a Faust story: an old man gets young, has an
opportunity to finish his great work and fall in love again, but can’t finish the work because of love…that is his ultimate sacrifice. But it can also be an educational opportunity to learn more about Eastern philosophy,” says Francis Ford Coppola.

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He's talking about his new film, Youth Without Youth. Adapted from a novella by Mircea Eliade, it tells the story of Dominic Matei (who is played by Tim Roth) as an aging professor of linguistics who survives a cataclysmic event to find his youth miraculously restored. Dominic's physical rejuvenation is matched by a highly evolved intellect, which attracts the attention of Nazi scientists, forcing him into exile. While on the run, he reunites with his lost love, Laura, and works to complete his research into the origins of human language. When his research threatens Laura’s well being, Dominic is forced to choose between his life’s work and the great love of his life. Youth Without Youth also stars Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Pirici, Marcel Iures and Andre M. Hennicke.

Notes from Francis Ford Coppola

My spirits soared. When I went out with my family or my friends, I felt better because I had a secret no one knew about - a movie brewing. When the script was finished, I went to Romania with my granddaughter, Gia. We stayed at the home of an American friend who’d bought control of a clunky old pharmaceutical company which he was turning into a European Union-compatible business.

This gave me cover: I was anxious not to get ensnared as a famous film director with a big budget. Gia and I traveled around Romania, going to all the real addresses in the story. It was fun and adventure. Little by little, I was cooking up a scheme to make a movie which I could finance myself. It was a relief not to have to go hat-in-hand to money men or studio bosses.

I kept everything simple. When I knew this could work, I brought over two trusted colleagues, Anahid Nazarian and Masa Tsuyuki - and the camera. I began testing actors in a backroom of my host’s pharmaceutical company. There are over 50 roles in Youth Without Youth; how many could I cast right there?

But I had an even more elaborate scheme: each time I shot a test with an actor, I’d use a different photographer. They were all fine but I chose Mihai Malaimare, Jr. The movie was about becoming young again. I liked the fact that Mihai was so young, had a gentle personality, and was tremendously talented. When I told him the camera would remain stationary throughout, he said ‘that’s great’!

Step by step, I figured things out. Anahid had produced a couple of low budget films and done a great job. I wanted to keep the crew small. We’d double up. Anahid would be both producer and script supervisor. Equipment-wise, I’d use only what was absolutely necessary. Masa went back to Napa and bought a Dodge Sprinter which he turned into a studio-on-wheels - a van which would carry all the equipment. We shipped it to Romania. Now I’m about to jump off the cliff – create a fait accomplis.

We began filming in October of 2005 and shot for 85 days with a predominantly Romanian cast and crew. I learned a lot from Mircea Eliade, just by traveling in his footsteps. I’ve always felt that if you’re working on a film whose themes interest you, the sheer act of making it ensures that you learn. When I read the story, I knew that if I made the movie I’d learn how to express time and dreams cinematically. Making a movie is like asking a question, and when you finish, the movie itself is the answer.


More about the Movie:

Youth Without Youth marks the return of a master filmmaker confronting outré philosophical questions with candor, gravitas and impishness. Once again, Francis Ford Coppola creates stunning images while guiding a gifted cast to the peak of their talent. It stars Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz and newcomer Alexandra Pirici. Coppola made the adaptation.

Youth Without Youth is at once a poignant love story, political thriller, and lively philosophical quest. Set primarily in Romania and Switzerland between 1938-1956, it combines man-on-the-run intrigue with ruminations on time and consciousness, and the role of language in the development of both. It poses a question: Which is more important, love or knowledge? And by the story’s conclusion, answers it.

The whole of Youth Without Youth is wrapped around the central role of Dominic, played by Tim Roth, the unique British character actor famous for his peerless villains in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Rob Roy, for which he received a 1995 Oscar nomination. In a portrayal unlike any he has done before, Roth takes us inside the head and heart of a shy and vulnerable man who is still mourning Laura, the great love of his youth.

As university students, Laura and Dominic were lovers, planning a life together. But Dominic was so obsessed with learning that he sequestered himself in libraries, his head in a book, often forgetting their dates. One day, Laura terminates their relationship. “You keep yourself shut away in an alien world,” she tells him, sadly, “one that I can’t enter.”

Love…? Or knowledge and worldly acclaim? Dominic never recovers from losing Laura - never marries. Decades later, he unexpectedly encounters another young woman whom he finds intriguing. Indeed, Veronica reminds him of Laura who is long deceased. As time goes on, he wonders if Veronica and Laura are manifestations of the same transmigrating soul? And who is Rupini, the person Veronica claims to be when in a paramediumistic trance?

Laura, Veronica and Rupini are all played by the singular Alexandra Maria Lara, rising international star of The Downfall, the 2005 version of Dr. Zhivago, Annik Honore’s Control and Uli Edel’s upcoming The Baader-Meinhof Complex. She is featured in The Company, a television mini-series directed by Mikael Salomon.

Parallels

As Youth Without Youth is a personal undertaking, it isn’t surprising to find parallels between Francis Coppola and his protagonist. What they share is a chance to revisit their younger selves while remaining in the present, enjoying the wisdom of experience and maturity. With Dominic, it happened via a lightning bolt. The equivalent for Coppola was simply finding the novella.

“The story touched my life. I was 66 and beginning to feel at the end of the road. I hadn’t made a movie in eight years and didn’t want to make another like those I’d made before. I was frustrated by my inability to finish the screenplay for my dream project, Megalopolis. Since I was exploring philosophical concepts relating to time, and consciousness, I sent it to someone I thought might have something interesting to say – Wendy Doniger, a friend from high school now teaching comparative mythology and Hinduism at the University of Chicago. She returned some quotes about time from her mentor, Mircea Eliade, suggesting I read his novella, Youth Without Youth. It was not easy to find but we dug it up. As I was reading, I knew I’d found my subject.‘‘

The story’s protagonist has a different experience. After being burnt by lightning, Dominic is taken to a hospital where he is swathed in gauze like a mummy. His doctor – played by the great Swiss actor, Bruno Ganz – declares him to be “in a larval state.” By the time the bandages come off, Dominic has metamorphosed into a 40 year old man with a new set of teeth – ‘born again,’ as an avatar or butterfly, depending upon one’s cultural or religious coloration. And that is just the beginning of the saga… "

I loved the way one darned thing after another kept happening,” says Coppola. Sent to a clinic to recuperate, Dominic has erotic dreams which turn out to be nightly romps with another guest – ‘The Woman in Room 6.’ But things are not what they seem. The pretty, young thing turns out to be a spy, in cahoots with eugenic scientists who are Nazis! One day she disappears. Soon, SS officers come for Dominic. The Professor holds them at bay long enough to prepare a phony passport and send his patient into exile – to Switzerland, a neutral country. The duplicitous ‘Woman in Room 6’ is played by Alexandra Pirici, a Romanian actress and choreographer making her film debut.

“You can enjoy the film like a Faust story: an old man gets young, has an opportunity to finish his great work and fall in love again, but can’t finish the work because of love…that is his ultimate sacrifice. But it can also be an educational opportunity to learn more about Eastern philosophy,” says Coppola.

Coppola and His Cast

From the moment he set foot in Romania, Coppola was determined to make Youth Without Youth in the spirit of his early years. “We are all students on this film,” he told the actors and crew, encouraging them to take risks and have fun. The film’s composer, Osvaldo Golijov, recalls: “He told me that he likes to live in a ‘state of play,’ and I feel he does. He generates an atmosphere of playfulness and creativity around him that brings out the best in the people that work with him.”

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Actor Tim Roth agrees.

“It is a very adventurous process working with Francis. You come to the set having learned your dialogue and studied the scene, only to find the room in complete disarray, with mirrors on the ceiling. He is fearless; he comes up with the most remarkable ideas at the drop of a hat and it does invigorate you.”

As an aspiring teen actor in London, Roth admired ‘the Godfather’ and sent Coppola a few handwritten letters. “I like your films and if you ever need an English actor, I’m your man.” But after coming to live in the U. S., Roth had only one professional encounter with Coppola – an interview to discuss his playing William Burroughs in On the Road. But at that interview, the filmmaker pulled out one of those letters, which he’d kept. “He showed it to me, then took it back,” Roth recalls somewhat ruefully.

When, in early 2005, Roth found a message on his answering machine from Coppola, he was incredulous. “I was in Italy working on a film and I thought a friend was playing a joke. Finally I did call the number. Francis’ wife, Ellie answered and told me he was in the shower but would return the call. And he did. He sent me the script and then came to visit me in Siena.” At no point during the filming did Roth realize he was playing something of a surrogate to Coppola. “He did not talk about himself personally or the artistic crisis which led him to the material. Francis was open about the imagery he was seeking but considered that he was following the book.”

The work began with long rehearsals often involving improvisations. Roth says he found them invaluable once shooting began. During these lessons Roth made a point to learn not only the verbal cue that would make him sound like a native speaker, but the subtle physical movements that would effect a complete transformation of his character. Like Dominic, Roth would have to learn to be a chameleon, changing his appearances and mannerisms to fully inhabit the age shifting character on screen.

Working through the challenge of negotiating different ages, national identities, languages and even mental states, Coppola encouraged Roth to invoke the style of Alec Guinness, and to make the fictional onscreen character as real as possible. Because Dominic ages between 26 and 101, Roth often endured long make-up sessions. “There were head casts, photos of full size casts on computers. Those guys - hair and make-up designers Peter King and Jeremy Woodhead - came up with fantastic imagery; they didn’t want ‘me’ to disappear. “There were sections, pieces, bald caps, and a lot of painting to get it right so that Francis could put his camera anywhere he wanted.”

Altogether, Roth calls the filmmaking experience on Youth Without Youth difficult but rejuvenating. “It made me care about acting again. Francis loves his actors and gives them an extraordinary amount of freedom. If you’ve done your homework and are prepared to give him a three-dimensional character, he leaves you alone. Sometimes he would talk to us – the actors – while the camera was rolling. I love that. Sometimes Francis would play the other characters off camera. We developed a great shorthand; we were simpatico.”

Alexandra Maria Lara was also contacted directly by Coppola.

“He wrote a wonderful letter and sent me the script, and we met in London,” the actress recalls. “As an actor, it was a pleasure to study different things; to work with this man who has made all these great movies is a very special feeling though he makes you forget about the myth very quickly.”

Among the ‘different things’ the young actress had to cope with were several ancient languages – Sanskrit, Egyptian, Ancient Babylonian. Linguistic experts were brought to the set to teach her and the other actors what the languages sounded like.

“It was very difficult and sometimes a bit unnerving,” she admits. She praises Tim Roth as “a very helpful partner with a strong aura.”

Coppola did not initially realize he would offer the same actress different roles, but Lara’s talent impressed him. “I had seen Alexandra in The Downfall and thought she had a beautiful screen presence with an ability to display interior states of feeling. When you meet someone like that, you know you have a real treasure. I also thought it would make the theme of reincarnation clearer and I was very touched by the thought that when the old man dies, he would be thinking about Laura. Men throughout their lives always love the same woman even though she may have different personas; somehow, those women you really care for are one and the same. That, finally, is why I decided to cast the same actress in both roles. In a certain sense, my view of the characters came out of Alexandra herself.”

The other major female role in Youth Without Youth is that of ‘The Woman in Room 6’ – a double agent whose betrayal of Dominic forces him into exile. “There was a bit of competition about who would play the sexy Nazi spy girl, but when all was said and done, Fred Roos and I felt that Alexandra Pirici was the one,” says Coppola.

Pirici, born and raised in Bucharest, is a strikingly gifted actress and conceptual
choreographer – “intelligent as well as beautiful,” comments Coppola. “I gave her piles of fashion magazines to look through, asking her to cut out the pictures she thought were sexy. To ask a woman what she thinks is sexy is interesting because, culturally, it’s all in the way they sit, look at you, talk to you. I knew I couldn’t go too far in depicting the eroticism; that is my tradition. But I wanted the character to be sexy to everyone.”

Coppola had long known the work of Bruno Ganz, from the films of Wim
Wenders and Eric Rohmer, and from The Downfall in which he played Hitler. “Since I had a great actor, I created one composite character from several doctors in the novella. I thought Bruno could give personality to the doctor---and he did.

For the sequence at the end, in the Café Select, Coppola originally cast former
stars of Romanian theatre. “A few were nervous about their English and dropped out before filming,” he notes. “The ones who are in the movie are very fine, some of them Yiddish theatre actors.”

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