Francis Ford Coppola to Screen New Version of ‘One From the Heart’ — 12 Minutes Shorter

Francis Ford Coppola’s "One from the Heart" will be presented in a newly restored version at the 80th Venice Film Festival. The screening will be part of the Venice Classics sidebar section. The film will be released in theaters in 2024.

Coppola is no stranger to new cuts of his films. “Apocalypse Now” was rereleased in “redux" and "final cut" version, and “The Godfather: Part III” had a version released with modified opening and epilogue

Three years after “Apocalypse Now” won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, “One from the Heart” was released in theaters in 1981 and marked the biggest financial and critical failure of Coppola's career, to the point where it’s been practically forgotten today.

The initial budget for this cinematic melancholic reverie, set under the neon lights of Las Vegas, was initially planned for $2 million. It finally ended up costing close to $25 million. At the time, it was the most expensive shoot in movie history. It only brought in $636,796 at the box-office.

If the story was somewhat pedantic, Francis Ford Coppola’s aim seemed to be to reinvent the visual language of cinema, with an ambition to oppose the hegemony of Hollywood's majors studios

Recently, Coppola’s 1981 film, which tells the story of a married couple in crisis living a life of extravagance and madness in Las Vegas, was said to be an immense inspiration for Todd Phillips’ upcoming “Joker: Folie à Deux.”

This basically means ‘Folie à Deux’ is going for an eye-popping, colourful and sumptuous look. No, really, despite Coppola’s film being a major commercial and critical flop, it’s still one of the most beautiful-looking films that I’ve ever seen.

The commercial failure of the film resulted in a decade of financial turmoil for Coppola and his production companies. However, there has been a somewhat decent reappraisal of the film over the last few years.

The film was purposefully banal, and, in some ways, sublime. It was not what anyone expected from Coppola, and that may be was the reason for its troubling reception. Coppola made a big gamble starting up his own production company (Zeotrope) and lost all his money on "One From The Heart". He was so in debt that he spent the next 15 years making films for the same major studios he tried to avoid.

And so, the eighties and nineties brought “The Outsiders”, “Rumble Fish”, “Dracula” “The Rainmaker,” “Peggy Sue Got Married” “The Godfather Part III” and … “Jack”!

The Venice program indicates that this new version of “One From the Heart” is 95 minutes — twelve minutes shorter than the original version of the film.

Here’s Coppola’s statement:

"I have always loved “One From the Heart” and while working on its 4K restoration, it appeared to me that I could improve the story. This new version will in many ways be an improvement and I am proud of what we have accomplished with One from the Heart: Reprise.”