Francis Ford Coppola turned 70 this month, which would have been reason enough to resurrect this incredible poster for his little-known 1969 film The Rain People and to remember the good times before Jack and Youth Without Youth. But this week I heard it on good authority that Coppola's newest film Tetro is some kind of a masterpiece, or at the very least a return to form, and who hasn't been waiting for that for a couple of decades? Tetro, shot in Buenos Aires and starring Vincent Gallo, sounds like an Argentinian Rocco and his Brothers and, amazingly is Coppola's first completely original screenplay since The Conversation in 1974 and, before that, The Rain People. And get this, in a video titled "My Boys" on the Tetro website Vincent Gallo talks about how he owed it to Coppola to work with him because Coppola made him love movies. And Coppola chimes in "And you know what picture it was that did it for him? Rain People! That's his favorite movie." Gallo goes on to rhapsodize about the film and Coppola's wife Eleanor asks him off-camera if he's seen "the Rain People documentary" and Gallo says "no, he promises it to me every day." The documentary, it turns out, was directed by none other than George Lucas. Long unavailable, The Rain People itself (not the doc, sadly) has just been released on DVD by Warner Brothers as part of their bare-bones Warner Archive series. And Tetro opens on June 11.
Thanks to Ned at Obscure One-Sheet for turning me onto this poster. Meanwhile, here is the French poster for the film, which is equally awesome.
