American Zoetrope Films

I was interested in whether or not there is anything in common between American Zoetrope (A.Z.) films such as genre, the people who worked on the films, technical aspects etc. I found that from the films I watched (American Graffiti, Passion, Lost In Translation) they seem very well produced technically, something which American Zoetrope themselves claim they focus on and are quite proud of. There are some very interesting films they have made away from popular cinema which have taken quite a lot of pride in the production process. The two films Godfrey Reggio made with A.Z. are good examples of this. Taking on projects such as Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi has shown A.Z. to be a place where these sorts of technical qualities are really appreciated. They may not have been very mainstream because of the experimental elements, but the Qatsi Trilogy are very highly acclaimed films and I have the impression that this would often be more important to the studio than ticket sales.

The collection of films that were successful enough to keep the studio and its name running for all this time were interesting when looked at together, such as The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, American Graffiti, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Sleepy Hollow, Jeepers Creepers and Marie Antoinette. The films span different genres, directors and styles. One thing most of these films do however have in common is that they were set in the past. This seems to be a fairly common theme running through a lot of A.Z. films. A reason may be to do with the fact that such famous stories such as Dracula and Marie Antoinette, especially with a Hollywood star involved, would sound very promising with regards to the box office. It is interesting when you look at the spacing between these films and Coppola’s successes because they are never more than roughly five years apart, managing to keep A.Z. in business in the mean time to focus on young directors and perhaps less promising or more experimental projects. A.Z. have made as many films as possible on low budgets with the profits of the more popular titles. A prime example of this is of course The Conversation, which Coppola only secured the money for after agreeing to make The Godfather Part II. Some of these films seem almost like sacrifices in comparison with the ones he really wanted to make.

Coppola’s original concept for A.Z. involved it working a lot like a theatre production company, where the same figures would appear time and time again. This part of his original idea he has stuck with throughout the years and has had the same producers, cinematographers, sound crews and even actors and actresses appear in multiple films of his own or others by A.Z. Popular names that will crop up again and again are Fred Roos, Mona Skager, Walter Murch and Mario Puzo. An example of an actress that appears in the films I have watched is Cindy Williams who has important roles in both The Conversation and American Graffiti made just the year before. There is also John Cazale who plays Stan in The Conversation and also appears as a Corleone in The Godfather films. However, I feel like a lot of this group are no longer a part of Coppola’s latest films.

There have been some interesting directors that have worked with A.Z., such as Jean-Luc Goddard and Tim Burton as well as George Lucas whom Coppola acted as a platform for earlier in his career.

It seems that the criteria for A.Z. films is an interest in doing something new or experimental, perhaps wanting to work within the auteur theory which I shall explore further in another blog post and often wanting to portray a certain aspect of our relations and interactions with one another.

Questions

Why was Godfrey Reggio’s third film of the Qatsi trilogy not made with A.Z.?

Why did George Lucas not make his most famous films, the Star Wars films, with A.Z.?

The answers to both of these questions can admittedly probably be answered with budget. One thing the majority of the A.Z. films have in common, including the more successful ones, is that they were made at the minimum cost with the minimum crew. I think that the case with these two films was probably bad timing because they did not follow other successful films. The first released Star Wars film fell around the time when Coppola was trying to build his studio business and not releasing very many films. As for Naqoyqatsi, I believe it must have been a choice on Reggio’s part to search out a bigger studio with a higher budget and better circulation because even though the film took a long time to make, the couple of years just before its release were fairly good for Zoetrope.

References

http://www.zoetrope.com/zoe_films.cgi accessed 22/11/10

http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/ accessed 22/11/10

http://www.starwars.com/movies/episode-iv/ accessed 22/11/10