One from the Heart

In Las Vegas a couple of five years splits up on the night of the fourth of July. Each meets somebody else that evening, and two separate stories run until morning. That is the whole plot; the actual subject of the film is how it is shown rather than what happens. Francis Ford Coppola built all of Las Vegas on the stages of his own studio. Streets, hotels and part of an airport were constructed. The lighting, the backdrops and the transitions work like theatre, one scene dimming as another comes up. The cost was enormous. The budget multiplied several times over, the film collapsed at the box office, and Coppola lost the Zoetrope studio he had built. What survives most securely are the songs by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle, and Waits was nominated for an Oscar for the score. Its flaw is plain. The characters are thin, the dialogue is weak, and there is nothing to attach to emotionally. Who it is for: viewers who love visual experiment and Tom Waits. Who it is not for: anyone looking for story and character.