With the new Blu-ray release of Francis Ford Coppola's
The Conversation, Blu-ray.com staff reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman
had the opportunity to interview Coppola's film archivist and post-
production supervisor, James Mockoski. Mockoski serves as Film Archivist
for Francis Ford Coppola's production company American Zoetrope, and
has a B.A. in Film and Video Studies from the University of California Santa
Cruz and an M.A. in Film Studies and Archiving from the University of East
Anglia.
I was once labeled as an "Archivist" on an A&E Biography
episode, and I joked at the time that "archivist" was code for obsessed
wacko fan. So I guess my first question is: are you a Coppola-obsessed
wacko?
I'm definitely a Coppola obsessed wacko, although they've kept me here
for over ten years, so you could make the argument that
they're
the wackos.
You grew up in Santa Cruz, California and became interested in your
hometown's contribution to early silent film, correct?
Yes, absolutely. Santa Cruz doesn't get enough credit for how important it
was to the early film industry. There was a film industry in Santa Cruz
before there really was one in Los Angeles, certainly before Los Angeles
became Hollywood, if you know what I mean. There were actually six or
seven silent film studios during Santa Cruz's heyday, though some of
those studios eventually did move to the Los Angeles area.
What are your earliest film memories?
Oh, you know, just family gatherings at the dawn of the VHS age, watching
stuff like
Poltergeist with my parents.
Did you know from any early age you wanted to have a career in film?
Absolutely, films were important to me from my childhood and talking about
film was always a great way to connect with my Mother.
You got some early career work at UCLA's famous Film and Television
Archive. Tell us about that.
Well, I had gone to the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England and
got my Masters in Film Archiving there. I had dreams of developing a
Santa Cruz Film Archive and historical research facility, and at UEA I
learned a lot about regional film history and film archiving. But when I got
back to the United States, I found out that UCLA was hiring. I worked with
Bob Gitt (
Night of the Hunter) and also worked for the David
Packard Restoration Lab restoring 16mm footage on films like
Phantom
of the Opera.
You also helped develop a new tinting process for silent films, correct?
Yes, we experimented with putting dyes in a film processor and we tried to reproduce the original tinting colors. We did some Mary Pickford films among others.
You began working for Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope in
2002. How did that happen?
Well the genesis of it all was my wife and I wanted to get out of L.A. and I
really wanted to get back up to the Bay Area. Unfortunately, there aren't
too many film archives in the Bay Area, so I decided to send a letter to
Francis Ford Coppola, and I told him about my background and that I had
been working for his alma mater, UCLA. And a couple of weeks later he
wrote back and said I should come up to meet with him.
So did he already have an archive in place or was this just kind of a
fortuitous time to send him an inquiry letter?
Well, he had sort of a loose archive, and he had had a part-time person
working for him as was needed, but it really hadn't been formalized yet.
Like a lot of major studios, Francis had archives, but like the studios
themselves stuff was sitting in warehouses, scattered all over the place
and with no formal cataloging process, and Francis just told me he thought
it was time to get serious about everything and get it into shape.
Francis has a well regarded winery in the Bay Area and evidently
there's an installation of Danish magic lanterns there. Can you tell us
about that?
Well it actually goes back to the sixties when Francis and George Lucas
were in Denmark, and it actually plays into how American Zoetrope got its
name. Francis and George met Mogens Skot-Hansen who had a company
called Laterna Films in Denmark, and Mogens had a flatbed editing
system that Francis really wanted to bring back to the United States. And
seeing Mogens with his own company really made Francis say "I have to
make my own company." Francis also saw Mogens' beautiful magic lantern
collection and later found out about another collection which was owned by a collector named Henning Carlsen. Francis
was ultimately able to purchase the entire Carlsen collection in 2008.
How many lanterns are included?
103.
Do they all work?
Yes, they're all functional, amazingly enough, though we only have one
actually set up and working in the display. The rest are there as works of
art, because they're stunningly beautiful just to look at. But the whole
idea of magic lanterns and zoetropes goes right to the heart of what
Francis was thinking about, you know, the foundation of motion pictures.
Tell me about American Zoetrope's archive.
Well, it's kind of a Coppola family archive. It dates back 50 years and we
have all of the American Zoetrope holdings, as well as family footage,
home movies, and lots of Sofia's and Roman's collections, so it's really a
family affair.
Do you have some of Francis' early work like Dementia 13?
Well, we have a print, but a lot of that stuff is officially held by MGM.
Will we be seeing any releases of Coppola films which haven't yet
made it to Blu-ray? I'm thinking specifically of One From the Heart.
Well, we just happen to be in discussions with Lionsgate right now about
One From the Heart and I know I'd personally love to see it
released. We have a great master and it would look
fantastic on
Blu-ray! If you want it, let Lionsgate know!
I just recently reviewed the Blu-ray of The
Conversation and was blown away—for the most part—by the
image quality. What can you tell me about this transfer?
Well, I can't personally take much credit for it. Bill Butler (
The
Conversation's cinematographer) and Francis did it in 2005, and they
personally supervised the re-transfer. Paramount's last DVD came out, I
don't know, was it 2002 or so, and this is all new. It may have been
broadcast on some HD channel, I'm not positive, but otherwise it's never
been seen before and it looks great.
My review mentioned a couple of weirdly anomalous soft moments.
Can you shed any light on those?
Yes, I'm certain they were inherent in the source elements. One moment
that I'm personally aware of is the scene where Gene Hackman is staring
at the toilet and there's momentary flicker and stuff like that is definitely in
the source elements, there's unfortunately little we can do about problems
like that.
Did you have anything to do with the new Blu-ray release?
Yes, I produced all of the new extras, including the archival screen tests
and the dictations of Francis working on the screenplay. The previous DVD
only had
Close-up on 'The Conversation', the 1974 promo piece
Paramount did, and the theatrical trailer. Everything else is new.
And was that stuff just lying around in boxes?
Absolutely, and I said "We need to open these up and see what we have."
The screenplay dictations were just sitting around on old cassettes, and
the screen tests hadn't been looked at in years.
It's interesting that the screen tests show Cindy Williams and Harrison
Ford reading for parts they didn't end up playing.
Yes, it's because Fred Roos, Francis' longtime casting coordinator, had a
little troupe back then that consisted of people like Cindy and Harrison and
they'd just all get together and read. If you notice on the screenplay
dictations, the names of some of the characters change as well.
Does Francis always dictate his screenplays?
Well that was certainly his
modus operandi in the seventies, to just
sit around Café Trieste and talk into a cassette player. That's how he
wrote
The Godfather, with Mario Puzo just sitting there with him.
What are you working on now?
We're just coming off
Twixt, Francis' new film with Val Kilmer and
Bruce Dern, which is kind of a return to films like
Dementia 13.
When will that be released?
We're just finishing post production right now, Pathe our sales agent doesn't have a firm
US release date set yet, but stay tuned!
Thanks, James!