Classic Hollywood Spotlight: The Rainmaker
I’m going to return on something. Is that what they call it nowadays? Going back on something? Anyhow, last week I twisted over backwards trying to understand the sheer badness of Francis Ford Coppola’s Jack, but now, having watched Coppola’s The Rainmaker, I have a much simpler way of understanding why Jack is so bad. Francis Ford Coppola’s deadly flaw is sentimentality. . All of his weaker films ” The Rain People, from the Heart, The Godfather III & Jack ” are grand symphonies of sentimentality. I would go as far as to say thait his masterpieces ” The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II & Apocalypse Now” are masterpieces exactly because they depict characters who fight with all their power to accomplish a world of ideal sentiment & fail. Which, naturally, is Coppola’s story as well.
