Even more so than 2010, the surefire Hollywood headline of the year has been the inundation of 3D films. No longer are only Pixar animations and action blockbusters getting the tricked-out treatment—even revered directors like Martin Scorsese and Werner Herzog are embracing the trend.Following suit is Francis Ford Coppola, the esteemed director of The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation, whose upcoming gothic fantasy tale Twixt will not only be presented in 3D, but will embark on a national tour with live-remixing by Coppola himself and an improvised soundtrack by indie electro darling Dan Deacon, who is composing the soundtrack.At the end of last month, Coppola introduced this idea of improvisational film and the tech behind it to audiences at the Comic-Con festival. By using Isadora software developed by Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios on a custom iPad, the director will host interactive orchestrations of Twixt by live-cutting and re-sequencing scenes in front of a live audience. Dan Deacon, whose 2009 shimmering synth-dance opus Bromst caught the attention of Mr. Coppola, will be on hand to perform an improvised soundtrack each night.Coppola claims the story of Twixt revealed itself in an incomplete dream, and this live-shuffling serves to only enhance the transient state of film’s emerging non-linear narrative. From the looks of it, Twixt seems to be an Edgar Allen Poe-indebted gothic mystery tale—with a touch of Lynchian surrealism—warping a messy narrative filled with vampires, electric chairs, writer's block, and Tom Waits as narrator.
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Explaining his intent behind this unconventional presentation series, Coppola points to the commodification and over-accessibility of cinema as having moved away from the spirit of live performance, where the artform and the audience’s experience spontaneously thrill and inform one another: "The only thing we have that are vaguely alive are concerts, some theater and sports… there is a yearning, I feel, to put more of a live feeling back in cinema."