To celebrate the incredible sets of ONE FROM THE HEART, let us spotlight production designer (and frequent Coppola collaborator) DEAN TAVOULARIS. Having served coffee from his father’s LA cafeteria, Tavoularis had frequent contact with the filmmaking world.
Tavoularis studied art and architecture before working for Disney, rising through Hollywood ranks in animation and storyboards until his first Production Design credit with New Hollywood lynchpin BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
His reputation only grew (including Antonioni’s ZABRISKE POINT (1970)) before pairing with Coppola for THE GODFATHER (1972). This kickstarted a life-long partnership, including the industrial apartments of THE CONVERSATION (1974) and the ominous jungle of APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
One anecdote mentions the apartment of Harry Caul in THE CONVERSATION included a fake window for nighttime sequences. Tavoularis taped a box outside the window, including a hazy miniature of what the city exterior would look like. Crew were amazed at his imaginative detail.
Such reconstructions only foreshadowed ONE FROM THE HEART, perhaps Tavoularis most ambitious project. Definitely his most stylised. He completely remade the Vegas strip and McCarran Airports on the American Zoetrope stages – with background paintings by his brother Alex.
Ironically, Tavoularis rebuilt the stages to avoid the “trickery” of camera-illusions. Coppola said Tavoularis “built the fantasy” rather than substituting it, which led to the inflated budget. Although Tavoularis has maintained this was all Coppola’s conception.
Despite the collapse and sale of Zoetrope’s sound-stages, Tavoularis continued his partnership with Coppola, including on THE OUTSIDERS (1983), RUMBLE FISH (1983), TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM (1988) – which gained an Oscar nomination – and even JACK (1996).
Get tickets for the 30th March "Painted Skies" screening of ONE FROM THE HEART here!
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