May 8, 2002

CQ
(MGM) Rated R
Release Date - May 24, 2002

CQ is a film about film and about the people who make film.  It’s set in 1969, just as the auteurs and the money men were clashing in full force.  Coppola’s story, which he also wrote, focuses on a frustrated film editor, working in Paris for a Dino De Laurentiis type, played with élan by Giancarlo Gianinni.  While he “borrows” film stock and a camera and other accessories for a personal film that seems to be made up mostly of toilet seat confessionals, Paul (played by Jeremy Davies) is editing a Barbarella-style film with one major exception… it has no sense of humor about itself and either does its director, played by Gerard Depardieu. 

Paul’s decent in to success brings him into contact with a wide variety of other characters, including his too-insightful girlfriend (Elodie Bouchez), an outrageously successful hack director (Jason Schwartzman) and a producer who pulls off that balancing act of slug/sycophant (Massimo Ghini) with a style that could have informed George Hamilton’s unfortunately written character in Hollywood Ending.  John Phillip Law turns up, understatedly, considering his Barbarella credentials, as a government agent.  Billy Zane scores as an on-camera hero who is less simple off-camera.  And seeing Dean Stockwell work, even in a short scene, made me really sad that we aren’t seeing more of this guy in films.  He’s just a beautiful actor.