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Perhaps you've heard of Francis Ford Coppola?

If you were a movie fan in the seventies, you might still think of him as the greatest filmmaker of his generation. If you weren't, you're more likely to associate his name with some good, reasonably priced Californian wine.

Coppola hasn't directed a movie in 10 years, although he has had a producing or executive-producing hand in some over the last decade, including three by his acclaimed daughter, Sofia.

The uncharitable might say that he hasn't directed a great movie since the 1979 Vietnam War freak-out Apocalypse Now, the chaos-plagued production that capped the run of masterpieces that began with The Godfather (1972 best-picture Oscar winner), and included The Conversation and The Godfather: Part II (another best-pic Oscar, plus one for Coppola's directing, in 1974). Fairer-minded sorts might acknowledge that he did some very interesting things in later films such as One from the Heart, Rumble Fish and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Most would agree there was no excuse for Jack – the 1996 film starring Robin Williams, Jennifer Lopez and Fran Drescher – except that, as he often has in his up-and-down movie career, Coppola needed the money.

Now, thanks to the success he's had in non-movie businesses, Coppola has been able to personally finance and direct his first feature since the 1997 John Grisham adaptation, The Rainmaker. Youth Without Youth, based on a novel by Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade, opens in theatres next Friday.

Filmed in Romania (not so much for the Eliade connection as for the fact that it's inexpensive there), it's about an elderly linguist who gets struck by lightning in 1938, regresses physically to about half his age, splits in two at times, and at others goes through the film upside down.

That's the simple description.

“He's a scholar and he's looking at the roots of language, and language has so much to do with making our consciousness possible, and consciousness has everything to do with making time possible,” Coppola explains, not too helpfully but looking great for 69 in a slate-grey tailored suit, perfectly knotted tie and pink, monogrammed dress shirt. “So we're dealing with a very malleable, interesting subject.”

While uncharitable folks may characterize it otherwise, there is no denying that Youth Without Youth is an uncompromising art film. That's all Coppola is interested in making now.

“I feel like I'm on a track of doing what I call ‘personal films' that I can finance myself, because I don't want to waste time in between having to go and listen to people's opinions,” he says with the same defiance he exhibited 30 years ago.

“I mean, so many movies in my career, even Apocalypse Now, would never have been made had I not just stuck up the money. Youth Without Youth never would have been made if I didn't stick up my money. Outside finance brings financiers' concerns. Even if the story is fun, they'd be worried that it poses questions and didn't give solid answers. Well, what if it poses questions that there are no solid answers for?”

Coppola seems to understand that he hasn't made a big audience-pleaser here. The double-barrelled artistic and commercial success of the first Godfather film was long ago.

But money hasn't been the only thing that's kept him out of the director's chair for a decade.

An ambitious Pinocchio project got tangled up in rights litigation. And after years of struggling, Coppola just couldn't get his script for the utopian urban fantasy Megalopolis to work up to his satisfaction.

“I was very frustrated creatively,” he says. “It's one thing to build a beautiful resort and stuff [he owns three in Central America], but I love movies. Quite honestly, I didn't know where my place was. I don't just want to make the type of normal movies that come out every weekend. I know the public likes a good entertainment film, and I do, too.

"But I think there's more to cinema than just typical movies. I want movies to be more imaginative and enter into new areas that I can learn things about. And I didn't know who was going to sponsor me in that.”

The hobbyhorse enterprise that's grown into America's 12th-largest vintner has, in fact, answered that question. But Coppola says he makes wine for the same reason he makes movies.

“I don't get into anything 'cause I think it's a good deal,” he notes. “I get into stuff I'm interested in. I had a lot of love for the tradition of wine. For a long time, Italians were some of the few people in America who drank wine, and during Prohibition they allowed families to make a limited amount of wine for the table, and my grandfather did. So I associate it with happiness, and when I found myself living in Northern California, I thought we ought to have a summer house where we could grow grapes. Then wine became, like, a big thing.”

Youth Without Youth may not be too big a thing. But Coppola is so pleased to have finally directed another movie, he can't help but feel optimistic that others will share his enthusiasm – a commodity that, in tough times as well as flush, he has always possessed in abundance.

“The question is: Is the public willing to see a movie with a story which they totally understand, but is also inviting them to ruminate on what's underneath the story?” he poses. “My theory is, well, just enjoy the story. Then, later on, if you want to see the movie again or discuss it with your wife, you can do whatever you want.

“As long as it's provocative.”

Special to The Globe and Mail