Most kids dream of glory on the play-field, in sports, in school. But for young Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan), diagnosed with polio at an early age, his dreams were formed in his imagination and the puppet theaters he would create, confined to his bed for long stretches of his childhood. The spirit that made him reach beyond his physical limitations would inspire his work as a film-maker in his adult life, extending his vision beyond budgetary constraints and studio objections. Coppola wanted more than to merely come in under budget and time. He would make art out of whatever resources available to him, making them stretch to accommodate his dreams and nightmares, and if he had considerable resources, he would still go beyond them in terms of logistics and technology.
Coppola's films challenge audiences, as he has challenged himself and the very process of making movies. Coppola was always "the idea guy," had a lot of brio, and if he couldn't run a movie studio, he would then go out and make one, staffing it out of the experience-less alumni of USC's film-making school, buying up one of the old abandoned sound-stage centers in L.A., and exploiting the business environment to make product. He hustled, he wrote, he would rob Peter to pay Paul, renting out equipment to filmmakers, and pitching studios on projects and packages that might ignite their flickering interests.
Coppola had enough irons in the fire that it produced the biggest break in his career—a deal with Warner Brothers to make a series of edgy "youth" movies, including a low-budget version of Apocalypse Now and George Lucas' widescreen version of his UCLA thesis project THX-1138, ended in disaster when Lucas' film bombed at the box-office. To pay bills he accepted the director chores of the best-seller The Godfather for Paramount Pictures, an ordeal fraught with tension and the threat of his being fired on numerous occasions, held off by the fortuitous winning of an Oscar for his collaborating on the script for Patton. It would become a blockbuster and gave him enough clout and recognition that he could make his dreams...and those of others'...a reality.
(Quotes by Coppola from various past interviews are in Bold white)
I probably have genius. But no talent.
Dementia 13 (1963) A gothic family drama with murder and money at the center of it, this product of Roger Corman's AIP, had a minimal budget and the director had to "make-do" with the left-over castle sets and limited budgets from Corman's horror flicks. The studio head liked Coppola's chutzpah, and gave him $22,000 to make a film out of a treatment the young man had written (in three days) that would be a Psycho knock-off. Coppola then sold the foreign rights for $20,00 to an independent producer, just in case Corman's funds mysteriously disappeared. The story is muddled, starting with a couple row-boating at night (uh-huh), arguing about his crazy mother's will. He has a heart attack, and she dumps him over the side, goes to Mom's estate, saying he's away on business, while trying to get on her good side to get the son back in the will before Mom discovers he's dead. She devises a plot involving Mom's obsession with a slain daughter, but before she can pull it off, she's killed by an axe muderer (just like Psycho, kill off the female lead half-way through the movie). There's another one of those, but Corman wanted still another, so he hired Jack Hill to direct another murder sequence. The film stars William Campbell, Luana Anders and Patrick Magee, and manages to be watchable if you have one eyebrow cocked. 
You're a Big Boy Now (1966) This was The Graduate before The Graduate had been made (Mike Nichols remarked that it "pre-empted" The Graduate, but Richard Lester's The Knack came before this). A "youth" film (with soundtrack by John Sebastian and The Lovin' Spoonful), it was also Coppola's Master's thesis at the UCLA Film School. Written while Coppola was under contract with Warner Brothers as a staff writer and re-working Gore Vidal's script for Is Paris Burning?, Warners demanded that Coppola release it through their studio, as he was doing work while working for Warners under contract. Naturally. They didn't know what they had. The story, based on the 1963 David Benedictus novel, tells the story of Bernard Chanticleer (Peter Kastner), the son, and victim, of opposite parenting styles—Dad (Rip Torn) is a librarian who thinks the 19 year old should be out on his own with a job, while Mom (Geraldine Page) helicopters and coddles. Bernard gets a job at the New York Public Library and an apartment land-ladied by "Miss Thing" (Julie Harris) a close and spy-ful friend of Bernard's mother. As sex is the pre-occupation that his Mother is trying to prevent, it is what Bernard wants to pursue, and although his father's secretary (Karen Black) has a crush on him, Bernard chooses to focus on the extremely narcissistic "it" girl Barbara Darling (Elizabeth Hartman), and to his surprise, succeeds for awhile, but only because of the control that Barbara can inflict on him. It's another case of a youth movie saying "You can't always get what you want, but you might get what you need"...even if it hurts. Coppola has a great cast (Harris, Page, Torn, and Hartman) and, fortunately, his imagination rises to the occasion. You're a Big Boy Now is surprisingly inventive, if looking a little grubby.
Finian's Rainbow (1968) Having brought in You're a Big Boy Now for a minimal (if slightly over-) budget, and being "in touch" with "the young people," Warner Brothers gave Coppola the task of bringing this old Broadway chestnut (first performed on-stage in 1947 and, due to its at-the-time controversial story-matter, in Hollywood "development hell" ever since) to the Big Screen and trying to make it "relevant" in a time of Black Panthers and the Civil Rights Movement. The songs are standards, but the story—which involves bigotry and racial comeuppance—feels a bit minstrelsy, and doesn't really solve any of the inherent problems, but merely gives lip-service. Still, the movie was being made for less than their still-in-production version of Camelot, so Warners left Coppola alone. He rehearsed the cast for five weeks and then did a live performance for an audience on the stage, and, satisfied with the results, started filming with a cast led by Fred Astaire and Petula Clark (he'd not made a film in 11 years, and Clark, not since she was a child-star and gone on to become a pop recording artist). They're wonderful. The songs are classics. The film, though, long shelved as being too liberal and capable of offending Southern audiences, is long past its expiration date—at the time it was released and even more so now.
The Rain People (1969) Coppola delivered on Finian's Rainbow and his connection with Warner Brothers/Seven Arts—looking to connect with young audiences—gave him the chance to make his next film, which, appropriately, was a "road movie," but it's far more forward-thinking than what was making waves in movie-theaters at the time. Instead of rebels trying to find America, Coppola created a feminist film about a pregnant housewife (Shirley Knight), trying to find herself. Freedom isn't just about rebelling from "The Establishment," but also from the societal strictures away from Business and Politics. The traditional role of women as mother/homemaker have their own kind of tyranny. Coppola's film explores that role, but outside the family dynamic. Knight's character, Natalie Ravenna, takes the news of her pregnancy by trying to get away from her Long Island life as far as possible—to California. But, she's conflicted, and in a series of phone-calls to her husband, her confusion and ambivalence come to the fore. But, it doesn't matter how far you travel, you can't escape yourself—or responsibility—and her actions along the way betray an inner turmoil. Picking up a good-looking hitchhiker (James Caan) along the way, she finds that he's a concussed football player, let go by his team. She tries to ditch him, but keeps coming back. A liaison with a Nebraska highway patrolman (Robert Duvall) sees her falling into the same old trap she tried to escape.
Coppola would return to the subject of the futile attempts to break free from the trap of oneself again and again.
Coppola formed American Zoetrope, his production company, on December 12, 1969.
Basically, both the Mafia and America feel they are benevolent organizations. And both the Mafia and America have their hands stained with blood from what it is necessary to do to protect their power and interests.
Coppola would return to the subject of the futile attempts to break free from the trap of oneself again and again.
Coppola formed American Zoetrope, his production company, on December 12, 1969.
Basically, both the Mafia and America feel they are benevolent organizations. And both the Mafia and America have their hands stained with blood from what it is necessary to do to protect their power and interests.
The Godfather (1972) Paramount wanted to do this on the cheap—modern dress, with Anthony Quinn or Ernest Borgnine as mafia Godfather Vito Corleone. Then, they hired this "kid" who could make movies fast and under budget, get performances out of people, and...he was Italian. For Coppola, who just lost a production deal from Warner Bros./SevenArts after the disastrous opening of George Lucas' THX-1138, it was a chance to salvage his fledgling production company. "Francis, we need the money," was what Lucas said to him when his mentor expressed doubts.
Then, the troubles began: Coppola wanted to hire Marlon Brando for Don Vito (Paramount, who'd had plenty of trouble when the actor directed One Eyed Jacks for them, was dead-set against him). Coppola wanted to hire Al Pacino, an unknown, for the pivotal role of Michael, the Don's reluctant heir—Paramount had Warren Beatty or Robert Redford in mind, and Pacino was considered too short, scrawny and not handsome enough. Coppola was nearly fired several times and only kept on (he thinks) because during filming he won an Oscar for having written Patton many years before.
The rest is history. The Godfather went from Paramount's back-burner to the front office, no doubt because of Robert Evans' managerial protection. It became a critical darling, a box-office champion and raked in the Oscars. Coppola had managed to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear of Mario Puzo's best-selling pot-boiler ("I wrote beneath my gifts" is how Puzo described it). A People magazine poll voted it "The Greatest Movie Ever Made" and director Stanley Kubrick agreed, saying that it was (at least) "the best cast." Coppola made it relevant, arty, and homespun, while not cutting the severity of the blood-letting or the viciousness of the criminal's acts, at the same time narrowing the scope so that the Mafia's protective bubble of corruption wouldn't be sullied by the perspective of fine upstanding citizens. Even the Mafia embraced the movie, after picketing its production under the guise of offending Italian-Americans. It might have been too subtle for them to see Michael's rise as both a triumph and a tragedy. Coppola would expand on that theme in its sequels (in case anyone missed the point).
It holds up after 40 years as a truly great motion picture, far surpassing its roots in fiction, and is legitimately considered a film "classic."
Full review here, here, and here.
Then, the troubles began: Coppola wanted to hire Marlon Brando for Don Vito (Paramount, who'd had plenty of trouble when the actor directed One Eyed Jacks for them, was dead-set against him). Coppola wanted to hire Al Pacino, an unknown, for the pivotal role of Michael, the Don's reluctant heir—Paramount had Warren Beatty or Robert Redford in mind, and Pacino was considered too short, scrawny and not handsome enough. Coppola was nearly fired several times and only kept on (he thinks) because during filming he won an Oscar for having written Patton many years before.
Full review here, here, and here.
The Conversation (1974) Coppola had been talking about making this one since he was interviewed for Andrew Sarris' "Interviews with Film Directors" book in 1969—"it's about a man on his fiftieth birthday." The Godfather got it made. Coppola's low-key tale of a "surveillance specialist" was perfectly timed to be relevant after the Watergate scandal. But now, Coppola had an army of technicians to pull it off and the availability of any actor he might want—he'd been trying to get Marlon Brando before The Godfather, but cast Gene Hackman who was very interested. Hackman's Harry Caul is hired by a powerful San Francisco "director" (Robert Duvall) to make a recording of a conversation during a lunch-time assignation in San Francisco's Union Square between Ann (Cindy Williams) and Mark (Frederic Forrest). Several microphones are placed around the square to catch bits and pieces of their talk, and Harry must piece together the best parts and "clean up" any interference electronically—the key phrase is covered up by a band, and when it's filtered, he hears what appears to be "He'd kill us if he had the chance." Suddenly, what appeared to be a normal surveillance job reveals a murder plot and Harry, who'd once done a job that resulted in the murder of a Union official, starts to do his own investigation to protect the young people he's recorded.
The Conversation is chilly—"as cold as they come" in "Godfather" parlance—and owes a lot of its creepiness to its dependence on image and sound, as opposed to spelling things out for the audience (which makes it quite similar to Antonioni's Blow Up) and straddles the genre fields of noir (although in the brightest sunlight) and the soon-to-be-familiar "paranoid thriller." Another amazing cast that includes John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Elizabeth MacRae, and Harrison Ford.
I didn't particularly want to make The Godfather: Part II (1974) ! I always felt that The Godfather (1972) was a perfectly good drama and ended all the aspects of the story: It resolved the character and was really meant to be one movie. It only got to be a second and a third out of the greed of companies wanting to make more of them. On "The Godfather: Part II", I had just as much control over the production as I had with Youth Without Youth (2007) because it was my own. Because "The Godfather" was so successful, I could do anything I wanted. But even though maybe "The Godfather: Part II" was a good film or a better film, I still feel that "The Godfather" was complete. I only did "The Godfather Part II" because I thought it would be interesting to make a film about a man and his father at the same age and tell the two stories in parallel, which is what I did. And that was an achievement.
I didn't particularly want to make The Godfather: Part II (1974) ! I always felt that The Godfather (1972) was a perfectly good drama and ended all the aspects of the story: It resolved the character and was really meant to be one movie. It only got to be a second and a third out of the greed of companies wanting to make more of them. On "The Godfather: Part II", I had just as much control over the production as I had with Youth Without Youth (2007) because it was my own. Because "The Godfather" was so successful, I could do anything I wanted. But even though maybe "The Godfather: Part II" was a good film or a better film, I still feel that "The Godfather" was complete. I only did "The Godfather Part II" because I thought it would be interesting to make a film about a man and his father at the same age and tell the two stories in parallel, which is what I did. And that was an achievement.
The Godfather Part II (1974) Full review here. One of the few movies that might be considered passing its prequel in quality, The Godfather Part II moved back and forth in time, following the rising mob career of a young Don Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro, who also won an Oscar for playing Don Vito) in Little Italy, New York, based on material from Puzo's book, while paralleling it with son Michael's burgeoning mob empire centered in Lake Tahoe, and involving the fall of Cuba's Batista government, Congress' racketeering hearings, and the fracturing of the Corleone family—both professionally and personally—under Michael's iron grip on "the strings." Rich in texture and sub-text, the two stories play off each other, further emphasizing the tragedy of Michael's decision to head his Father's "business." "Family" is the all-important word in Part II—a term Coppola was forced to use when irate Italian-American groups objected to the words "Mafia" or "La Cosa Nostra" being used to describe the crime-cells; Vito's career is a result of taking care of his young family, while Michael is all too aware that he is losing his in in his efforts, based on cut-throat strategies and paranoia, in trying to "protect" it.
And if Michael's story in the first film might have been mistaken to seem a success, Coppola took pains in the sequel to show that it was not. Sometimes, Americans have to be hit over the head to realize that villains are villains.
The sequel-prequel was even richer and far more interesting than the first film, and it also received the Oscar for Best Picture.
My movie is not about Vietnam... my movie is Vietnam.
And if Michael's story in the first film might have been mistaken to seem a success, Coppola took pains in the sequel to show that it was not. Sometimes, Americans have to be hit over the head to realize that villains are villains.
The sequel-prequel was even richer and far more interesting than the first film, and it also received the Oscar for Best Picture.
My movie is not about Vietnam... my movie is Vietnam.
Apocalypse Now (1979) One of the early Warner Bros.-Zoetrope package projects that was cancelled after the poor box-office performance of George Lucas' THX-1138, Apocalypse Now (writer and USC croney John Milius' transfiguration of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness") was supposed to be an exercise in "guerrilla" film-making—original director George Lucas was going to try to film it "on location" during the midst of the Vietnam War (an idea that he now admits is "nuts"). Coppola, flush with funds, and coming off the two Godfather movies (both smash hits and critical darlings with multiple Oscar wins) and the success of The Conversation, gambled on Milius' mad script, invested his own funds, and enlarged the project—filming in the Philippines using President Marcos' Air Force (which at the time was fighting an insurgency), with actors he had signed to multi-picture contracts (one of them being Laurence Fishburne—at the time 14 years old), and hiring Marlon Brando, who showed up unprepared, overweight, and not willing to do the part as written. The location shooting lasted sixteen months. The original star, Harvey Keitel, was fired and replaced by Martin Sheen, who as time went on, suffered a heart attack on location.
The story is told in the fascinating documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, which may be—in spirit—the closest version of Joseph Conrad's story yet filmed. Apocalypse... seems to be based in look and tone on Werner Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, another troubled production, but the results, despite the chaotic filming conditions is fairly strong, if blurrily unfocused.
Coppola summed it up perfectly when he showed it as "a work in progress" at Cannes in 1979 (and won the Palme D'Or, the only unfinished film to win it). "My movie isn't about Vietnam. My movie is Vietnam. There were too many of us, we had access to too much equipment, too much money, and little by little we went insane." That insane vibe runs throughout Apocalypse Now which veers between pretension and desperation. Desperation wins out, making it a fascinating watch (but not so much Apocalypse Now Redux, Coppola's re-edited expansion, which goes on for far too long, the three years he'd originally spent whittling the original were worth it).
I have always been a little disappointed about One from the Heart (1981) because I really wanted to make it more like live cinema. I really wanted to shoot it with 12 cameras and edit it all in the camera. At the last minute I chickened out because the photographer chickened out. So for me with "One From The Heart", I always feel that I should have gone that last yard. It was only the cinematographer coming to me saying, "Oh please, I don't want to shoot it with 12 cameras because I can't light it." I think, no question, it was beautiful photographically - he was right. But to me the experiment was a little incomplete. It had wonderful music, wonderful songs. It would be nice if people liked "One From The Heart" because it was my big failure.
One From the Heart (1982) After the vagaries of the strenuous shoot on Apocalypse, Coppola did this one completely in the studio—his studio, Zoetrope Studios—a musical (music and lyrics provided by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle, who also sang) set in the neon fantasy-land substituting for Las Vegas. It starred Terri Garr, Frederic Forrest, Nastassja Kinski, Raul Julia, Harry Dean Stanton and Lainie Kazan.
The visuals are impressive—the integration of music with the story is not, often with the disembodied voices of Waits and Gayle seeming like a Greek chorus telling us how people are feeling. Not quite as well-shaped as Scorsese's studio-bound musical New York, New York, but it is an interesting experiment, nonetheless. It just misses that magic "something," and usually with musicals it comes down to one thing: energy in song expressed as emotion. Unfortunately, the music is introspective and without verve, only coming alive in the dance sequences.
The visuals are impressive—the integration of music with the story is not, often with the disembodied voices of Waits and Gayle seeming like a Greek chorus telling us how people are feeling. Not quite as well-shaped as Scorsese's studio-bound musical New York, New York, but it is an interesting experiment, nonetheless. It just misses that magic "something," and usually with musicals it comes down to one thing: energy in song expressed as emotion. Unfortunately, the music is introspective and without verve, only coming alive in the dance sequences.
The Outsiders (1983) After One From the Heart bombed at the box-office, Coppola set a challenge for himself (as he'd earlier set a challenge for George Lucas for what would be American Graffiti) to make "an audience-friendly movie." As the audiences were younger now, Coppola took a page from Roger Corman and made a "youth" movie, buying two books from S. E. Hinton's output, and made back-to-back flicks for the kids. They couldn't be more different, though. The Outsiders is the Gone With the Wind of street-gang movies (music by Stevie Wonder), romantically shot with epic sunsets, and an emphasis on sentimentality for "lost youth." Highly theatrical and directed in a high technicolor Douglas Sirk fashion, it boasts a legendarily prescient cast of superstars—Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, and in the leads C. Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio. While he was working on this film, he was already writing his next film and preparing to shoot it with the same crew.
Rumble Fish (1983) Where The Outsiders was made from a romanticized teen perspective, Rumble Fish took another S.E. Hinton book and Coppola stylized it as an "art" film. Filmed in high contrast black-and-white (to reflect the pigment-challenged sight of The Motorcycle Boy, played by Mickey Rourke)—except for the titular fish in color—and with a style that resembles German Expressionism, it tells the story of Rusty James (Matt Dillon, again), who is turning towards a path of delinquency, in part due to his worship of his missing older brother, The Motorcycle Boy, who was a gang-member, but who was instrumental in a cessation of rumbling, fighting between gangs, and who has now been missing for two months. When Rusty gets involved and injured in a fight, The Motorcycle Boy comes to his rescue, watching over Rusty like a leather-clad guardian angel. Turns out he's been in California looking for his mother, who ran from her alcoholic husband (Dennis Hopper, who's brilliant here) and the downward spiral her family was spinning into. Rumble Fish is a phantasmagorical film noir that's just as romanticized (albeit stylistically) as The Outsiders.
It was a nightmare. It was deceptive. I was sucked in without knowing what was going on. It was like a pretty girl who gets seduced. I didn't realize that the only reason I was getting sweet-talked and enticed by Robert Evans to do "The Cotton Club" was that he needed me to get the money. It was a terrible experience. I like Gregory Hines very much, Richard Gere is basically a good guy, Diane Lane is a sweet person. But it was Bob Evans again. He was back and trying to take control of it. About 20 to 30 minutes were taken out of the Gregory-Hines-and-his-brother storyline, the back story. I'd like to see it as the long version.
The Cotton Club (1984) Coppola re-teamed with producer Robert Evans to make this, an odd amalgamation of a gangster film and a musical. But, the results did not resemble the triumph they had with The Godfather.
Partially, it was the environment in which it was made—rather than under the banner of Paramount, The Cotton Club was a project with many masters—and too many cooks. Evans was originally supposed to produce and direct; The project was based on a picture-book of the glory days of The Cotton Club, so there was already plenty of room to construct a fictitious story—but the source material was so unspecific about particulars that there were probably too many directions it could have gone in. Mario Puzo was hired to write the screenplay, then let go, replaced by William Kennedy and Coppola, with Coppola hired last minute to direct instead of Evans.
The story's slim involving two men, "Dixie" Dwyer (Richard Gere) and Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines): Hines is a dancer with his brother (Maurice Hines) and they get hired by Club owner Owney Madden (Bob Hoskins) a mobster who runs the club with his partner Frenchy Demage (Fred Gwynne). Dixie is a fine musician and in the employ of mobster Dutch Schultz (James Remar), but is having an affair with Schultz's moll, Vera Cicero (Diane Lane), despite Schultz's interest in advancing his career. It doesn't help that Dixie's brother (Nicolas Cage) is a hot-head, who starts working for Schultz. It's all about making the wrong decisions and paying the price. But, the film—although it looks great—is unfocused and rambling.
In a 2019 interview, Coppola revealed that he had to do some revisions to please his producers, Orion Pictures, and the complex polyglot of investors in the film—which boiled down to a complaint that Cotton Club had too make black actors and too much tap-dancing—that a lot of original intent was lost.
Captain EO (1986) More of a business venture than anything else, one can hardly call this a movie, and nobody comes off looking very good in it. Designed as a Disneyland attraction, filmed in 3-D and starring Michael Jackson and Anjelica Huston, Coppola collaborated with George Lucas to bring this one to the Disney theme parks. The results were decidedly mixed: the whole thing had a price-tag of $30 million, but looks like an old episode of "Battlestar: Galactica," with the worst fantasy tendencies of early "Doctor Who" episodes, and is even technically slip-shod, with some pretty dodgy editing throughout. Disney made it a featured attraction, though, and folks lined up in the customary long lines to see it. It ran for a decade with enhanced in-theater effects jostling the audience, but was shut down once scandal started to be linked with the singer.
Then, following Jackson's death, it was rather ghoulishly and exploitatively revived in 2010, as a "tribute". The whole thing feels really creepy to me.
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) "If only you knew then what you know now." How many times has that idea crossed your path? This wistful fantasy film, about revisiting lost opportunities, explores exactly that, as Peggy Sue Kelcher (Kathleen Turner, who is wonderful in this), recently divorced from Charlie Bodell (Nicholas Cage—in a performance that is...uh..."unique"), attends her 15th High School reunion, only to find herself transported back in time to those crazy bobby-soxer days of her youth, but now with her adult's perspective. Convinced she has gone back in time, she purposely decides to derail her life, fending off Charlie's advances and pursuing another boy, being friends with the right people and avoiding the pit-falls of teen-age angst and neurosis.
As if... Coppola never really tells you whether she actually DOES go back in time or whether its the result of a hallucination from giving blood, but the result is a realization that one's choices are entirely dependent on one's self.
Another amazing cast, with Turner, Helen Hunt, Joan Allen, Catherine Hicks, Barry Miller, cousin Nicolas Cage, and an anarchic young comic actor named Jim Carrey.
Partially, it was the environment in which it was made—rather than under the banner of Paramount, The Cotton Club was a project with many masters—and too many cooks. Evans was originally supposed to produce and direct; The project was based on a picture-book of the glory days of The Cotton Club, so there was already plenty of room to construct a fictitious story—but the source material was so unspecific about particulars that there were probably too many directions it could have gone in. Mario Puzo was hired to write the screenplay, then let go, replaced by William Kennedy and Coppola, with Coppola hired last minute to direct instead of Evans.
The story's slim involving two men, "Dixie" Dwyer (Richard Gere) and Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines): Hines is a dancer with his brother (Maurice Hines) and they get hired by Club owner Owney Madden (Bob Hoskins) a mobster who runs the club with his partner Frenchy Demage (Fred Gwynne). Dixie is a fine musician and in the employ of mobster Dutch Schultz (James Remar), but is having an affair with Schultz's moll, Vera Cicero (Diane Lane), despite Schultz's interest in advancing his career. It doesn't help that Dixie's brother (Nicolas Cage) is a hot-head, who starts working for Schultz. It's all about making the wrong decisions and paying the price. But, the film—although it looks great—is unfocused and rambling.
In a 2019 interview, Coppola revealed that he had to do some revisions to please his producers, Orion Pictures, and the complex polyglot of investors in the film—which boiled down to a complaint that Cotton Club had too make black actors and too much tap-dancing—that a lot of original intent was lost.
Then, following Jackson's death, it was rather ghoulishly and exploitatively revived in 2010, as a "tribute". The whole thing feels really creepy to me.
As if... Coppola never really tells you whether she actually DOES go back in time or whether its the result of a hallucination from giving blood, but the result is a realization that one's choices are entirely dependent on one's self.
Another amazing cast, with Turner, Helen Hunt, Joan Allen, Catherine Hicks, Barry Miller, cousin Nicolas Cage, and an anarchic young comic actor named Jim Carrey.
Gardens of Stone (1987) "Hate the war; Love the warrior." Coppola re-unites with James Caan in an atonement (of sorts) for Apocalypse Now about "The Old Guard" at Fort Myer, Virginia—the soldiers charged with the burying of their own at Arlington National Cemetery during the Vietnam War era. Where Apocalypse was all about chaos, Gardens of Stone is about precision, from the immaculate rows of headstones to the razor-timed drills of the honor guard and of the rituals of respect that run counter-point to the messy situation of war. Caan heads a great cast including Dean Stockwell as the company commander, James Earl Jones as the section chief, grunts like Elias Koteas, Casey Siemaszko (as the troop screw-up), Apocalypse veterans Laurence Fishburne and Sam Bottoms, Angelica Huston as Caan's love interest, Mary Stuart Masterson as the Army Brat, and D.B. Sweeney as the good soldier who unites them all as an Arlington assignee who wants to go to the war. Caan's Clell Hazard has already been, hates the war, and would rather be at Ft. Benning preparing troops for the grueling jungle fighting in the war, but is dedicated to his current charges, even though he sees them as "toy soldiers." Still, he can't help but be touched day after day after day by the war as a survivor honoring those who weren't quite so lucky, and if he can't train a troop, then he can train just the one—even if it goes against orders. It's a nice piece, putting a lot of issues into a melancholy perspective. There is none of Apocalypse's spectacle here, just solid film-making of a tempered artfulness.
Coppola had lost his son Geo the previous year in a freak boating accident while the film was still in the planning stages and it must have been torturous to have spent so much time in cemeteries.
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) Produced with George Lucas (who provided his fleet of Tucker cars for the film, adding to Coppola's own), Tucker tells the true story of an engineer with Big Dreams (envisioning "the car of tomorrow") that went a little too far for the auto industry as it existed at the time. Preston Tucker (played by a winning Jeff Bridges) is an inventor, engineer and entrepreneur, who comes out of some defense work during the second World War with the idea of designing a new breed of American car for the post-war era, one more fuel-efficient and with safety systems that proved prescient, but were seen as frivolous and, actually threatening, to the Big Three auto-makers who hadn't made a new model car since 1941. The Tucker "48" had a directional head-light for turning corners, rear-wheel drive (with an engine in the back), locking brakes (to prevent theft), shatter-proof windshield and a roll-bar in the roof for safety and the engine was designed to be changed in 30 minutes. Tucker was determined to produce the car, but everything about it was somewhat revolutionary and, although many of his imagined innovations made it to production, others had to be jettisoned to meet schedule. Tucker would produce 50 cars, but the trials, tribulations and threats making them turned his story into one resembling Icarus.
Coppola throws a lot of high-gear energy into the film, fueled as it is by a swing score by Joe Jackson, and "The Tiger Rag," with an energetic camera enhanced by a lot of intricate dissolves and split-screens, Arnold Shulman's script covers a lot of ground and technical detail without slamming too much on the brakes and the performances are pedal-to-the-metal with a lot of overlapping dialog—Joan Allen, Lloyd Bridges, Frederic Forrest, Mako and Christian Slater, and Dean Stockwell as a demented Howard Hughes are all doing terrific work. But, besides Bridges, the stand-out performance is Martin Landau's Oscar-nominated turn as Tucker's accountant in a further career resurgency after his work on Tim Burton's Ed Wood.
One of Coppola's best films.
Coppola had lost his son Geo the previous year in a freak boating accident while the film was still in the planning stages and it must have been torturous to have spent so much time in cemeteries.
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) Produced with George Lucas (who provided his fleet of Tucker cars for the film, adding to Coppola's own), Tucker tells the true story of an engineer with Big Dreams (envisioning "the car of tomorrow") that went a little too far for the auto industry as it existed at the time. Preston Tucker (played by a winning Jeff Bridges) is an inventor, engineer and entrepreneur, who comes out of some defense work during the second World War with the idea of designing a new breed of American car for the post-war era, one more fuel-efficient and with safety systems that proved prescient, but were seen as frivolous and, actually threatening, to the Big Three auto-makers who hadn't made a new model car since 1941. The Tucker "48" had a directional head-light for turning corners, rear-wheel drive (with an engine in the back), locking brakes (to prevent theft), shatter-proof windshield and a roll-bar in the roof for safety and the engine was designed to be changed in 30 minutes. Tucker was determined to produce the car, but everything about it was somewhat revolutionary and, although many of his imagined innovations made it to production, others had to be jettisoned to meet schedule. Tucker would produce 50 cars, but the trials, tribulations and threats making them turned his story into one resembling Icarus.Coppola throws a lot of high-gear energy into the film, fueled as it is by a swing score by Joe Jackson, and "The Tiger Rag," with an energetic camera enhanced by a lot of intricate dissolves and split-screens, Arnold Shulman's script covers a lot of ground and technical detail without slamming too much on the brakes and the performances are pedal-to-the-metal with a lot of overlapping dialog—Joan Allen, Lloyd Bridges, Frederic Forrest, Mako and Christian Slater, and Dean Stockwell as a demented Howard Hughes are all doing terrific work. But, besides Bridges, the stand-out performance is Martin Landau's Oscar-nominated turn as Tucker's accountant in a further career resurgency after his work on Tim Burton's Ed Wood.
One of Coppola's best films.
Outside of the Family business, he's still having troubles with his family: ex-wife Kay (Diane Keaton) has never forgiven Michael for his past betrayals; His son, Antony, is estranged from him, wanting nothing to do with his father's business dealings (sound familiar, Michael?) and devoting himself to opera, instead. Daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola, who'd appeared in both earlier "Godfather" movies) is loyal and devoted to her father, as is sister Connie (Talia Shire, Francis' sister), who is the Lucretia Borghia to Michael's Cesare. And, most troubling of all, Mary is enamored with Vincent Mancini-Corleone (Andy Garcia), the bastard son of Uncle Sonny, whom Michael takes under his wing to run the Family dealings. Old and sick with diabetes, Michael tries to find a peace he'd never known in life, and after confessing his sins, may even have saved his Soul.
But, if you think dealing with Mafia king-pins is risky, try dealing with God.
Her triumph, and the grace with which she achieved it, is the true ending of "The Godfather" story.
Coppola got a lot of "stick" for this movie, but it has roughly the same strategem as Peggy Sue Got Married, with a lot of good comic performers playing "sincere." And who wouldn't want to play with Robin Williams? It's a trifle, but only half as schmaltzy and "heart-on-sleeve" as most of Williams' output.
These days, of course, with Williams' death by suicide and Cosby's incarceration, the film might be a bit tough to watch and a bitter pill to swallow. Not the films' fault, though.
The Rainmaker (1997) "Most people give up..." That's the lesson that Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) learns in his first cases as a lawyer in Memphis, Tennessee, involving a suit against an insurance company that has denied a claim for a bone marrow transplant for a leukemia victim, consultation for a will for a woman who will soon become his landlady (Teresa Wright) as well as the victim of domestic abuse, Kelly Riker (Claire Daines). John Grisham's novel may seem an odd choice for Coppola. And his approach is classical, nothing experimental—although there might be call-backs to other, earlier films (Mickey Rourke photographed through an aquarium, for example), perhaps influenced by the architectural rigors of the court system. And the only time he lets go of the tight reins is during a fight in close quarters between Baylor, Riker and her baseball bat-wielding ex-husband. Where Coppola seems to concentrate is in the performance of an eclectic, superbly picked cast, which, besides those already mentioned also include Danny DeVito, an uncredited Danny Glover, Jon Voight, Dean Stockwell, Mary Kay Place, Roy Scheider, Virginia Madsen, and, in her last role on film, Oscar winner Wright, who started her career with Wyler and Hitchcock and ended with Coppola. Coppola adapted Grisham's novel—leaving out the leukemia victim's identical twin (which makes the case a bit tougher and less of an emotional slam-dunk) as well as threats from the abusive husband's family (which make's Baylor final decisions more practical and less based on his disenchantment with the law) and re-recruited Michael Herr once again for a narration that bridges the strategies and formalities and gives voice to Baylor's conflicts. It would be Coppola's last work for a major studio—again Paramount—and his next film would be ten years distant as he concentrated on business interests and would be far more personal, as in his early career. Supposedly, it's Grisham's favorite film based on one of his novels.
In 1977, Coppola bought the Inglenook wine business, turning it into the Francis Ford Coppola Winery, and over the years, when not obsessing over a project, attacked the business with the same brio he did his films. Expanding the line, cutting costs, Coppola made the wine business thrive. And thrive enough that he could go back to his first love of making movies.
In 1977, Coppola bought the Inglenook wine business, turning it into the Francis Ford Coppola Winery, and over the years, when not obsessing over a project, attacked the business with the same brio he did his films. Expanding the line, cutting costs, Coppola made the wine business thrive. And thrive enough that he could go back to his first love of making movies.
Youth Without Youth (2007) Coppola's first film in ten years is an interesting story that takes a while to get going, like a good novel. Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) is an elderly scholar of language, not yet gifted, frustrated that time is growing short and his life's work has come to naught. Crossing the street, he is struck by lightning, but survives, burned to a crisp. Under the care of Dr. Stanciulescu (Bruno Ganz), Matei begins to recover, growing new teeth, the burned skin sloughing off to expose a new epidermis—he is young again, rejuvenated, and may even be growing younger than his appearance. Plus, he is gifted with strange electromagnetic powers, able to scan books with a touch, and able to form an odd prescience. And he seems to have grown another soul.
Well, there's another Dominic in his mind, a wiser more assured entity, a guide, a guardian, who's not omniscient, but provides perspective. And Matei, has become something of a medical sensation for his new butterfly existence—he's come under the watchful eye of the growing Nazi party, trying to improve the race with horrific experiments in electricity. Youth After Youth is complicated just at that point, part horror movie, part sci-fi, part spy movie, part war film. It defies classification, which is good. But to get through that muddle, Coppola tries some desperate acts to communicate it all with inverted dream-sequences, picture-fades within fades, reversed film exposures. It's nice to see he's having fun (and some of that could be exhilarating as his tricks in Dracula were), but they're not "saying" anything. They're empty grace-notes without purpose other than to evoke, rather than communicate. It's a rich banquet of cinematic tricks, but the caloric content is nil.
The movie takes off in its third act, where Matei's "gifts" become relevant, and he is singularly in a position to solve a mystery of another lightning accident, one that holds personal consequences and sacrifice. It is at that point Coppola settles down and provides a clean, uncluttered narrative, just as rich in detail, but focused on expression rather than film-tricks.
Where Coppola excels, usually, is casting, and now, with his own money and a more frugal sensibility, he could cast as he sees fit, rather than for marketability, and Tim Roth is given a suitable starring role, where he can stretch those acting muscles. It's a multi-layered performance of quiet maturity that navigates well through the Coppola gears and is far more valuable than the digital manipulation Coppola employs.
I think Tetro (2009) is the most beautiful film I've ever done in terms of how it was made. I don't know what people will make of the picture, but just the filmmaking part of it, I've learnt to put it together beautifully.
Well, there's another Dominic in his mind, a wiser more assured entity, a guide, a guardian, who's not omniscient, but provides perspective. And Matei, has become something of a medical sensation for his new butterfly existence—he's come under the watchful eye of the growing Nazi party, trying to improve the race with horrific experiments in electricity. Youth After Youth is complicated just at that point, part horror movie, part sci-fi, part spy movie, part war film. It defies classification, which is good. But to get through that muddle, Coppola tries some desperate acts to communicate it all with inverted dream-sequences, picture-fades within fades, reversed film exposures. It's nice to see he's having fun (and some of that could be exhilarating as his tricks in Dracula were), but they're not "saying" anything. They're empty grace-notes without purpose other than to evoke, rather than communicate. It's a rich banquet of cinematic tricks, but the caloric content is nil.
The movie takes off in its third act, where Matei's "gifts" become relevant, and he is singularly in a position to solve a mystery of another lightning accident, one that holds personal consequences and sacrifice. It is at that point Coppola settles down and provides a clean, uncluttered narrative, just as rich in detail, but focused on expression rather than film-tricks.
Where Coppola excels, usually, is casting, and now, with his own money and a more frugal sensibility, he could cast as he sees fit, rather than for marketability, and Tim Roth is given a suitable starring role, where he can stretch those acting muscles. It's a multi-layered performance of quiet maturity that navigates well through the Coppola gears and is far more valuable than the digital manipulation Coppola employs.
I think Tetro (2009) is the most beautiful film I've ever done in terms of how it was made. I don't know what people will make of the picture, but just the filmmaking part of it, I've learnt to put it together beautifully.
Tetro (2009) Filmed in Buenos Aries, Coppola's prismatic film takes advantage of different aspect ratio's (including the one for The Archer's Tales of Hoffman), black and white and color, and the disciplines of cinema, music and dance, all sumptuously done in a tale of family rivalries that stay and unhinge the mind even though the principles are worlds apart, physically and mentally.
18 year old Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich—his first film) is a waiter on a cruise ship and takes advantage of repairs at port in Argentina to visit his long-lost brother Angie (Vincent Gallo) who disappeared on a "writing sabbatical" many years before. He finds him, not writing, now using the name "Tetro," working as a lighting technician for a small community theater, living with Miranda (Maribel Verdú) who is the most stable thing in his life. Bennie admires his brother, but knows little about him and his visit is to reach out, and perhaps learn why his brother left so many years ago, and why he has completely rejected his family and past identity.
Be careful what you wish for.
Tetro is another film about running from your past and yourself and the issues surrounding Angie's disappearance are actually less important than are made of it—they surround generational conflicts and the squandering of potential, especially in an accomplished family. What is important is the realization of potential without the need for approval. That's the pivotal conceit in this late Coppola film—that one can say "I did it to express myself, and if you like it, that's great, but I don't need your approval." For a film-maker, constantly under pressure to impress—and compromise for—box-office returns, awards, and critical praise, that's a fine pinnacle of achievement. And Coppola makes magic with it.
18 year old Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich—his first film) is a waiter on a cruise ship and takes advantage of repairs at port in Argentina to visit his long-lost brother Angie (Vincent Gallo) who disappeared on a "writing sabbatical" many years before. He finds him, not writing, now using the name "Tetro," working as a lighting technician for a small community theater, living with Miranda (Maribel Verdú) who is the most stable thing in his life. Bennie admires his brother, but knows little about him and his visit is to reach out, and perhaps learn why his brother left so many years ago, and why he has completely rejected his family and past identity.
Be careful what you wish for.
Tetro is another film about running from your past and yourself and the issues surrounding Angie's disappearance are actually less important than are made of it—they surround generational conflicts and the squandering of potential, especially in an accomplished family. What is important is the realization of potential without the need for approval. That's the pivotal conceit in this late Coppola film—that one can say "I did it to express myself, and if you like it, that's great, but I don't need your approval." For a film-maker, constantly under pressure to impress—and compromise for—box-office returns, awards, and critical praise, that's a fine pinnacle of achievement. And Coppola makes magic with it.
Afterword: Francis Coppola started out making exploitation films. Despite his success, and his reputation as a director, one has to ask: did he ever really stop? Between gangsters, teen movies, film noir's and the occasional toe-dab into horror, one can say that Coppola has spent a career trying to legitimize the most popular genres of the movies.
He still has dreams of making his decades-long-planned film of Megalopolis.
*** Mantegna remembers during a scene prep, of Coppola pointing to Sofia and telling him that she was the baby being christened at the end of the first film.
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