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Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is a five time Academy
Award winning American film director, producer, and
screenwriter. Coppola is also a vintner, magazine publisher, and
hotelier. However, he is most renowned for directing the highly
regarded Godfather trilogy and the Vietnam War epic Apocalypse
Now.
****
Life and career
(1960 to 1978)
Coppola was born into a creative and supportive Italian American
family in Detroit, Michigan, but he grew up in a New York
suburb. His father Carmine Coppola, was a composer and musician.
His mother is alleged to have been an actress, but in fact this
is not true.[citation needed] He studied theatre at Hofstra
University prior to studying film at UCLA and while there, he
made numerous short films, including some soft-core porn films.
In the early 1960s, he started his professional career making
low-budget films with Roger Corman and writing screenplays. His
first notable motion picture was made for Corman, the low-budget
Dementia 13.
After graduating to mainstream motion pictures with You're a Big
Boy Now, Coppola was offered the reins of the movie version of
the Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow, starring Petula Clark, in
her first American film, and veteran Fred Astaire. Producer Jack
Warner was nonplussed by Coppola's shaggy-haired, bearded,
"hippie" appearance and generally left him to his own devices.
He took his cast to the Napa Valley for much of the outdoor
shooting, but these scenes were in sharp contrast to those
obviously filmed on a Hollywood soundstage, resulting in a
disjointed look to the film. Dealing with outdated material at a
time when the popularity of film musicals was already on the
downslide, Coppola's end result was only semi-successful, but
his work with Clark no doubt contributed to her Golden Globe
Best Actress nomination.
In
1971, Coppola won an Academy Award for his screenplay for
Patton. However, his name as a filmmaker was made as the
co-writer and director of The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather
Part II (1974), which both won the Academy Award for Best
Picture — the latter being the first sequel to do so.
In
between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Coppola
directed The Conversation, a story of a paranoid wiretapping and
surveillance expert (played by Gene Hackman) who finds himself
caught up in a possible murder plot. The Conversation was
released to theaters in 1974 and was also nominated for Best
Picture, resulting in Coppola being the first filmmaker to have
directed two films competing for the same Best Picture Oscar
since the annual number of nominees was cut down to five in
1945. (This had previously been accomplished seven times, by six
different directors, between 1937 and 1943, when the Academy
announced ten nominees yearly. Coppola's feat would later be
matched by Herbert Ross in 1978, with The Goodbye Girl and The
Turning Point, and Steven Soderbergh in 2001, with Erin
Brockovich and Traffic.) While The Godfather Part II won the
Oscar, The Conversation won the 1974 Palme d'Or at the Cannes
Film Festival.
During this period he also wrote the screenplay for the
critically and commercially unsuccessful 1974 adaptation of F.
Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby (starring Mia Farrow
and Robert Redford) and produced George Lucas's breakthrough
film, American Graffiti.
Coppola often worked with family members on his films. He put
his two sons into The Godfather as extras during the street
fight scene and Don Corleone's funeral. His sister, Talia Shire,
played Connie Corleone in all three Godfather films, the last of
which his daughter Sofia also appeared in. His father Carmine
co-wrote much of the music in The Godfather, The Godfather Part
II, and Apocalypse Now.
Career: 1979 to
present
Following the success of The Godfather, The Conversation and The
Godfather 2, Coppola set about filming Apocalypse Now, a version
of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, with the setting changed
from colonial Africa to the Vietnam War. Before setting off to
make the film, Coppola went to his mentor Roger Corman for
advice about shooting in the Philippines, since Corman himself
was familiar with shooting a film in that area. It was said that
all Corman advised Coppola was "Don't go". The creation of the
film was a disaster from the start, being beset by numerous
problems, including typhoons, nervous breakdowns, Martin Sheen's
heart attack, and an unprepared Marlon Brando with a bloated
appearance (which Coppola attempted to hide by shooting him in
the shadows). It was delayed so often it was nicknamed
Apocalypse Whenever. The film was equally lauded and hated by
critics when it finally appeared in 1979, and the cost nearly
bankrupted Coppola's nascent studio American Zoetrope. However,
like Citizen Kane, reputation has grown in time and Apocalypse
Now is regarded by many as a masterpiece of the New Hollywood
era. Roger Ebert considers it to be the finest film on the
Vietnam war and included it on his list for the 2002 Sight and
Sound poll for the greatest movie of all time.
However, to many, Apocalypse Now represents Coppola's highpoint,
a feat he has been unable to equal or exceed ever since. The
1991 documentary film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's
Apocalypse, directed by Eleanor Coppola (Francis's wife), Fax
Bahr, and George Hickenlooper, chronicles the difficulties the
crew went through making Apocalypse Now, and features behind the
scenes footage filmed by Eleanor.
After filming Apocalypse Now Coppola famously stated:
"We
were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to
too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we
went insane."
Despite the setbacks and ill health Coppola suffered during the
making of Apocalypse Now, he kept up with film projects,
presenting in 1981 a restoration of the 1927 film Napoléon that
was edited and released in the United States by American
Zoetrope. However it wasn't until the experimental musical One
from the Heart (1982) that he returned to directing.
Unfortunately, the film was a huge failure, although it
developed a cult following in later years.
In
1986 Coppola, with George Lucas, directed the Michael Jackson
film for Disney theme parks, Captain Eo, which at the time was
the most expensive film per minute ever made.
In
1990 he completed the Godfather series with The Godfather Part
III which, while not as critically acclaimed as the first two
movies, was still a box office success. Some reviewers
criticized the casting of Coppola's daughter Sofia, who stepped
into a role abandoned by Winona Ryder just as filming began.
Sofia Coppola had previously appeared in her father's films, but
her performance in The Godfather Part III was subjected to
critical ridicule, much of it mean-spirited. Sofia Coppola has
since gone on to become a well-respected director in her own
right.
His
son Roman Coppola is a filmmaker and music video director,
directing his first feature film, CQ and videos for the Strokes.
His eldest son Gian-Carlo was killed in a boating accident in
1986.
Coppola's father Carmine was a renowned composer and musician,
and wrote the scores of many of his son's films; his nephew
Nicolas Cage is an acclaimed actor. His other nephew is Jason
Schwartzman of Rushmore fame.
In
recent years, Coppola with his family has extended his talents
to winemaking in California's Napa Valley at the Rubicon Estate
Winery, producing a line of specialty pastas and pasta sauces,
and opening resorts in Guatemala and Belize, inspired by his
accommodation in the Philippines during the making of Apocalypse
Now, with decor supervised by Eleanor Coppola.
In
1997, Coppola founded Zoetrope All-Story, a flashy literary
magazine that publishes short stories. The magazine has
published fiction by T.C. Boyle and Amy Bloom and essays by
David Mamet, Steven Spielberg, and Salman Rushdie. Since its
founding, the magazine has grown in reputation to become one of
the premier American journals of literary fiction. Coppola
serves as founding editor and publisher of All-Story.
In
2001, Coppola re-released Apocalypse Now as Apocalypse Now
Redux, restoring several sequences lost from the original 1979
cut of the film thereby expanding its length to 200 minutes.
The
director is based in the San Francisco Bay Area where he co-owns
the Rubicon restaurant alongside fellow San Franciscan Robin
Williams and Robert De Niro. In addition to his restaurant,
Coppola serves as the Honorary Ambassador of the Central
American nation of Belize in San Francisco, California. On their
official roster of worldwide honorary consulates found on their
official website, he is referred to as "His Excellency
Ambassador Francis Ford Coppola," although he is not a Belizean
citizen.
In
November 2005, Coppola took part as a special guest at the 46th
Thessaloniki Film Festival.
Selected filmography
Kinsey (2005, co-producer)
Sleepy Hollow (1999, executive producer)
The
Rainmaker (1997, director)
Jack (1996, director)
My
Family, Mi Familia (1995, executive producer)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994, executive producer)
The
Secret Garden (1993, executive producer)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992, director)
The
Godfather: Part III (1990, director)
Powaqqatsi (1988, co-producer)
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988, director)
Gardens of Stone (1987, director)
Lionheart (1987, executive producer)
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986, director)
Captain Eo (1986, director)
The
Cotton Club (1984, director)
Rumble Fish (1983, director)
The
Outsiders (1983, director)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982, co-producer)
One
from the Heart (1982, director)
Apocalypse Now (1979, director)
The
Godfather, Part II (1974, director)
The
Conversation (1974, director)
The
Godfather (1972, director)
THX
1138 (1971, executive producer)
The
Rain People (1969, director)
Finian's Rainbow (1968, director)
You're a Big Boy Now (1966, director)
Dementia 13 (1963, director)
The
Terror (1963, uncredited director)
Trivia
He
is the father of directors Roman Coppola and Sofia Coppola.
He
has been granted the title of "duke of Megalopolis" by the
Spanish writer Javier Marías, claimant to the micronation of the
kingdom of Redonda.
George Lucas reportedly based the Han Solo character on Coppola.
The
Italian word coppola stands for the typically Sicilian cloth cap
that can been seen in many Mafia films.
His
nephew is Jason Schwartzman (who is the son of Talia Shire and
Jack Schwartzman).
His
nephew is Robert Carmine, also known as Robert Schwartzman, lead
singer of the band Rooney
He
is the uncle of actor Nicolas Cage.
Interesting enough, while Apocalypse Now was based on the book
Heart of Darkness, Coppola failed to give credit to Joseph
Conrad for the use of his material, possibly in violation of
copyright law.
Owes George Takei $500
Quotes
"They didn't like the cast. They didn't like the way I was
shooting it. I was always on the verge of getting fired."
"The Godfather was a very underappreciated movie when we were
making it. I almost got fired."
****
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URL of Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Ford_Coppola
Date Article Copied:
August 4, 2006
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