Where to Start with Francis Ford Coppola
No expressive medium displays the conflict between art and business the way that cinema does. Movies are expensive, and, for the most part, investors expect to see financial returns on the works they fund. No matter how audiences or filmmakers feel about that reality, its effects are inescapable, and our abstract conception of the “film industry” shows the two ideas to be functionally inseparable.
While film artists have always had to work within and navigate the industry, no one better embodies the art/business conflict than Francis Ford Coppola. The romanticized image of Coppola is the rebel with a camera giving the middle finger to suits as he pushes boundaries to bring his true vision to life. A less quixotic image is that of an overambitious egomaniac who stubbornly refuses to compromise (unless he needs some cash), whose antics and attitude are only tolerable because his main point of artistic contrast is his sellout buddy George Lucas. Maybe he’s both, but he certainly isn’t neither.
Coppola hails from the New Hollywood generation of Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, and George Lucas. Coppola was initially interested in theater, studying Theater Arts at Hofstra. Even then he desired independence as he directed plays in place of university faculty. He eventually changed course after seeing a film by Sergei Eisenstein – “On Monday I was in the theater, and on Tuesday I wanted to be a filmmaker,” he said of the experience (Sight & Sound – Vol. 34, Issue 8). After graduating in 1960, he enrolled in UCLA’s film department to achieve his dream.
During his time at UCLA, Coppola shot a sexploitation film titled Tonight for Sure, and his prolific screenwriting led to Roger Corman hiring him to do everything; Coppola did script doctoring, sound work, production assisting, and got to direct second units. This all earned him Corman’s favor, and he was given a tiny budget to direct the horror film Dementia 13 in 1963, his second feature after only three years working in the field. He went to work for Seven Arts, and used money he earned to purchase the rights to the book “You’re a Big Boy Now” by David Benedictus. He wasn’t concerned with adapting it as much as he was using the rights to negotiate a $1million budget along with sole writing and directing rights from Seven Arts. You’re a Big Boy Now became his Master’s Thesis at UCLA, and is notable for its incorporation of European aesthetics that challenged the standard invisible Hollywood style. His experience in the industry gave him the tools to turn what could have been a haphazard student experiment into something with quality production values and a tight narrative structure. His subsequent films, Finian’s Rainbow (1968) and The Rain People (1969), could not have been more different – the former a studio-style musical, the other an introspective art film.
In 1969, Coppola founded Zoetrope Studios. This was during the chaos of making The Rain People, the company’s first release, and he was spending a lot on equipment and a warehouse with the dream of creating a full-blown production house. He got a deal with what had become Warner Bros.-Seven Arts to produce seven films, including Coppola’s The Conversation, John Milius’ Apocalypse Now, and George Lucas’ THX 1138, but didn’t have the funds to work with big names (including Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles) who inquired about the hot new artist-forward company. After The Rain People failed to turn a profit, Lucas started work on THX. Warner Bros. hated it, and it wasn’t long before the agreement between Zoetrope and Warner Bros. was ended. Coppola was deep in debt with no films in the works and a failed company.
Even then, Coppola initially refused to make The Godfather when Paramount called him.
And that’s essentially the cycle of Coppola’s career. He has done something brilliant, then something questionable, then something stupid (sometimes all at once), found himself in need of money, and suddenly shot back to brilliance. There’s a sort of “one for them, one for me” quality to his filmography; literally so in the case of The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, two 1983 films from S.E. Hinton’s work about 1950s teenagers told in drastically different styles. No one else could have made One from the Heart (1981), a puzzling musical with no lack of style that was meant to pioneer his “electric cinema” process; Tucker (1988), a fairly traditional biopic about a visionary inventor that becomes too meta in the context of Coppola’s career; or The Godfather Part II (1974), one of cinema’s unquestionably greatest sequels that shows the value in letting an artist deliver without compromise. In everything he has made, there’s something of value, and a clear passion for the art of filmmaking in spite of the realities of film business.
With what is now a list of 25 feature films across that span six decades, this is Where to Start with Francis Ford Coppola.
1. The Rain People (1969)
The Rain People is a fun example of Coppola’s business savvy, in addition to his filmmaking sensibilities. He spread word about a secret project he was working on, and went into hiding, pretending to work on a cinematic masterpiece. Warner Bros.-Seven Arts was not about to lose their up-and-coming star to another studio, and gave him a contract of $750,000 to make The Rain People without even seeing a script.
The idea for the story of a woman leaving her husband came from a time his mom briefly left their family, and he tried to capture the mood of that short moment in time. This was Coppola’s first attempt to stray from the norms of Hollywood and studios – he bought his own equipment and worked out of vehicles on the road while also deviating from the invisible style of traditional films. You can see the eccentric, unplanned process in the documentary Filmmaker (1968) by George Lucas, including footage of Coppola fighting with producers, guilds, and actress Shirley Knight.
The rebellious nature of the director and era also translate to the film’s style. Its subject is a woman liberated from the idea patriarchal marriage, with no clear resolution, or beginning for that matter, as it opens and closes in media res. There’s discordant music, non-synchronous sound, and a general lack of clarity about character backgrounds. Moments that do offer story are told in unusual flashbacks or scenes that stray from typical exposition – a near six-minute phone conversation doesn’t cut between both sides of the conversation, instead it’s an uncut single take from only the protagonist’s side. The acting, like the production, was largely improvised. Reflecting on the San Sebastian Film Festival, where The Rain People won the top Golden Shell award, Coppola mentioned hearing mutters of “what kind of woman would do this” among viewers, demonstrating just how provocative the film was.
If you want to really see where Coppola is coming from as a filmmaker, The Rain People is essential for both the industrial and artistic elements that make it unique to him. When given carte blanche, he’s going to make something that meets his standards in his own way. It certainly isn’t going to leave viewers happy, the idea of women having agency won’t be novel, and the impressionistic elements are no longer groundbreaking. It is still an interesting film, and something any cinephile can appreciate for what it is and represents in the beginnings of New Hollywood.
2. The Godfather (1972)
Coppola did not want to make The Godfather. Producer Robert Evans summed up the matter, “There was one problem. He didn’t want to do it. He couldn’t get a cartoon made in town, yet he didn’t want to do The Godfather.” Coppola didn’t want to make a studio film based on a bestseller, but George Lucas urged the stubborn director to do it for the money ($150,000 to direct and co-write, and a percentage of the box office). Coppola didn’t write the base material and did not have final cut, but was determined to put his stamp on the film. He fought for Al Pacino and Marlon Brando to be cast, and insisted on location shoots in Sicily. He was also able to collaborate well with cinematographer Gordon Willis, who was essentially given free rein visually.
There is no Coppolatic “signature” to the film because of its collaborative nature, but there is no doubt in its artistry. Every element plays into the characterization and themes in overt or subtle ways. A small one is the murder of Corleone family associate Paulie (“Leave the gun, take the cannoli”), where the car is framed with the Statue of Liberty in the background. There’s a contrast between the idea of the free American Dream and the realities of dark industrial control embodied by the Family, turning a simple vengeance scene into social commentary. Coppola is the one who came up with the idea for the Eisenstein-style montage climax according to Puzo, where the conflict between a baptism and murder shows Michael Corleone’s transformation into the Godfather. The collaborative effort turned a page-turner into a work of art that met Coppola’s sensibilities, for the most part. An example of discord comes in the end, where Michael’s wife Kay is shut out of his office. Coppola shot a scene where Kay prays for Michael’s soul in a church, but Evans cut it, so the film ends with glorification of Michael rather than condemnation.
The Godfather is one of the best films in history, both commercially and critically, but it isn’t important in Coppola’s filmography because it’s “his” movie. The film is vital because it is so strongly associated with him and his success. The Godfather made Coppola an incredibly rich man, and allowed him to pursue the dreams of his Zoetrope Studios days. He would go on to make The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now without worry of studio interference.
3. Apocalypse Now (1979)
While Apocalypse Now is a great film, its creation process was an absolute disaster, bringing out the worst tendencies of Francis Ford Coppola. By 1974, Coppola had earned a level of creative control that even studio system giants like Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford never achieved, and he set out to finally make the script after repurchasing the rights from Warner Bros. George Lucas was always meant to direct the film, but he chose to work on Star Wars after the success of American Graffiti, so Coppola decided to direct it himself. What followed was one of the craziest filmmaking processes ever, plagued by a typhoon, a real-life war, Martin Sheen’s heart attack, Marlon Brando, and Coppola’s own mismanagement (to learn more about this, watch Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse from 1991). All of this played into Coppola’s image as a larger-than-life, megalomaniac auteur (an image he maintains into his late career), turning a film about Vietnam into an artist’s rage against the Hollywood industry and press.
The film itself is certainly epic, worthy of the scale of its creation and criticism. Coppola’s goal was to take us through the experience of the Vietnam war in a stylized and mythical setting, offering different perspectives and stories from the jungle through a series of encounters by Sheen’s Captain Willard as he makes his way down the river to kill the mad Colonel Kurtz. There’s dark irony to the heroic “Ride of the Valkyries” playing as American helicopters fly to battle amidst the napalm and Agent Orange, demonstrating the attitudes of war-mongering Americans towards the horrifying destruction they wreaked daily. Coppola’s team recorded sounds of modern guns, a small part of the film’s groundbreaking sound work, that builds the hyper-real atmosphere for the audience. But the film also excels at impressionistic representations of inner reality, particularly with Kurtz in his lair where he delivers monologues about horror. Brando’s scenes as Kurtz were largely improvised, developed only over a few days between he and Coppola, and the results are stunning even when leaving the minimal construction aside.
Trades reporting on Apocalypse Now’s production tended to focus on the financial drama surrounding the film, but, as a reflective Coppola mentioned years later, it was his money (loaned to him by United Artists). He used it to try and achieve the dreams of himself and his collaborators, and despite press expectations the film was a massive success. It shared the Palme d’Or at Cannes with The Tin Drum, and performed well at the box office. Despite this, the film is credited alongside Heaven’s Gate for creating the fall of the auteur, and giving rise to the executive-driven 1980s film industry. But it was Coppola’s next film, One From the Heart (1981), that really sent his career back down to pre-Godfather levels of trouble. But that’s a story for another time.
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Francis Ford Coppola’s career is defined by his quality as a filmmaker and showman, something that is right up front in advertisements for Megalopolis (2024). While these are just three of the films in his career, they are all worth at least one watch. If you want to read more about Coppola’s story, Peter Cowie’s “Coppola” and Jon Lewis’ “Whom God Wishes to Destroy” are great looks at the business and artistic sides of his career.
