Summer Reading. 4.

Clearly, a man with a phantom project called Megalopolis on the back burner has a whole universe in his head, far more expansive and more magical than anything possible in drab old reality. And what's so touching is the way he attempts to share the oceanic vastness of his imagination with his audience. Thus the very public tug of war between projects both manageable and unmanageable, real and unreal, between supreme confidence and punishing self-doubt, and between the grand gesture and the intimate exchange. The man who once dreamed of turning Goethe's slim Elective Affinities into an epic holographic movie to be projected on special glass screens that overlooked the Rockies is the same man who cooked up a big batch of sausage and bean soup and ladled it out to the customers waiting on line to see One from the Heart at Radio City Music Hall. There's something uniquely moving about Coppola's need to bring us all under his tent and waltz together to the music of the spheres. It accounts for the lovable goofiness of some of his smaller films, where he's looking for a shortcut to grandeur. Like The Outsiders, his little teenage film "without any English on it," in which the bodies appear mountainous and the images seem like they've been coated with the nectar of the gods. Or the lunatic gorgeousness of the reviled but hypnotic One from the Heart, in which a quartet of affable performers playing "ordinary people" is sent gliding through action that feels like it could be taking place on the moon.

More than any other director since the silent era, Coppola thinks like a conductor.

Film Comment editor Kent Jones, introducing a special issue on Francis Ford Coppola.

The similarities between Coppola and Welles are illuminating, particularly their ability to galvanize troops and their experimentation with every element of film. But so are the contrasts. Welles' Othello won the Golden Palm at Cannes, but hardly anyone went to see it. Apocalypse Now not only co-won the Golden Palm, but also grossed more than $150 million worldwide. Welles made a living in his later years as the spokesman for Paul Masson wine. Coppola has made a fortune manufacturing his own wine.

Michael Sragow, "Francis Ford Coppola," Salon October 19, 1999.

Had someone said, Francis - you know I always dreamed that it would be like that, that people would say, Francis, what movie do you want to make, pick any movie you want to make, but you know, they don't say that to anyone. None of my colleagues, including the wonderful Martin Scorsese, do they come and say, make any film that you want.

Coppola, interviewed in Cannes last year by Roger Ebert.



Posted by dwhudson at July 20, 2003 2:34 AM