Jordan Robbins - Final Project

Francis Ford Coppola

Many people may overlook the quality that films from the past have. Some of the first great American Films came between 1960-1980’s, they are just over looked because of the technology we have today to make a film. During this time many different types of movies were produced by many different directors. From films of violence, sex, and drugs; to the horror films we still hear about today. All of these different types of films we directed by Great American film directors. One of the greatest film directors of this time was Francis Ford Coppola. He accomplished many great things and directed many films during this time period.At a very young age Coppola started having problems in his family.

His brother was considered the “ideal” son. He was intelligent, good-looking, and popular. He seemed to be destined to accomplish great things. Having to deal with this in his family, Francis hated his name and found himself gangly and homely. He also thought he was cursed by an oversized lower lip, and who struggled to make the grade in school. “ He was the star in the family, and I did most of what I did to imitate him. Tried to look like him, tried to be like him. I even took his short stories and handed them in under my name when I went to writing class in high school…I would say that my love for my older brother formed the majority of aspects of what I am.”(Francis Ford Coppola.; Boston 1977, pg 8) That is how Francis felt and how he grew up in his family. He never really grew up doing what he wanted, he grew up doing what his brother did because he wanted to be like him so badly.

The turning point in Francis Ford Coppola’s life came at a young age. At the age of nine, Francis was diagnosed with polio. He was on a weekend Cub Scout camping outing, where it rained that night drenching all the tents and everything in them. After sleeping in the dampness all morning, Francis awoke with a stiff neck. On his fathers orders, Francis continued to attend classes. Eventually the school nurse, alarmed by his condition, sent him home. A short time later, he was delivered to Jamaica Hospital in Queens, where it was determined he had contracted the deadly disease. At first Francis had no idea what lay in store for him, and, by his own account, he felt sorry for the other children. That changed soon enough, one day while trying to get out of the hospital bed he found himself in a heap on the floor. His left arm, leg, and side were paralyzed, as well as his entire back. “I was taken to the doctor who said I was paralyzed. He told me that I was not going to be able to walk again and that I had to be a soldier. They took me home and put me in the bedroom. They pinned me to the bed sheet so I wouldn’t fall out. It was then that I realized what was going on.”(Francis Ford Coppola; Boston 1977 pg.9)

Some film directors may use life experiences as a scene in a movie that they direct. Francis did this in The Conversation. While he was still paralyzed, Italia Coppola(Francis’s mother) was giving him a bath. She lowered him into the bath. The doorbell rang and she left Francis in there for just a brief moment to go answer the door. Soon after, Francis finds himself sliding down into the water. Unable to move, Francis keeps sliding. Soon the water made it up to his nose, making him unable to breathe. That episode in his early life, made its way into one of the scenes of The Conversation.

Remarkably, Francis almost fully recovered from his battle with polio. Only now does he have a slightest hint of a limp to remind him of the ordeal. He continued making crude moviemaking equipment out of household items, and over the ensuing months he designed a makeshift television studio. His studio was equipped with a fake television and boom mike. He tried doing all of this in the basement of his parents home. He even tried building his own television set.

After living the life he did as a child, one can say Francis Ford Coppola is very strong and is ready for college. He headed off to Hofstra, hoping to shape his career in theatre. He showed samples of his writings to Hofstra officials, and on the basis of his potential and talent, he received a partial scholarship to the university. People took notice, particularly of Coppola’s technical skills, which were augmented by his ability to improvise when the going got tough. He was able to come up with a solution to the problem, while all of the other students were frozen on the problem.

By his sophomore year, Coppola was ready to take the reins of his own production. This play was by Eugene O’Neill. It was a one act play called The Rope. Coppola threw himself into the project, pushing him and his crew to the limit and adding his own creative spin to a production that would have challenged far more experienced directors. Many of the students complained that their dictatorial director knew nothing about what he was doing. Soon to find out they would be wrong. When the curtains closed on the play, Hofstra’s drama department chairman proclaimed The Rope to be given the Dan H. Lawrence Award.

This was only the beginning of Coppola amazing college career as a director. Over the next two years, Coppola sprinted ahead of the rest of his class, staging plays, reorganizing the school’s drama department, and in general, pushed himself to such and extent that he was honored the Hofstra’s Beckerman Award for student directing. By doing all of this, he was known throughout the University for his enormous ambition and his ability in film directing.Coppola graduated from Hofstra in the spring of 1960. There was no question that, by the end of his four years at Hofstra , Coppola his every intention of devoting his life to the movies. After graduating from Hofstra, he furthered his education by attending UCLA. During this time UCLA was one of the best school to attend while fulfilling the dream of becoming a film director. Very few fenders were being pounded out at UCLA. For someone of Coppola’s talent and ambition, the program was slow and painful for him.In the late 60’s was the time when The Godfather film was getting its start. The book was written by Mario Puzo in 1966. Becoming a best-seller, Francis Ford Coppola decided he would direct a movie based on this. Coppola’s commitment to direct.

The Godfather, like Mario Puzo’s decision to write the novel, was based on their financial need. Coppola was not the first choice for Paramount as a director, quite frankly, he was far from it. But seeing that all of the directors that Paramount wanted to direct their film were already unable to do so, it came down to Coppola or directors from the Italian heritage. As time went by, Coppola began to reconsider his stance. Zoetrope was withering on the vine, and he owned Warner Bros. $300,000. Coppola went to his family for advice but wasn’t satisfied. Not getting the satisfaction he wanted from his family he moved on to bigger and better things. He met with Charles Bluhdorn, head of the Gulf & Western, which owned Paramount, and the two talked through the night. After talking through it they came to a conclusion. Coppola would be getting $150,000 salary for directing and co writing the film, plus he would receive six percent of the pictures net profit.

After agreeing to direct the picture, Coppola immediately asserted his authority on it. Paramount executives plan to holding the films budget between the $1-2 million range. Coppola had other ideas than the other people on the set. So he sat down with the novel, pen in hand, and took copious notes on what would work and not work in the film. By cutting out some of the less successful of less interesting passages from the novel, a powerful theme began to emerge. His notes expanded, growing to include his own commentary on the book, a fifty-scene outline, queries that he wanted to pose to the author, and actual pages from the book. He then pasted all of it onto binder paper and marked it up with additional ideas and questions. Altogether, it was a three-inch volume of research that blended his director’s sensibilities and screenwriting skills. Despite all the problems that went on during the preparation of the script, Coppola managed to hold on to his extremely tenuous authority over his picture.

By the time rehearsals started on March 16th 1972, Coppola had overcome two major obstacles. They were so serious that they threatened his job so he was very relieved. The two barriers that threatened his job was a shooting on location in Sicily and the hiring of Al Pacino to play Michael Corleone. The Godfather rewarded Coppola in ways that he only could have dreamed. He was now respected, wealthy, and in constant demand. The most important thing was his name was international known. Such success was quite agreeable to Coppola’s ego but he had to be careful when speaking with interviewers. He didn’t want them to see that his success had gotten to him. The Godfather wasn’t the only famous film/movie that Francis Ford Coppola directed.

The Conversation was another one of his great films that he directed. This film wasn’t out to make the money but to explore the concept of moral responsibility. When he began writing The Conversation, Coppola was reading Steppenwolf, a contemporary classic about a loner who lived by himself in an apartment and kept to himself. Coppola liked the book so much that he named one of his characters after the main character in the Hermen Hesse novel. Coppola’s bugging technician Harry was also assigned some of the same traits as well. From the standpoint of the story alone, The Conversation contains enough intrigue, surprising revelations, high incident, quirky characters, and suspense to work effectively as a thriller. Coppola worked on The Conversation script throughout much of the spring and summer of 1972. Other films or plays came along during this time but Coppola had to turn them down because he had to focus on finishing The Conversation. He left those for the stage.

The filming of The Conversation came on Nov. 26, 1972, with a budget set at $1.6 million. In assembling a cast and crew, he stuck mainly with the people from The Godfather and American Graffiti. In its own way, The Conversation was a lot like The Godfather when directing the film. There were no battles between the cast and their decisions, nor were his abilities as a director called into question by studio bosses. There was however a complication in the filming process. Coppola had to overcome a variety of creative and technical difficulties. For one, he not completed the screenplay to his satisfaction. Once the cameras started rolling he found himself up against a serious time crunch. However, as time would show, Coppola accomplished some of his finest work under adverse conditions, and The Conversation was no exception.

Despite all of the problems that went wrong during his film production, Coppola was on his way to creating one of his more memorable films. Francis Ford Coppola has continued to trust his instincts, winning multiple Academy Awards for The Godfather II, and directing such legendary films as The Conversation and Apocalypse Now. He has made and lost several fortunes over the course of a life as dramatic as his own films. Today, he is more productive than ever and, both by his personal example and his generous sponsorship of young filmmakers, has left an indelible mark on the history of motion pictures. Those are just some of the famous films that Francis Ford Coppola did. He has many other that I didn’t mention but he is a remarkable film director and an amazing person. Anyone who is able to beat polio and be able to walk again has to have a will to live. I believe overcoming that deadly disease is what inspired him to keep going with his dream. Along with his brother while growing up, those were the two aspects in his life that kept him going.

Works Cited

Johnson, Robert. Francis Ford Coppola. Ed. Waren French. Boston: K. Hall 1977.

Philips, Gene. Francis Ford Coppola Interviews. Ed. Gene Philips and Rodney Hill.Mississippi 2004.

Zuker, Joel. Francis Ford Coppola: A Guide to Reference and Resources. Ed. G.K. Hall & Co. Boston: 1984.

Schumacher, Michael. Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmakers Life. Ed. Crown Publishing.New York: 1999.