Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews

Conversations With Filmmakers Series

by Gene D. Phillips (Editor), Rodney Hill (Editor)

Of all the American filmmakers who emerged from the 1970s, Francis Ford Coppola (b. 1939) may be the one most passionately revered by both critics and mainstream audiences.

The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II are landmark epics whose shots and dialogue sequences have become wholly absorbed by popular culture. Apocalypse Now, his visionary reworking of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, remains an enduring and controversial template for all future films about the Vietnam War.

Coppola's films featured pivotal roles for such actors as Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Gene Hackman, and Harrison Ford and cemented the reputations of Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro. His production company, American Zoetrope, helped to launch the careers of directors George Lucas, John Milius, and Carroll Ballard.

Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews shows Coppola to be both an intensely personal auteur and a studio-savvy Hollywood player. From the beginning of his career to the present, these conversations reveal him to be brash, candid, sensitive, and willing to engage in heated debate. He reiterates his desire to change the Hollywood system from within and talks openly about the creation of his independent film production company. Featuring interviews conducted by film critics Michael Sragow and Gene D. Phillips and the New Yorker's Lillian Ross, among others, the volume shows how Coppola has evolved from hotshot film maverick to elder statesman of American cinema.

Gene D. Phillips, S.J., is a professor of English and film history at Loyola University, Chicago. He is the author of several books on film, including Godfather: The Intimate Francis Ford Coppola, and is the editor of Stanley Kubrick: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi).

Rodney Hill is a doctoral candidate in theater and film at the University of Kansas, and his work has been published in such periodicals as Literature/Film Quarterly and Post Script. He cowrote with Gene D. Phillips The Encyclopedia of Stanley Kubrick.

Genres: Film

190 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2004

About the author

Fr. Gene D. Phillips, SJ, PhD

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good, some not so good. While the editors freely admit to allowing repetition in the content, to show how ideas do or don't change over time, I think it largely fails in this case. The book is long on personal history of Coppola and his business and artistic milestones. It is short on the actual discussion of the craft of film. While some of that may lay with Coppola, I place it mostly with interviewers that are more interested in the drama off screen than on.

[Michael Jolls · Rating 4 out of 5]

No disrespect to the editors (I don't blame them for this), but there is a lullness to this book, which when finished, it's easier to understand how Spielberg, Lucas and Scorsese went on to have directorial careers into the 2000s, and Coppola slowly drifted into the past. Obviously, his success in the 1970s secured him a 'name' in Film History forever, but this book really helps articulate how he got sidetracked; mind you I haven't seen every single Coppola film, yet the I get the concept from what I have seen what's included in this book. It's not as fun of a read as some of UPM's others (for reasons just stated), but it serves its purpose. You get the sense that Coppola is akin to Lucas, in that the two find comfort in the producer role.

[Brendan]

A great insight into Francis Ford Coppola’s career up to the 90s. Having marathoned his entire filmography and read this book, I’ve gained a huge amount of respect for Francis and now consider him to be my favorite filmmaker of the Film Brats generation. I hope someone expands this to include his masterpieces like “Youth Without Youth” and “Tetro” soon!