Coppola and Rewriting

Okay, after ten straight days of blogging about Coppola and/or his Godfather films I promise this will be the last one…for a little while.

James Lipton: “(Production designer) Dean Tavoularis says, ‘with Francis the script is like the newspaper, a new one comes out  everyday.'”

Francis Ford Coppola: “It’s true I rewrite a lot. You know, I don’t have that kind of talent that, you know,  I saw of kids who could draw beautiful pictures…my talent is I just try and try, and try and try again, and little by little it comes to something that I think is okay.”

It’s always interesting to see people who win Academy Awards for their writings be modest about their skills while people who have written films you’ve never heard of (or who have never been produced) talk as if their work is a combination Shakespeare and Billy Wilder.

As a fitting sidenote, the above quote by Coppola comes from a video shot at the Inside The Actor’s Studio. Since I like to touch on Midwest roots of many industry people I should point out that both Coppola and Lipton were born in Detroit. (Joining Elmore Leonard and Robert McKee from Detroit, Paul Schrader from a few hours away in Grand Rapids, and Lawrence Kasden and Arthur Miller who attended school the University of Michigan, as some of the film industry people from Michigan. For a longer list check out the post Screenwriting from Michigan.)

Scott W. Smith