“You like race horses? I love ‘em. Beautiful, expensive racehorses. You are looking at six hundred thousand on four hoofs . . . I bet even Russian Czars never paid that kind of dough for a single horse.”
Jack Woltz (John Marley) in The Godfather
Screenplay by Mario Puzo & Francis Ford Coppola
The first film director that I think I was ever aware of was Francis Ford Coppola. I was in middle school when other students were talking about a movie featuring a scene with a severed horse’s head. Being 11-12 years old I didn’t see The Godfather in theaters in its original release—but I learned the name Francis Ford Coppola.
Everything before in my world was about actors— as in, “It’s a Paul Newman film.” When I saw Apocalypse Now (1979) in theaters just before my senior year of high school I was mesmerized. I’d just never seen anything like it. Coppola got a lot of press back then for going over budget and possibly going out of his mind. (The doc Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse is required viewing for any filmmaker.)
Then I was in film school when The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, and The Cotton Club came out—and that’s when I also got caught up on The Rain People and The Conversation— cementing him as one of my favorite directors. Plus he’d written the Oscar-winning screenplay for Patton, was a producer on American Graffiti, and an executive producer on Koyaanisqatsi so he’s always been a giant in my book.
But here’s what the five-time Oscar winning producer/director/writer has to say about his career that’s spanned seven decades:
“My father [composer Carmine Coppola] was always struggling with his career. I was said to him, ‘Are you as great a composer as Beethoven or Mozart?’ He said, ‘Well, no, I’m not.’ I said, ‘Are you the worst?’ He said, ‘No, I’m certainly not the worst. There are many worst than me.’ So I said, ‘You’re somewhere between the worst and the best, and that’s a wonderful thing.’ That’s how I feel about myself. I don’t see myself as a big deal or a big shot. Even when you hear me talk about myself in relation to other filmmakers, I’m proud that I’m one of the group of filmmakers who are important in my generation. To me, it’s not vital to be considered one the five most important; I just want to be somewhere between the best and the worst. And that’s where I am, let’s face it. Compared to the greats, I’m a second rate film director, but I’m a first-rate, second rate director.”
— Producer/writer/director Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather I, II, III)
Haute Living, “Francis Ford Coppola: Protecting His Legacy During The Pandemic” by Laura Schreffler
October 15, 2020
Coppola may be the only person in the world that would call Francis Ford Coppola a second rate film director. But in a business that has no shortage of oversized egos, it’s is refreshing to hear someone so prolific speak so humbly. Same guy who bought a small vineyard in Napa Valley and hoped to make some wine for friends and family—and ended up building a wine empire with The Francis Ford Coppola Winery.
P.S. The first chapter of my book is on conflict, because conflict gets our attention. Horse’s head= conflict.
Scott W. Smith is the author of Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles
Screenwriting from Iowa 