Founders - #242 Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life

Starting point is 00:00:00 In celebration of 100 years of American filmmaking, the American Film Institute announced a list of the 100 greatest movies ever made. Francis Ford Coppola was involved in five of the films on the list. The Coppola was young and hungry and at the pinnacle of his abilities and powers. For one glorious decade, Coppola exacted an influence on movie making virtually unapproached by any other filmmaker. Coppola would be the first to concede that none of his movies in the 1980s and 1990s deserve to be on the list, not by a long shot. But one cannot help but wonder, what happened

Starting point is 00:00:54 to Francis Ford Coppola? Did he expend all of his artistic energy during the 70s? Was he overrated as a filmmaker? Was the failure of his company, along with his highly publicized financial problems, the driving force behind his decision to abandon his risky yet decisively creative endeavors in favor of safer and more profitable work? Did his son's death give him occasion to reconsider his life as a filmmaker and in fact guide him toward a change in priorities? Did he simply lose interest in putting himself on the line in film after film? Did he grow complacent once he had rebuilt his empire? That is an excerpt from the end of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Francis Ford Coppola, A Filmmaker's Life, and it was written by Michael Schumacher,

Starting point is 00:01:49 and the fact that these questions appear at the very end of the book gives you an indication that there are not going to be any easy answers to this. This was an absolute fantastic book. It's a giant book, almost 500 pages. I spent over 25 hours trying to really fundamentally understand who Francis Ford Coppola was as a person and any kind of lessons that we can draw from his career. And one of the main lessons that I loved is that he was a very messy person. He had a very messy career. He had a very human career. And I like the fact that there was no clear-cut answers. To me, this biography was an exposition in what it means to be human,

Starting point is 00:02:25 the messy life experience that you and I go through. And I'll tell you why I wanted to read the book and how it fits into every other thing that we're studying on the podcast. Once we get to George Lucas, I want to jump right into the relationship that he had growing up with his father. I just watched an interview with Francis Ford Coppola. He's 83 in the interview. This book is over 20 years old, so it was published when he's around 60 years old. But when he's 83, he made a very interesting comment in this interview that I wrote down. And this is a quote from the interview.

Starting point is 00:02:53 He said, you can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. So that's where I want to start. His father's name is Carmine. We'll go right into it. Carmine harbored ambivalent feelings about success, similar to the ones that his son would confront many years later as a filmmaker. As a hired musician, Carmine could carve out a decent living, but he would never develop into the kind of artist that he aspired to be. If he abandoned the safe route to pursue his dream,

Starting point is 00:03:27 he faced financial ruin. And so that line right there plays a major, major role in the life story of Francis Ford Coppola. If he abandoned the safe route to pursue his dream, he faced financial ruin. Francis Ford Coppola, whether personally or through his companies, went essentially bankrupt three times in nine years.

Starting point is 00:03:46 And the precarious financial positions that he found himself in had a profound effect on what he was able to work on. And so that's a theme that you and I are going to revisit many times today. So it talks about Carmine was the son of, so Francis Ford Coppola's grandfather. Grandparents were immigrants from Italy. So it says Carmine, like so many sons of recent immigrants, had been schooled in the American dream and how success served as an indication of one's self-worth. It was a complex issue and not easily resolved. For while Carmine honored those who achieved fame and fortune through hard work, he also had the deepest respect for the risk takers and innovators. Mavericks, like Preston Tucker, who was somebody who tried to create a brand new

Starting point is 00:04:34 American car company in the 1940s. Preston Tucker was one of the heroes of not only Francis's father, but Francis himself. In fact, Francis made a movie, like a biographical film about Preston Tucker. So let's go back to Coppola's father and really just traits that you just don't want to possess. In time, Carmine became increasingly embittered over what he felt was a lack of progress in his career and resentful of those that he deemed to be less talented, but who had become more successful than he had. And let's go back to that line that Francis Ford Coppola had in that interview when he's 83 years old. You can always understand the son by the story of his father.

Starting point is 00:05:13 The story of the father is embedded in the story of the son. And so he has, he winds up having, hiring his father to do work on, to do the music, like the score of some of his movies and one of those movies was Godfather 2 and so then I left myself on this page is don't be like this this is Francis talking about this time after I'd spent a lifetime with a frustrated and often unemployed man who hated anybody who was successful to see him get an Oscar it added 20 years to his lifetime and so think about Coppola's view of his father from his perspective he grew up with somebody who's that never got to achieve what he thought like his level of talent like he deserved in life then that caused him to over the years become more and more bitter to hate other people that

Starting point is 00:06:01 were successful and then the only way that his father was actually able to attain his dreams was being hired by his son. And my own guess, based on reading this book, is the fact that his father was never able to achieve the success that he wanted in his life on his own pushed Francis to have almost like a manic, frantic, 24-7 work ethic, which I'll get to in one minute. I want to pull out one other disastrous thing that his father did. And so Francis's older brother is talking about what it was like growing up in this house with his father. And this is what Francis's brother said. I was to be a doctor. I was to be, not I wanted to be. This is

Starting point is 00:06:47 what his father's pushing him, right? I was to be a doctor, he remembered. And all of my life, I received doctor kits every Christmas as the parental incentive to steer me in the right direction. But I said to my father, why can't I be an artist? You are. And he said, yeah, but there can only be one genius in the family. And since I'm already that, what chance do you have? What kind of father says something like that to his son? So we go to Coppola in college, says he was bright and energetic rather pretentious and occasionally arrogant friendly eager to learn and above all else not at all afraid of asserting himself these are traits that he maintained he had those personality traits he still has them to this day for his entire life movies remained his real love he started a club he's in college at Hofstra called the Hofstra

Starting point is 00:07:41 cinema workshop and he set up screenings of classic films. The films of Sergei Eisenstein had made all the difference in his decision to pursue a career as a filmmaker. And this is what Coppola says on Finding Sergei's work. On Monday, I was in the theater. On Tuesday, I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker. So while he's in college, he winds up making friends that had similar interests as him. One of these is this guy named Joel Olansky, who winds up becoming a writer, a screenwriter and a director. And this is what he said about what Coppola was like in college. My take on him then was exactly what my take on him is today. He is incredibly talented and incredibly pretentious. He doesn't know what he's doing half the time and the other half of the time he's brilliant.

Starting point is 00:08:31 What I love about Francis is that he hasn't changed. He's consistent. I had an early appreciation of him. So Joel winds up writing an article on Francis when they were in college and he says, I profiled him in 1958. I said he was going to go all the way or he was going to burn himself out. There would be no middle ground. It was a column predicting that he was going to do great things. And people said to me, what are you, nuts? He's all talk.

Starting point is 00:09:03 And the people said that he was all talk, quickly realized that that's wrong. He actually works harder and faster and more than any other student in the in the film school. So it says Coppola sprinted ahead of the rest of his class, staging plays, reorganizing the school's drama department and in general distinguishing himself to such an extent that he was ultimately honored with the with the award for student directing. He was known throughout the university for his enormous ambition. No one seemed to mind Coppola taking over the theater's arts department except some of the faculty who also, check this out, he worked so much they had to set a rule so he worked less, who ultimately set up a new rule whereby a student could only direct two shows per year. So there's two things that I wrote on this page that came to mind when I got to this section. The first is a quote from this fantastic article by Derek Sivers that I've referenced many times on the podcast. It's that there is no speed limit and that the standard pace is for chumps. You can always move faster and accomplish more than you think so, and you can do it in a less

Starting point is 00:09:58 amount of time. We see that example over and over again in the books. And then another is a quote from this fantastic biography on Joseph Pulitzer that I read for Founders episode number 135. And just like Coppola's counterparts are being kind of annoyed at how much he works, same thing happened to Joseph Pulitzer when he tried to break into the newspaper industry. Eventually, he takes that job, and that's like the foundation of this gigantic media empire that he winds up building. But it said about Pulitzer, he was so industrious that he became a positive annoyance to others who felt less inclined to work. So he's going to graduate, and he's like, okay, I'm going to film school.

Starting point is 00:10:39 I'm going to continue my education, and I'm going to California. And this is on the importance of meeting like minds, and this is how the story of Francis Ford Coppola fits in with some other people that you and I have studied in the podcast. There was little question by the end of his four years that Coppola had every intention of devoting his life to the movies. Coppola's timing could not have been better. He was entering UCLA during a period when film schools were about to explode in a proliferation of talent that within a decade would change the face of the motion picture industry. So Coppola is going to be one of a group of young rebels that is going to completely change the entire industry. By happy coincidence, a group of filmmakers emerged from film schools in the mid-1960s.

Starting point is 00:11:19 That's the time in history we're at. That is the cinematic equivalent of the Paris writers groups of the 1920s. We talked a little bit about that when I read the biography of Hemingway. He was a part of that. So they're making the parallel there, just like writers, these young, ambitious, unique writers all met up in Paris in the 1920s. We're seeing that happen in California in the mid-1960s. And so some of these people are like George Lucas, John Carpenter, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, and even though he's not a film school, Steven Spielberg as well. And so ever since I read one of the best biographies I have ever read, a book that I'm definitely going to reread in the future, that's George Lucas's A Life, written by Brian J. Jones. I covered it all the way back on Founders number 35.

Starting point is 00:12:02 George Lucas is by far one of my favorite people. His approach to his work has a heavy influence on what I'm trying to do with my work. And in that book, a main character, because they wind up meeting when they're 20s and they're still friends to this day, is Francis Ford Coppola. And Lucas is in turn a main supporting character in this biography of Coppola.

Starting point is 00:12:22 And what I loved about these stories was the idea that we get to see who these people were when they're in their 20s. So you have George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, and Martin Scorsese are all friends. And we see who they were as people before they become these world famous and in many cases, supremely wealthy directors. And i think i talked about this when i read steven spielberg's biography for founders number 209 but it's just amazing to me like uh jaws wind up being steven spielberg's like first gigantic commercial hit and the day

Starting point is 00:12:55 that it's released he doesn't know how successful it's going to be the day it's released he's riding around in the car with martin scorsese and so what i love about this this being the third of the biographies that i read about this group, and I'll continue knocking, reading about filmmakers biographies, one of my most favorite things to do. And I think there's just a ton of parallels between creating a movie and building a company. But what I like is you get to see, they all have the same idea. They're interested in, you know, I want to be a director. I want to have control of my work. I want to be in movies. And yet they all approach it vastly different. And so this is on the importance of meeting like minds. What was good about film school was not the school itself. It was the enthusiasm of so many young people who had the same dreams

Starting point is 00:13:37 and how that kind of cross fertilized. And the role Coppola is going to play is he winds up becoming an inspiration to Lucas to Spielberg to Scorsese because he's the one the first one to break through at the time Hollywood's like this old boys network if you want to be a director you start at the very bottom maybe let's direct 20 years into the future and Coppola is one of the first people to figure out how to break through and he winds up getting a director being able to direct major movies when he's still in his 20s and this is kind of the hustle and the resourcefulness that he demonstrated long before he had that opportunity. He's in film school. And so it says, Coppola displayed a remarkable ability to do whatever was necessary

Starting point is 00:14:14 to get the job done. So he's trying to make a movie. He says, for one scene, he needed to film the movie's main character standing near Michelangelo's David. Forest Lawn Cemetery had a full-scale replica of the statue, but the cemetery also had a strict policy of allowing no one to shoot a film on its premises. Undeterred, Coppola contacted a cemetery official, and after explaining that he was a student making a modest, non-commercial film, he was given permission to shoot in the cemetery. He then contacted Chapman Company,

Starting point is 00:14:44 which is a builder of the biggest and best camera crane in existence. So I'm going to interrupt myself. Really, this is a story of resourcefulness, relentless resourcefulness. He does not have a lot of money, does not have the equipment he needs. He finds a way. He then contacted the Chapman Company. They build the biggest and best camera crane in existence. After running through the film school spiel with one of the company's officials, he promised to provide Chapman with a high-quality photograph

Starting point is 00:15:07 of one of its cranes posted next to Michelangelo's David in exchange for a brief loan of the crane. They say yes. He shocked groundskeepers by turning up not with the expected small amateur film crew, but with a 60-man crew and a Chapman crane. He was unbelievable, remembered Carol Ballard, who worked as a grip on the film. Francis showed up at UCLA, and within a very short period of time, he seemed to have the whole department wrapped around his little finger. Who was this guy? What qualified him for this? I have since come to realize that the qualities that he had, chutzpah, to a large degree, were the most important qualities for making it in the movie business. It was incredible what an operator he was. So in George Lucas's biography, he talks about

Starting point is 00:16:00 that. The fact that he said he, George Lucas had, he had an obsession with history he read a ton of biographies about great people and he's like I did not understand the power of charisma for like the Julius Caesars and Napoleons these kind of people until I met Francis Ford Coppola and realized oh he's one of those guys and so Francis had this desire to prove himself to prove he could be successful to to right the wrongs of what happened with his father and luckily enough he is applying that to something he loves he talks about this time in his life he said i had an overwhelming urge to make films all i lacked was the opportunity and so he does something really smart he finds a different like a parallel way

Starting point is 00:16:41 to to break through because his real he's like i want to be a director i want to make i want to have complete control i want to write my movie i want to direct my movie i don't want anybody telling me what to do very similar to luke's perspective but the way he gets in he figures out to seize an opportunity he starts writing scripts this is gonna this is when i got to this point it reminded me because i've told you that i watched the first. I highly recommend watching the first two episodes of the new Kanye documentary on Netflix. It's called Genius, Jesus, Genius, something like that. And what was interesting about that was that Kanye broke in like his main goal is like, I want to be a rapper. But he used a different way to break in.

Starting point is 00:17:20 And he's like, I'll just make beats. He started making beats, but everybody. So he winds up breaking into an industry doing that selling beats becoming famous for selling beats but no one understood his true motivation he's like i only make beats so i can rap on them i just happen to be able to make beats so well that other people will buy them and then i'm going to use that as a way to break into the industry you can think about coppola is doing the same thing. In fact, the first Oscar he ever wins is for the screen play that he wrote for the movie Patent. And so we get an indication of his motivations here. He writes a screenplay. They love it. They want to buy it. He says the investors like to

Starting point is 00:17:55 script and were willing to buy it. But unfortunately for Coppola, they did not want to hire him to direct the picture, which Coppola remarked was the only thing I was interested in. I'm only writing scripts so I can direct. Kanye's only making beats so he can rap on them. It's the exact same idea. Another good idea from Coppola, he seizes opportunities that other people in his film school think are beneath them, which is really funny considering when you're in film school, you haven't yet achieved anything. And so he's going to wind up working for what they call a B movie director. And he's just like, I learned a ton because this guy, B movies you can make really fast. And so like, I'm getting essentially more like at bats at the plate, right? So it says this guy's name is

Starting point is 00:18:38 Corman. Corman learned of Coppola through a teacher at UCLA. Corman asked if the teacher, if she had any students who she might recommend for work. And she immediately named Coppola through a teacher at UCLA. Corman asked the teacher if she had any students who she might recommend for work, and she immediately named Coppola. The timing was fortuitous. Coppola was running out of money and was so broke that he literally feared that his telephone would be disconnected before he heard from Corman. And so Coppola is going to take this opportunity, and he's going to seize it. He's going to do everything possible that he can to impress what is going to eventually become his mentor. And then we see his legendary work ethic.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Coppola wanted to impress his mentor going to extremes to see that Corman appreciated his efforts. I deliberately worked all night. So when he'd arrive in the morning, he would see me slumped over the editing machine. He started to see me as an all-purpose guy. Corman rewarded Coppola by giving him as much work as he could handle. Coppola was 22. And so think about it from the mentor's perspective. He sees this guy doing as much as possible to help him in his work. It's like Coppola's doing as much as he possibly can, helping me complete the movies. There is this thing in human nature where like if somebody

Starting point is 00:19:41 does something for you, we feel the need to reciprocate and he's just he's just fantastic so while he's helping Corman on the movies he's also writing scripts and some of his scripts are again I said this is like his path into movie making right some of his scripts win awards so look what Corman does again this guy may not be you know the best director but he's certainly known he's at least making a living in the movie industry. And so when Corman finds out that Coppola has just won an award for a script, look what he does here. Corman was thrilled by all the recognition bestowed upon his protege. And he took out ads in the trade papers announcing the Samuel Goldwyn Award, which is the one that Coppola won. Coppola was touched. And so this, in turn, causes Coppola to want to work harder for Corman. And he does something that he does his entire career.

Starting point is 00:20:29 I'm going to tell you a quote I took notes on that interview when he was 83. I'll get there in one second. But it's an example that Corman asked Coppola if he knew anyone who could work on the film's sound. And undaunted by the fact that he knew virtually nothing about sound recording, Coppola volunteered for the job. That is a main theme in the life and Coppola's approach to work. Say yes first and learn later. Say yes first, learn later. He does that over and over and over again. When he's 83 years old, he says, my peculiar approach to cinema is i like to learn by not knowing how the hell to do it i'm forced to discover how to do it that is a genius idea

Starting point is 00:21:13 from 83 year old francis ford coppola force yourself to learn and so this is how he gets into his first directing his first feature film and I left myself on this page, this guy is all resourcefulness and hustle. He jumps at even the smallest opportunity. I would say that applies. This is why I want to read so many more biographies of filmmakers, because it applies to what I learned about George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and now Francis Ford Coppola. They're all like this, all resourcefulness, all hustle. They had to build themselves into the people that they're going to become later. George Lucas lucas getting a movie made now and our steven spielberg getting a movie made now is easy it's not when you no one knows who you are and you have no resources you

Starting point is 00:21:54 have to be all hustle and all resourcefulness so what he realizes like okay well i've studied how corman learned uh corman works and he likes to reuse like he's very obsessed with controlling costs something francis for coppola obviously he was never really good at so he says i knew that Corman works and he likes to reuse. He's very obsessed with controlling costs, something Francis Ford Coppola obviously was never really good at. So he says, I knew that whenever Corman takes a crew on location, he can't resist the temptation of doing a second picture

Starting point is 00:22:13 since he already paid the crew's expenses there. I played on this, managing to convince him that I should direct it, meaning the second feature. So I told him about this zesty horror scene that he's writing in another script. So he studied his mentor, realizes this is his modus operandi. How can I take advantage of that? And oh, I'm already extremely talented and winning awards on scripts.

Starting point is 00:22:34 So he's doing this when he's not working for Corman, he's still writing scripts. And so the fact that he can combine these two is what leads him to directing his first feature film ever. Francis seized the opportunity. He stayed up all night to write an entire treatment. It was smart, well-written, and extremely demented. It's a horror movie. It developed, or I guess a thriller. It developed into Dementia 13, which was Coppola's first feature. And Coppola just nails it.

Starting point is 00:22:59 Why this is so important, because so few other people do this. They just have opportunities. They're presented with this. They just opportunities are presented with opportunities. They just they dilly dally. They let him pass by. Francis did not do that. As he would point out later, his willingness to seize the moment was one of the main characteristics separating him from his other fellow students and aspiring filmmakers. And Francis says, the secret of all my getting things off the ground is that I've always taken big chances with personal investments while the other guys my age were all pleading, Corman, please let me make a film. I simply sat down and wrote the script. Closed mouths don't

Starting point is 00:23:41 get fed. That is a line that Jay-z said to kanye west the same thing happened so you have other people say corman let me just make a movie okay well how is he going to respond there's a million people that want to make movies that's a terrible approach what is the approach coppola did hey coppola or excuse me hey corman i you already have we already have we're already have we're on location we have extra time we already have the actors and guess what i have a script let's do this if somebody came to you with those two propositions which one you're choosing it is a no-brainer in that documentary kanye was having a hard time that he was signed to jay-z's uh record label rockefeller they had shelved his they delayed his album so he shows up one day because he knows hey jay-z's at the studio

Starting point is 00:24:23 he's making blueprint to 2, that album. I have a beat for him. And guess what? I have a verse. Let me show up. And he just, he plays the beat. Jay-Z gets on the beat. And then Kanye starts rapping his verse.

Starting point is 00:24:34 And though, even though Kanye's verse is not finished and Jay-Z winds up having to help him with it, he says at the end, closed mouths don't get fed. That's what he's telling Kanye. Closed mouths don't get fed. If you wouldn't have said nothing, you wouldn't have been on that. Okay, so let's talk about something that Coppola realized was a flaw in the movie industry. Lucas saw this as well. So Spielberg, and he's trying to change it. And he says Coppola would largely be responsible for a shift in the prevailing system when he, along with a number of other talented new directors, began writing the scripts for the

Starting point is 00:25:02 movies they were directing. The days when this dream could be realized were years away. And for the time being, Coppola was just another new kid in a very old system. And so he's really young. He's in his, we're now in his late 20s, mid to late 20s. And he's trying to figure out, okay, well, how can I actually write, not only write scripts, but then be able to direct what I wrote and not have it be controlled or rewritten by somebody else. He's like, well, I need money.

Starting point is 00:25:26 Like if I have my own money, then I can actually have a say in what that gives me control. And we see something that he does his entire life. I would consider him like almost like a, I wouldn't say like a degenerate gambler, but he's definitely a gambler. He puts, he goes all in multiple times. And that's why he winds up having negative net worth many times throughout his life. So he winds up gambling all his money on hopes of making enough money to fund his own movie though and so he says hoping to come up with some quick cash he invested his entire savings in a company that

Starting point is 00:25:52 produced something that's called it's like a jukebox that showed short movies on a tiny built-in screen that investment winds up being a massive mistake failure, and he lost every single penny that he had. So again, he does this over and over again. Maybe I have a couple thousand dollars. I'm putting it all on black. It's essentially what he did here. And it says he would establish himself as the biggest risk taker in film history, a man willing to stake his personal wealth on the projects he believed in. And so this could not come at a worse time in his life because he's about to have a second child, second child he needs to, and a wife that he has to support. So he is 27 and extremely depressed.

Starting point is 00:26:33 And this is terror followed immediately by euphoria. Coppola was depressed and now he had another mouth to feed, a second son named Roman. And he had no immediate job prospects. He was feeling completely overwhelmed. When 20th Century Fox had purchased the film rights to this book called Patton, Ordeal and Triumph, which is a biography of George S. Patton, and the studio was looking for someone to write a screenplay.

Starting point is 00:27:00 They liked Coppola's work on this other war movie called Is Paris Burning? So they contacted him and offer him a job. Coppola decided to give the script a shot, boosted by a huge $50,000 writing fee. And so he uses his reputation as a great screenwriter as a way to bluff himself into a position to write and direct his first movie for a major studio. This is going to be Warner Brothers. He's also going to, this is crazy, he winds up using this movie, it's called You're a Big Boy Now, as his thesis. Because he's like, I'm not going to be in film school anymore.

Starting point is 00:27:36 I'm actually going to make movies. And then he winds up, I think, getting his degree because of this movie. But this is Coppola's solution to the chicken and egg problem. He uses uses over and over again he he has to figure out a way to get the studio to give him money and then the actors sign on to the actual project of somebody that's relatively unknown so he just winds up bluffing either side let me tell you i'll read this and you'll understand what i mean it was all a big bluff coppola approached the actors as if he had already had big studio financing behind him. And then he approached the studio as if he had already set

Starting point is 00:28:08 up the production and was prepared to go forward with or without the studio's help. Somehow it worked, as Coppola boasted afterward. If there's one thing I've found out is don't ask. Just go ahead and force the issue. That a you get a momentum going with everybody wanting to jump on the bandwagon and he also did something smart he was like i'm willing to take a bad deal just to get my foot in the door coppola would receive only eight thousand dollars for writing and directing the picture he would also receive ten percent of the film's profits an offer that was ridiculously weak by today's standards but it represented a breakthrough at the time no one had ever offered someone as young and inexperienced as coppola the opportunity to

Starting point is 00:28:52 direct a mainstream feature-length picture and so it's smart except the whatever opportunity you can get now once the the movie is done i'm a i'm a writer and a director now and so then when he goes to pixis on this project well this guy's already done it before okay so then he does that opens up the the door to his next two projects we'll get to in a minute on this next project that's where he meets george lucas that has a huge influence on his entire life and so i'm fast forwarding the book just to show you that he uses this idea over and over again and he's and he also does something smart he's willing to reinvest profits to buy better technology. So we'll get to that in a minute.

Starting point is 00:29:26 Realizing that he could make the rumor mill work to his advantage, Coppola dropped a few well-placed hints at Warner Brothers that he was developing a new secret project, one that was already beginning to shoot. You already know by now. It's not beginning to shoot. The studio concluded that if Coppola had every intention of making the film independently, excuse me, the studio concluded that Coppola had every intention of making the film independently, if necessary, it was a shrewd move and another successful bluff. Coppola had invested $80,000 of his earnings from Finian's Rainbow, so that's his second movie. Now we've moved on to the third. So he's taking the money that he made from the second movie and investing in technology that will benefit his third movie.

Starting point is 00:30:04 Instead of our equipment needed to create a mobile filming and editing unit. Now, why is it a bluff? taking the money that he made from the second movie and investing in technology that will benefit his third movie. Instead of our equipment needed to create a mobile filming and editing unit. Now, why is it a bluff? Because he had nowhere near the kind of money that he needed that was necessary to make The Rain People, which is going to be his third movie. Technically his fourth movie, but the third under the studio. Coppola kept his best poker face. And so one way he's able to convince them is because he keeps on this movie, he keeps

Starting point is 00:30:25 the costs really low. There's a lot of highlights and details in this movie because I really feel like what he did for this movie is the same as starting a startup. Coppola's crew, so the talent, the people you recruit for your company, was excellent. George Lucas helped in a number of ways. Imagine, there's something that Max Levchin said in that book, The Founders, which is about the early history, the first four years history of PayPal. I did it back on episode 233. But he said the best employee that you have in your company right now

Starting point is 00:30:53 is the employee that that is his last, his or her last job they will ever have. After they're done working for you, they're starting their own company. Identify that person because that is the best person you have in your company. This is very similar to what's happening in the story. It's like you have Francis's like right hand person is George Lucas. That's insane. And you'll see that Lucas clearly showing signs that, hey, this guy's meant to run his own show. I'll get there in a minute.

Starting point is 00:31:23 Really, the reason I'm telling you is because he's using a combination of two traits here, resourcefulness and boldness. This is just like a startup. So it says the group witnessed an Armed Forces Day parade, right? So they don't have resources. They have all these shots they want to shoot. They don't have a lot of money. So how can we essentially get a lot of these things without spending any money?

Starting point is 00:31:40 Oh, there's a parade? Okay, we're going to act like we put on that parade. So Coppola filmed and ingeniously worked that parade into the picture. Francis had more guts than anything. And this is what Lucas said about that. The crew for the rain people was very, very small and it was very anti-establishment. There were only about 13 or 14 people in the entire crew. So as a result, people got to do multiple jobs. They got to wear multiple hats. Lucas is being one of those people. It was fun. We all look, this is still Lucas talking. It was fun. We all pitched in and worked together and we really had a ball.

Starting point is 00:32:14 Everything seemed to be done by the seat of our pants and on the most stringent of budgets and in the most non-traditional fashion. For the company of young filmmakers, it added to the spirit of adventure. This is what I mean. It's just like a startup. Much of the company's journey was captured on film by Lucas, who was shooting a documentary about the making of The Rain People. So right there, clearly founder mentality, clearly somebody that takes initiative. Clearly somebody knows you could sell the byproducts that your company produces. He's like, hey, yeah, I'll help you on this film, Coppola, and I'll get paid and I'll gain a lot of experience. But I'm also making a movie on top of the movie.

Starting point is 00:32:51 Lucas's documentary, which he called Filmmaker, I need to watch this. This sounds fantastic, caught the essence of the ups and downs of making The Rain People. More on just the parallel to startups. It's crazy. I really do encourage you in case you haven't already and if you find any good film and graphery please send them away like they're just so fun to read because the parallels are just so obvious for george lucas the shoot would be remembered as a time when the seeds for much of his future were being germinated he was forming

Starting point is 00:33:19 the ideas for the creation of his own studio. Ideas that would make him $5 billion in the future. That's not in the book, that's me. That would evolve first into American Zoetrope. I never know how to pronounce freaking Coppola's company name. And later into the Lucasfilm Enterprises. And so this is the point in their lives where they realize, both Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas realized at the same time, wow, independence and autonomy is a real possibility,

Starting point is 00:33:49 a possibility that did not exist in the traditional studio movie-making structure. And so I've talked about this guy on many podcasts. In these books, you find these weird supporting characters that you've never even heard of, and yet they are hugely influential. Lucas told Coppola of a chance meeting he had with this guy named john cordy who was actually carving out a decent living as an independent filmmaker when coppola along with lucas rolled into cordy's stinson beach studio so he's like i'm not gonna make cordy's like i'm not making movies in la i'll just make my own independent film studio up in san francisco uh they were amazed by what they they saw Their lodge inside a gray barn

Starting point is 00:34:26 was a fully equipped studio, modest but totally functional. It was the kind of facility that Coppola and Lucas had envisioned. So then Coppola has this idea. He's like, okay, well, he can't be the only person in the world that came up with the idea. Let's find other people that are doing this too and try to learn from them. So Coppola traveled to Denmark to check out Lanterna Film, which was housed in a lovely mansion in a seaside town about 50 miles from Copenhagen. The bedrooms had been converted into editing rooms, and a nearby barn contained a state-of-the-art sound mixing facility. So it's almost like a larger version in Copenhagen, or excuse me, in Denmark,

Starting point is 00:35:02 that Cordy is doing up in Northern California. He was especially fascinated. So he's talking about the Lanterna also had all this movie equipment. So he says he was especially fascinated by the zoetrope, a cylinder-shaped gadget that, when spun, projected a moving image. In Greek, zoetrope means life movement, an apt description Coppola felt for the kind of company he had in mind. So that's where he gets the name of his company from. The mansion and its beautiful

Starting point is 00:35:29 surroundings, the low-key working environment, the feeling of adventure and creativity, the high-tech equipment all had a very seductive effect on Coppola. So he is describing the environment that he wants to work in. Now what happens, as we'll see, is you can only do that if you control the money and if you're on solid financial footing. So he's able to do that for a few of his pictures, but then he gets into so much debt, in large part because he keeps going all in, that he winds up, that's the environment he wants to work in. That is not the environment he gets to work in for almost two decades because he's got to crawl out of this massive a massive financial hole that he digs him digs for himself so i think there's just a huge lesson it's like don't risk everything where you get in a point where you can't actually

Starting point is 00:36:16 build the kind of work environment that you want to work in that you're not going to get that time back he's not going to get the decade back or the 10 or 20 years back. And what I started the podcast with where he's like, yeah, but the movies in the 70s when I was, you know, when I was actually making movies I wanted to make were my best work. I'm not saying the movies I made in the 80s and 90s should be included on the top list of 100 best films because I was doing them for the money because I had to. So that's a negative idea from Coppola this is a positive idea this is this advice that he's going to give George Lucas here becomes really important in George Lucas's career it's talked about in his biography he's just like I hate writing but I just sit down Lucas saying this but I just sit down and make myself do it because he knows like it's going to give him the control of the entire story and this is so he uses that for Star Wars

Starting point is 00:37:03 this is way before Star Wars. So it says, Lucas was a reluctant screenwriter and he needed a nudge from Coppola to get rolling on a script. Francis forced me to write this screenplay. I wanted somebody else to do it, but he said, look, if you're going to become a good director, you're going to have to learn to become a writer. So that advice is really, really important in George Lucas's future career. So this new company that Lucas and Coppola put together, they're like, oh, we're going to start this alternative studio. Coppola is really in charge and he's really not good with money. Lucas talks about that later on. So I skipped over a lot of it. It falls apart. And really,

Starting point is 00:37:43 the lesson is like, you just have to control the money or you don't have control. And Coppola needed profitable films to keep his company alive. And if you're not really sure how much you're spending, there's no cost controls whatsoever. Like one or two flops and you're completely out of business. That's what happens here. The end of the Warner Brothers-American-Zotro relationship came on November 19, 1970, forever known as Black Thursday. Coppola appeared before the executives in a last-ditch attempt to market his company's future prospects. Unfortunately, Coppola had grossly underestimated the company's position,

Starting point is 00:38:15 and by the time the meeting had ended, the studio not only rejected all of his ideas, it had severed its agreement with Coppola and demanded repayment of its loan. To Coppola is 31 years old at this point in the story. And like most things in life, it's not very few things are all negative or all positive. So if it wasn't for the fact that now he's his company blew up, he is in a dire financial situation, he's got to take the opportunities that are presented to himself. So what I'm about to read to you is that at his absolute lowest point comes his greatest opportunity. And this opportunity came, there's another lesson embedded in this paragraph I'm about to read to you, this opportunity came because he was talented at something adjacent to directing, something adjacent to what he actually wanted to do.

Starting point is 00:39:10 He may never have gotten the chance to be a director again if he wasn't a great screenwriter. That's a crazy note, but it's true. And so it says, just when things seemed bleakest, Coppola received a call from Paramount. The studio wanted the writer of Patton to direct one of its upcoming features, a low-budget adaptation of a current best-selling book, a gangster novel called The Godfather. Coppola read a portion of the book and hated it. And when Paramount called with its offer, he did what any broke and down-on-his-luck director would have done if offered a high-visibility, high, high paying project. He turned it down. So now we get into my favorite part of the book to read about because The Godfather 1 and 2 are two of my favorite movies

Starting point is 00:39:56 of all time. And I should tell you the way the book is structured. So we go over his early life. But once we get into this part of the book, from here for the next like 350 pages, every chapter is a movie. And you think of every chapter. And some chapters, like I read 100 pages on Apocalypse Now. And it's just how crazy that movie was to make. But the way I would think about this book is like every chapter, because I think of like these movies are like little independent companies. And what's interesting is like you see the formation of the idea, the beginning the movie figuring out what the script is what the product is who you're gonna who you're gonna hire to help like the actors and all the crew and not only that like the the varying levels of financial

Starting point is 00:40:33 performance that you can have so if you think about the variance between financial performance and movies is just spectacular like it's it's it's really insane to contemplate so the godfather winds up having a cost about six million, let's say six or seven million dollars to make. It makes almost three hundred million dollars. So as a founder, imagine if like that was just your economic outcome for your entire life. You started a company that cost six million dollars and you end up making three hundred. Right. You would obviously know on a movie the money goes to many different sources. But think about it from like a founder's perspective. That's a fantastic outcome. but his next movie costs 1.6 million to make only brings

Starting point is 00:41:09 in 4.4 not a bad outcome still profitable then he has another movie where the budget's 13 million this is godfather 2 brings in about anywhere between 50 and 100 million so he's all these hits this is and then what gets him into trouble though is the movies that come after this it's and i'll go i'll tell you more detail in a minute about this. But, like, one movie in particular winds up, he has devastating economic outcomes that haunt him for, like, 10 to 15 years. It's called, this movie called One from the Heart. It had a budget, so a cost of $26 million, but then it only brought in $600,000. Imagine funding a company with $26 million and only brought in $600,000. Imagine funding a company with $26 million and it

Starting point is 00:41:48 brings in $600,000. Then he does another movie that had a budget of $58 million. Okay, let's call it $60 million. And it brought in $25 million. So it doesn't take long to have a couple of these gigantic flops to permanently erase any positive financial outcome that you had previously. And so that is really how the book is set up. It's every chapter is a movie, sometimes one or two or three chapters. And you really think of them as as little companies, little startups. Okay, so let's go to the Godfather. It says, so he's going to wind up the Godfather was a book, best selling book before it was a movie. So he's going to wind up teaming up with the author, which is this guy named Mario Puzo. And this is just a great line from Mario Puzo.

Starting point is 00:42:28 It says, the Godfather was really, to me, a family novel more than a crime novel. I've seen interviews with George Lucas. He said the same thing about Star Wars. He's like, this is a family opera. It just so happens to be set in space and be science fiction, but it's really about family, which is really interesting how most people again you think godfather you think of mafia people getting killed all this crazy stuff and the actual creator is like no no it's it's really a family novel it's what's happening to one family that just happens to be a crime family and so coppola and puso go into the the characters are what really pushes that first godfather film. So it starts with Marlon Brando.

Starting point is 00:43:05 And I actually heard in that interview with Coppola, he said that Marlon Brando was a great actor, but also a great man. And the way he thought about life was extremely unique. He said he was, this is Coppola describing Brando, who passed away a few years ago. He says like, he was a genius. He was an extraordinary man. He just happened to work in a different way. So this is about the character that Brando plays. So it says he had learned the laws of the street and the laws of business. By acting as a benefactor to the powerless people in his neighborhood, young Vito Corleone rose in stature, gaining influence and respect that he could parlay into a lucrative business during the prohibition during prohibition when he bootlegged liquor and provided a protection service for the small speakeasies run by the families and the businesses around him and there's just so many lessons in

Starting point is 00:43:55 this movie and in this chapter and so that he's going to break down there's really just lessons in in the Corleone siblings if you really think about this. So one of the big lessons I took, because I would watch this movie when I was like a kid, way younger than I would, like younger than my daughter is now, and I wouldn't let her watch the movie. But it's really on one of the main lessons, it's on the importance of temperament and self-control, which is not at all very different from what Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett preach, the importance of not only knowing how to act, but having the self-control and the discipline and the temperament, having that right alignment to actually go after your goals, which in the case of the Corleone siblings, they didn't have. So it says Vito's oldest son, Santino, Sonny, is an intelligent, generous, and fearless,

Starting point is 00:44:41 but his hothead disposition will prohibit him from ever taking over the reins of the family business. And it's what gets him killed. If you've seen the movie, people that can't control their anger, can't control their emotions. They're very easy to be controlled by other people. So you either control your emotions or other people are going to control you. And so he was set up to be murdered because they knew, hey, they set him up through his sister. They knew his sister's husband had hit his sonny's sister before. There's a scene in the movie that takes place before he dies where he catches him. Sonny beats the living hell out of him and says, if you ever touch my sister again, I'll kill you.

Starting point is 00:45:18 So that brother-in-law winds up conspiring with the Vito and the enemies of the Corleone family. They wind up, hey, if you hit his sister, you beat up his sister, you know exactly how he's going to react. And so they set that trap. And they essentially made, when you can't control your emotions, you become extremely predictable. And if you're extremely predictable, people can trap you. And that's exactly what they did to Sonny.

Starting point is 00:45:37 They knew how he'd act. They knew where he was going to be. And they wound up setting up and killing him. So really on the importance of temperament and self-control and then you have second son Fredo which is just like this kind of like pathetic weak person and so you see this this character on the screen and you can't help but react like I whatever that guy is I want to be the opposite of that so it says the second son Fredo lacks the intestinal fortitude to make and back tough decisions so that that leaves only one son. Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, obviously is the most evident and qualified choice to succeed Vito

Starting point is 00:46:11 as the head of the family. He possesses all the quiet force and intelligence of his great father and the born instinct to act in such a way that men had no recourse but to respect him. So in other words, he's got the combination of traits that his other brothers don't have. He has intelligence and self-discipline. And that's a really great way to think about it. He acts in a way that you have no choice but to respect him. Coppola still has not agreed to direct. What the author is doing right now is just breaking down the plot.

Starting point is 00:46:40 So I'm just pulling out some lessons I feel that are in the book from the movie. And what Vito, so eventually Michael agrees, okay, I'm going to, like, he has no choice when they try to kill his father. He did not plan on being in the family, the crime business, right? And so what's happening here, let me read this to you, and then I'll tell you what I think about it. So it says, Vito Corleone, which is the Don at the time, formally retires as the head of the family. He counsels his son at every turn, knowing full well that Michael's plans will destroy the truths that he so carefully established a couple years earlier. And so he's counseling and schooling his son on what's to come. If you really think about that, that is exactly what we are doing right now.

Starting point is 00:47:22 When you study the life stories of people, especially great people that came before you, you constantly are able to see, okay, they made this decision here. That was a good decision. I want to copy that. They failed to make the right decision here. That's a mistake. Let's avoid that. In many cases, the people we study are dead, right? We can't talk to them, but they can still counsel us through their life stories. So where we are in the plot this is exactly what the father is doing for the son so it says during that period the family suffered horrible losses

Starting point is 00:47:50 both business and personal meaning sonny died they're at war with other families there people are getting arrested all kinds of stuff but as feto himself is presently quick to admit his heart is no longer in the family's day-to-day operations he realizes that the end is coming soon his literally his life is he's old and he and he dies while playing in the garden with his grandson but only after he taught michael everything he needs to know to elevate the family back to its former prominence so think about how many freaking autobiographies that you and I have studied on this podcast where they don't write it till they're 70, 80, 85. He dies, but only after he taught you and I everything he needs to know to elevate your family back to its prominence. And so after a few weeks of being pitched on this idea Coppola makes the best decision he makes his

Starting point is 00:48:45 entire life as a few weeks passed Coppola began to reconsider his stance he owned Warner he owed Warner Brothers three hundred thousand dollars with no immediate directing or screenwriting offers on his desk Coppola consulted his family and colleagues for their thoughts George Lucas was perhaps most direct in his assessment of the situation. Take it, he advised Coppola. We're broke. Let me just pause there. That's another great thing I love about biographies. Imagine George Lucas being broke.

Starting point is 00:49:14 At one time in his life, he did not have $5 billion, $6 billion, whatever he has today. He's like, we got to do this, dude. We're broke. Coppola heeded the advice he got 150 000 salary plus six percent of the picture's net profits and so now we get a great description of how coppola works he's trying to create the godfather filming progressed slowly greatly due to coppola's deliberate methodical work habits the director made a practice of ordering numerous takes of individual scenes, many requiring lengthy setup times before they could be reshot.

Starting point is 00:49:48 At an estimated cost of $40,000 per day, delays exacted their own high price. Coppola, although far from oblivious of his running-behind schedule, continued at his own pace. Excellence, he said, took time and patience. patience and on every film he's got a battle the self-doubt the anxiety the highs and lows and godfather's no exception anxiety left him irritable and restless so much so that less than a month into filming he requested sleeping pills from the company physician nothing about the movie was predictable a good day of shooting would more often than not be followed by a dreadful one and a lot of the

Starting point is 00:50:32 stress is because he's got to take this job he needs the money he does not have complete control of the picture he's got the people obviously financing the movie telling him all their different opinions and so all the stress boils over he said in that interview that I watched when he was a much older man that he almost got fired like five or six times on this movie, and it says, Enraged, Coppola threw his hands in the air. Fuck this picture, he bellowed. I've directed five fucking movies without anybody telling me how to do it.

Starting point is 00:50:56 I want to make the fucking shot now, and we will, even if the fucking director of photography has to be thrown off the picture. Then he storms off the picture. And then he storms off the set, goes to his office. They hear a huge bang and they said maybe he shot himself. They thought he killed himself. He just wound up breaking his door into pieces and just started beating up on his door. So it just gives you an idea of the stress, the kind of stress that he's under.

Starting point is 00:51:23 And then there's just two lines that are just absolutely remarkable. Because think about this. This movie is still being enjoyed 50 years later.'s an example of that famous steve jobs quote that said that why he liked working on pixar so much is because good storytelling lasts for decades he's like the computer i make now is going to be obsolete three three years from now but if we get this right these movies are going to be watched you know by by your kids kids so he says why he believed that he was in the process of making a memorable movie he wondered if it was worth the effort and then the second line is something he talks about over and over again the benefit of struggle and just discomfort and he says even in the vortex of of the storm some outstanding work

Starting point is 00:52:00 was being accomplished something strong and powerful was being forged in struggle. And so we go back to this main theme of Coppola's work, that you can understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. Right before Vito dies, he's counseling. It's one of the best scenes in the movie because the father gives the son advice that saves his life. And so right before he dies dies there's a scene where they're outside and marlon brando is talking to al pacino and he says this was a critical moment in the film in which the baton was being passed from the father to the son in addition it was revealing the father's love for his youngest son as well as his regrets for getting Michael involved in the family activities.

Starting point is 00:52:51 Throughout the film, Vito Corleone had shown a rough-honed, old-world wisdom, the kind gained through experience rather than from a textbook. And so to me, again, that is just one of the best scenes because the father is giving the son advice that saves his life he says i spent this what veto tells michael and one of the things he says but he says i spent my life trying not to be careless fredo was careless sunny was careless veto and michael were not careless and so as i'm reading this book and going through this i i had a lot of thoughts. Like I think of – like it's influencing my own work. Like I think of – so I had something – I had somebody that's really, really smart that listens to the podcast text me something that I thought was interesting. And it's that if you know what people read, you know who they are. I'm thinking about preparing for the podcast. It's like I think of my son listening to these podcasts,

Starting point is 00:53:47 and I try to find the lessons in these books that will help his life. And I think by him realizing like this is what my dad read, and this is what he thought was important in these books. It's almost like a blueprint I can leave for him that he can listen to long after I'm gone. And so in addition to like the, the, just the, the knowledge that's being transferred by reading by the, by reading a biography to the reader, right. And that knowledge transfer is important, but what I think makes it stick even more is this like emotional rollercoaster that you go on. Like when I'm reading about Francis and his father, and when I'm reading about Vito and Michael, I'm thinking

Starting point is 00:54:25 about my relationship with my father. And then I'm thinking about my relationship with my son. Like these are just deep, fundamentally human experiences that we can all relate to. It's just extremely, extremely powerful because I know at one point, like I won't be around to talk to anymore, but if I can preserve these recordings, I can still speak to him. We can still have conversations. And I hope and I pray that these conversations are valuable, that they light the path in front of him. So The Godfather winds up being, at the time,

Starting point is 00:54:58 the most successful movie of all time. They go back and forth. Steven Spielberg gets it. Lucas gets that title. But it was extremely, it completely changed his career forever. This is Lucas on the power of charisma. I mentioned this earlier. Francis has charisma beyond logic, Lucas said. I can see what kind of men the great Caesars in history were. The one reason I tolerate as much as I do from Francis is I'm fascinated by how he works and why people follow him so blindly what the two had in common and

Starting point is 00:55:25 there's a lot a large part of what i was reading this book is like thinking comparing contrasting francis's approach to work and lucas's and the great thing is like there's really no right answer i think you have to be who you are but for me it's clearly it's like i want to be more like lucas although i do deeply appreciate the total human that coppola is. What the two had in common was their unstinting creative vision, which they refused to compromise. Even in showdowns with corporate officials, both were pragmatic in as much as they recognized the need to balance art with commerce. Yet neither would sacrifice vision for the sake of the dollar. And one of the things I admired most about coppola is his loyalty to lucas and so he winds up having um he winds up helping uh lucas get american graffiti which is

Starting point is 00:56:13 like first lucas's first hit i think the movie cost it was one of the highest return on investments in movie history i want to say it cost like a million dollars and they made like 60 million on it it was something crazy like that but i'm going to read you like his fierce loyalty and protection of Lucas. And I wrote, if you have a friend like this, hold on to them. So they're at a screening for American Graffiti. He says, the audience and studio responses could not have been more different. The audience loved the picture. And when the theater lights went on after the screening, people stood up and applauded.

Starting point is 00:56:42 Their reaction, however, was of no encouragement to Universal universal so that's the studio they're working with this guy executive named ned ned we'll just call him ned i don't know how to pronounce his name confronting coppola and lucas in the theater ned made his feelings known you boys let me down he said i went to bat for you and you let me down as lucas looked on in stunned disbelief coppola launched an attack that has become legendary in Hollywood film circles. "'You should get on your knees and thank George for saving your ass,' he roared. "'This kid has killed himself to make the movie for you, and he brought it in on time and on schedule.

Starting point is 00:57:17 The least you can do is thank him for doing that.'" The outburst drew the attention of dozens of people still inside the theater. Coppola continued his tirade, berating Ned's judgment and insensitivity and backing his old protege in a passionate defense rarely seen beyond closed studio doors. This movie is going to be a hit, he shouted. The audience loved the movie. I saw it with my own eyes. Then, in a grandstand gesture that would have people talking for years to come,

Starting point is 00:57:46 Coppola fumbled around for an imaginary checkbook. If the company didn't like Lucas's picture, he would be happy to take it off their hands right then and there. And so the money he makes off Godfather, he winds up making a lot of investments. And I think one of the lessons from Francis is that if he would just focus, he buys all these things that just don't make sense but then again it's not it's not clear cut because like he'll buy a radio station doesn't work out he buys a magazine doesn't work out but he also

Starting point is 00:58:12 his greatest investment ever made was his estate in napa valley francis said i just read an interview with him in gq uh that he made way more money off of wine than he ever did off the movie business. And so again, it's not clear cut, but it's just like, what is going on here? It says, barring against his godfather two prophets, he purchased KMPX FM, one of San Francisco's premier underground rock stations. Although the move might not have been the best investment, it was consistent with his recent interest in purchasing media and entertainment properties so he buys radio stations magazines and then on the next page i write what in the world

Starting point is 00:58:51 he's in the middle of like this fantastic run and he buys a magazine he decides you know what i gotta show up every day and so he takes a break from movie making movies and it's just it's called city magazine or city san francisco city magazine something like that and so says coppola began to report to the magazine offices every day feeling that he needed to take drastic measures to protect his investment and turn the magazine around he fired the entire staff in the months to come he would try anything to get the magazine back on its feet he hired new editors-in-chief engaged in expensive ad campaigns and changed the format of the publication.

Starting point is 00:59:25 Nothing worked. Nothing worked. The magazine continued to lose large sums of money. But at this very same time that he's doing all these investments that seem really bad, he makes his life's best investment. Using the earnings from his Godfather films, Coppola purchased a 1,700-acre estate in California's Napa Valley. And then we get to this unbelievably large part of the book about Apocalypse Now and just the struggle it was to make this movie. And you see that even massive success is not going to keep trouble away.

Starting point is 01:00:02 In large part, fortune is transitory, right? So he's having a hard time. No one wants to make the picture. No one wants to work on the picture. And this is coming after he's won all these Academy Awards. So he's kind of flipping out. And it says, One day in the late fall of 1975,

Starting point is 01:00:17 Francis Ford Coppola snatched up his five Academy Awards statuettes, marched them to the window of his estate, and flung them into the courtyard, smashing four of them to pieces. As far as he was concerned, all of his past success meant nothing if he couldn't get his next picture off the ground. And it was beginning to look that way. And I heard Elon Musk say one time that after the success of the Model S, they started the Model X, and instead of building on what they'd already learned, they decided to try, like, create an entirely new platform.

Starting point is 01:00:48 And he said it was an exercise in hubris. And I think to some degree, the creation of Apocalypse Now was the same thing. This just gives you an idea. From the onset of the scheduled five-month shoot, the Philippines presented a full slate of problems, trying to make a movie under strange and occasionally dangerous working conditions that included oppressive heat constant dampness guerrilla warfare being waged nearby poisonous snakes an assortment of insects and a hurricane and so i'm just going to give you a summary because this section is so long and so detailed of the things that Francis, the effect this film had on him.

Starting point is 01:01:28 Constant anxiety, weight loss, trouble sleeping, potential financial ruin because he's essentially put up all his assets as collateral. Constant self-doubt, almost the destruction of his marriage because he winds up having an affair on set with one of his employees. And I really think the way to think about the struggle that Francis had is what this quote from George Lucas that I thought of. And he talks about that when you're addicted to making movies, that it's painful but satisfying. And so Lucas said, you couldn't pay me enough money to go through what you have to go through to make a movie. It's excruciating. It's horrible. You you get physically sick i get a very bad cough and cold whenever i direct i don't know whether it's psychosomatic or not you feel terrible there is

Starting point is 01:02:11 an immense amount of pressure and emotional pain but i do it anyway and i really love to do it it's like climbing a mountain and so he has multiple like near emotional and nervous breakdowns while he's doing this i said it's over 100 pages i'm the only left myself on this page 40 pages of problems and misery so i'm 40 pages and i didn't know it's gonna be 100 pages and it says coppola was at a crossroads he had mortgaged everything he had literally and figuratively on a picture he was no longer certain he could deliver one evening he climbed on a lighting scaffold and lay on the platform in the rain, unable and unwilling to go on. Hundreds of crew members were waiting for him on the set, but he had nothing to shoot. He laid on the platform in the rain,

Starting point is 01:02:59 totally miserable. And the important point, and the reason I wanted to pull that out is because Apocalypse Now is considered by a lot of people a masterpiece. It's usually on the list of 100 greatest movies. It also was a monumental financial success, cost about $30 million to make, and brought in somewhere between $100 and $150 million. So Coppola had to go through all this just to get on the other side of what he didn't know at the time was going to end up being a masterpiece and something extremely financially successful. Martin Sheen, if you've seen the movie, is one of the main characters. And this is what he said about working for Francis this time. I have a lot of mixed feelings about Francis. I'm very fond of him personally. The

Starting point is 01:03:36 thing I love about him most is that he never, that he never, like a good general, asked you to do anything he wouldn't do. He was right there with us lived there in shit and mud up to his ass suffered the same diseases ate the same food i don't think he realizes how tough he is to work for god is he tough but i will sail with that son of a bitch anytime and i'm just going to spend a little bit more time on this because i really think and i think francis might agree even that this is really the high watermark of his career and so from here he winds the next movie he's the one that almost bankrupts him but as far as not only like critical acclaim but financial performance like this is the peak of his career and so that's why the epilogue starts was like what happened in

Starting point is 01:04:20 the 70s like and I think when I when I study the life of of coppola i'm like okay i already have an inclination towards consistency over intensity and reading these stories just pushes me further down the path because he gave so much and he was so intense to finish this movie it's almost like it broke him and so it said his own morale however had hit rock bottom his earlier confidence in the film had again been replaced by despair triggered by sheen's heart attack so martin sheen has a heart attack on set winds up coming back to work two months later so it's remarkable and his own marital difficulties so he's talking about he's fighting with his wife he said something that was interesting in the interview that um let me go back to it he says uh i always had a rule if i was going away for more than 10 days i'd take my kids

Starting point is 01:05:01 out of school and keep them with me. So he loved being around his family. So when he's on a movie, he brings all of his kids and his wife as well. So it says he and Ellie, which is his wife, were fighting all the time. And they were thinking about divorce. Ellie was convinced that her husband had been suffering through a slow but continuous nervous breakdown for the better part of a year. The filming had been going on and on for an unbelievable 200 days. And here they were, still thousands of miles from home, risking everything important for them for a movie that still required more work than either of them wanted to consider. And so there's all this weird behavior that's occurring. And it's prompt.

Starting point is 01:05:41 We found out later on that he's almost like a bipolar, like manic depressive. Which I didn't like. Now, you know, halfway through the book or whatever it is that you realize a lot of his behavior can be explained by that, like these wild swings and these like manic episodes that I didn't know that he was diagnosed for until I got to that part of the book. But says the film had taken two hundred and thirty eight days to shoot at a cost of about twenty seven million dollars, leaving the cast and crew totally blown out from the ordeal and prompting Coppola to remark that he had never seen so many people happy to be unemployed he would have never guessed that another two years would pass before his movie would hit the big screen and so while the movie

Starting point is 01:06:15 was being made his wife is making she's writing a book and I think it turns into a documentary it's called notes and so we get to see a lot of like behind the scenes because of this. And so it says and really like she wrote as a diary and then turned it into a book. And I think a documentary, as she noted in her diary, part of part of her almost wanted her husband to fail. With wealth and fame came numerous complications that Ellie, as a wife and mother, would have preferred to avoid. She wasn't thrilled by all the large parties and gatherings that they had to attend, where she was expected to play the role of a famous filmmaker's spouse. She hated even more the lack of privacy that she had around her own home, which always seemed to be overrun with her husband's associates. A part of her yearned for the old days, when Francis was young and unknown

Starting point is 01:06:56 and laboring for footing in the film industry, when the simpler life had been, in some respects, a happier one. At the bottom line, she said, I always felt that Francis was very talented and very intelligent. And if he lost one fortune, he had the potential to create another. And so he's completely off balance. They get back to San Francisco, they have to edit the film. And this is when, well, we find out on the street too. He broke down and told his wife about the affair. He was crying as he spoke. Coppola tried to explain how he could love two women. So he's telling his wife that he loves

Starting point is 01:07:31 his mistress. Think about what crazy this is. That he could love two women, his wife and his mistress, and how he did not want to abandon either. Each, he said, represented a different side to him. There was no question that he was different from the man he had been before he started the movie this is that question like what happened to francis ford coppola in the 70s i think apocalypse now in large part broke him i think he would have been better off chasing his real dream like doing small movies because he talks about in the book at length like he almost him lucas and spielbergberg created the importance of like the blockbuster. And then you raise the bar so high that nothing but a blockbuster is acceptable.

Starting point is 01:08:10 And so in that GQ article, he talks about, you know, 50 years or 30 years later, you know, Hollywood makes trash. He's been saying this for years. Like they just do sequels. They do all this like comic book stuff. And that's why he wants to bet his entire fortune 83 on this movie he's working on called metropolis that he's been talking about for like 30 years but this idea is just like there was some kind of when you're reading the story it's like okay there is some if you don't have like this fundamental alignment between who you are and the work you do and how you do that work there's gonna be some kind of level of misery and unhappiness if you don't resolve that conflict is

Starting point is 01:08:41 really what i'm trying to think of what i was thinking a lot about a lot as I went through this book just saying there's no question he was different from the man he'd been before I started the movie he had been recently diagnosed as manic depressive and given a prescription for lithium which Francis and his wife hope would stabilize his fluctuating moods that was a low point for our lives he said of the apocalypse period and so he's trying to put it all together he needs to get it out because if he doesn't get out he could be financially ruined and he's like i might die doing this i've got to do this picture he confided in john i consider it the most important picture i will ever make if i die making it you take over if you die george lucas will take over i'm not laughing at his pain but like like the, it's not like, imagine being in a situation,

Starting point is 01:09:27 right? It's going to be very serious to you, but like this levels, like, okay, this, this, this, this movie is so out of control that not only will it kill me, it'll kill the person that replaces me. So you need another backup. It's just, it's just a wild, wild thing. And so we go back to this publication that's like airing out you know for his wife's a very private person now she's going to air out the fact that we're struggling

Starting point is 01:09:50 financially he's cheating on me and just imagine being like these are people right we can't ever lose track like they're human beings they have the same desires and feelings and experiences that you and i do and just like how important it is for us, the outcome of our lives, like the outcome of their lives is so important too. It's not just words and a page, right? A few weeks before the release of Apocrypha Now, his wife published Notes, her diary of making the movie. The diary originally intended as notes for a documentary started out as a collection of observations about the process of filmmaking. But as the months dragged on and the Coppola's marriage began to show the strain brought on by the difficulties with the film and Francis's philandering,

Starting point is 01:10:28 the notes took on a much more personal dimension. The book became a highly personal report on the difficulties of being Mrs. Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola was unhappy about the prospects of having some of the most delicate aspects of his personal life aired in public. Yet after hearing Ellie read passages from the diary to him, he felt it might be an education to those interested in the difficulties of making a film on location. He was in no position to do much but watch the book go into circulation, then suffer through any resulting embarrassment and live with the old axiom that any publicity is good publicity, a point that one book critic underscored when he noted that reading notes made me want to see his movie. Notes would become valuable for precisely the reason that Coppola predicted when he first heard selections read aloud to him. Movie goers

Starting point is 01:11:20 rarely had the opportunity to see how a film was actually made. Shot out of sequence, full of blunders and false starts. Essentially what we're doing when you read a biography, right? You're seeing all the stuff that no one's going to talk about in interviews. See how a film was actually made. It was shot out of sequence, full of blunders and false starts, and weighed down by logistical hassles. Notes supplied an insider's view of the creation of a controversial masterpiece, and it's equally troubled and very human director. That's what I was trying to tell you at the very beginning of the podcast. Like, I think I used the word messy. It's like he's capable of creating

Starting point is 01:11:57 masterpieces. But what's so fascinating reading the book is that you see he's troubled and very human just like you and just like I and part of that being human is this is how he felt at the high watermark of his career movie comes out he was heartened by the film's success at the box office but as but he was concerned with the public's response to the movie like the the critics, was largely divided. Half the people thought it was a masterpiece, he said, and half the people thought it was a piece of shit. Apocalypse Now would be regarded as one of the finest movies ever made, one of Coppola's greatest achievements, but in the immediate aftermath of making the film, Coppola was exhausted and more than a touch bitter.

Starting point is 01:12:42 Sometimes I think, why don't I just make my wine, do some dumbbell movie every two years, and take trips to Europe with my wife and kids, he said. I've had it in terms of going to incredible extremes, half blowing my personal life up just to make a movie. I'm always going to bed in a cold sweat. Will the star do this picture picture how am i going to film the scene will they like it i know that feeling translates into your insides i know i'm losing years off of my life and when they go into he takes a couple years off when he goes into his next movie this is the one where he should really destroys him financially and alters his career. And really, when you think about this, it's like to thrive, you must first survive. And so Lucas chooses the better path. They start the

Starting point is 01:13:31 chapter with two quotes, one from Coppola, one from Lucas, and we see the difference. Coppola first. It's like I'm at a poker table with five guys, and they're all betting $2,000 or $3,000 a hand. And I've got 87 cents in front of me. So I'm always having to take off my shirt and bet my pants because I want to be in the game. I want to play. And Lucas says, Francis calls me a 70-year-old kid, which means that I play it very, very safe.

Starting point is 01:13:58 I'm very much a build a concrete foundation and build a house of bricks and don't go higher than you know you can support person and francis is the opposite francis is build this sandcastle up here and tell everybody what it is and somehow or other through the whole concept of creating dreams they'll come true and so i'm skipping over all the details and just giving you the punch line and if it's the fact that good fortune is transitory coppola was reaching the end game and end game portion of his chess match with the major studios and like a chess player chess player unwilling to concede defeat he was praying for what amounted to a draw he didn't have the money to make he didn't even have the money to

Starting point is 01:14:38 make the trailers to advertise the film this is where he went all in on and it's the one that costs 26 million and makes less than $700,000. He was dodging bad press from every direction. Both the bank and Jack Singer, which is a private investor, were demanding payments on their loans. Limited release could at least generate revenue and further interest in the film. This agreement illustrated how far Coppola's stock had fallen. It wouldn't have been long ago when Coppola might have been felt insulted by the studio's offer. He had gambled and lost on one of the biggest flops in motion picture history. His properties were not enough

Starting point is 01:15:16 to save his studio. He formally announced that he was placing the studio up for sale. And this has lasting effects. He goes bankrupt. Sometimes it's technically, sometimes it's not. He got close, but they agreed not to formalize proceedings or he tried to work out a deal. But essentially, he just crapped out, had a negative net worth. But he winds up going bankrupt three times in nine years. And the crazy thing is that this is happening after his three greatest successes. So that is the cautionary tale aspect of this.

Starting point is 01:15:49 Godfather, Godfather 2, Apocalypse Now, Academy Awards, millions and millions of dollars. And that's not enough to save yourself from disaster if you're not careful. So that was something dumb that he did, but this is something smart that he did but this is something smart that he did immediately after this is happening it's going to take a while right to go through courts to figure out who owes what who owes you know what to this person what can we

Starting point is 01:16:14 settle on this goes on for a decade immediately immediately after one from the heart which is the movie that destroys him he jumps right back in coppola concluded he was best off by making another film as quickly as possible so he winds up getting two studios to hire him this is what he talks about when he has to become quote-unquote a director from high for hire and so he does the outsiders which is massively financially successful it costs about 10 million to make and makes like over 30 million dollars so at least it's not in the um in the red and then that same year he does his movie this movie called rumble fish which wasn't as successful so at least it's not in the um in the red and then that same year he does his movie this movie called rumble fish which wasn't as successful but at least didn't lose a bunch of money but then he does the cotton club and essentially for the next like decade

Starting point is 01:16:54 or so he's higher he's not taking on the financial risk for his movies he's being hired and and paid to do it but main takeaway for me was okay i had a disaster can't do anything about the past immediately jump back on the horse get back into directing get back into writing scriptures you have to do do whatever you have to do to immediately start digging yourself out of the hole you just put your put yourself in and that is tied into what I think one of his other fantastic traits is that he just never gives up and he knows he doesn't give up. So he's going to reference this 1960s samurai film. And he says, I'm like the character in Yojimbo.

Starting point is 01:17:28 He's beaten. He's lost everything. So he lies low and gathers his strength until he's able to be a warrior again. And so even though his filmmaking has drastically slowed as he aged, he's still working on projects. He's still working on films even to this day. He just never, ever, ever gives up. He's also aware. He knows why he's doing what he's doing and it's really important and really the lesson is like this is what happens when you combine too much leverage with a lack of financial discipline you're going to have to work on things that you don't want to work on and

Starting point is 01:17:56 it's got to be essentially especially humbling considering that this is happening a decade after some of you know creating some of the greatest films ever been made. And so he's talking about this, he had to take this, this, this movie that he didn't really want to do, but winds up being a huge commercial success. It's called Peggy Sue Got Married. And so he says, Peggy Sue was not the kind of film I normally would want to do, he admitted. The nature of my debts is that I have to make gigantic payments in March of millions of dollars. And so when the time starts getting closer to the payment, I look around and see what I should do. That project was ready to go. The project that was ready to go and that

Starting point is 01:18:36 wanted me was Peggy Sue. And so this theme of this embarrassment of he's a prideful man and he's embarrassed by what's happened to him is repeated a lot i'm just going to read one example to you coppola hated being in debt not just because it forced him into a kind of hollywood servitude which it definitely did but also because as a proud man he disliked the effect that all the publicity about his money problems had had on his reputation and so i think at this point he's about 50 million dollars in debt and again they constantly the author constantly compares and contrasts George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas is wealthy and in complete control. Coppola is broke and having to accept work he doesn't want.

Starting point is 01:19:15 The success of American Graffiti and the subsequent Coppola-Lucas disputes over the film represented a fork in the road. They used to be partners is what they're talking about. And the two filmmakers, so different in personalities and goals had gone their separate ways so that's another thing think about like they both do the same job quote-unquote but that you like you imbibe the way you work with your personality and your goals i think that's you have to know who you are lucas knew who he was copeland who he was he says listen i understand i had i i bet everything and didn't turn out. And he says, I would do it again because that's just who I am.

Starting point is 01:19:49 I have to push the limits. So it's not really criticizing him. It's like, this is who I am. And I accept like the results of my actions. Star Wars had become the most popular movie of its time, making Lucas as wealthy as he could ever hope to be, affording him the opportunity to establish his own filmmaking facility. He and Steven Spielberg were now among the most powerful men in the film industry.

Starting point is 01:20:07 Lucas had warned Coppola of the follies of trying to take on the old system by setting up a studio in Hollywood. But Coppola had refused to listen. As a result, the Hollywood magazines would fill their pages with accounts of Coppola's sinking fortunes while reporting Lucas's latest triumph. Now there's one movie that Francis Ford Coppola has no recollection of making and that is a movie that he was filming in 1986-1987 it's called Gardens of Stone and this devastating devastating

Starting point is 01:20:43 point in his life is why he doesn't remember that movie. On Monday, May 26, with production shut down to celebrate Memorial Day, his son Gio Coppola, his girlfriend, and Griffin O'Neill rented a speedboat for an outing on the South River near Annapolis. O'Neill had a troubled past, including a year of drug rehab. Only a few days earlier, on May 23, O'Neill had a troubled past, including a year of drug rehab. Only a few days earlier, on May 23rd, O'Neill had a brush with the law when he was stopped at 1.30 a.m. for racing his car. He was charged with reckless driving, driving without a license, and carrying a concealed weapon. Three days later, on May 26th, is when O'Neill is going to meet up with Francis's son and Francis's son's girlfriend and they're

Starting point is 01:21:25 going to rent this boat so it says after lunch that included several glasses of wine O'Neill and Coppola along with O'Neill's girlfriend or excuse me Coppola's girlfriend took the speedboat out on the river with O'Neill driving his girl Della Fontaine is her name the girlfriend was nearly three months pregnant with Coppola's child, though his family was unaware of it at the time. She was frightened by what she felt was the reckless boating on O'Neill's part, and after a short time on the river, she was dropped on shore. O'Neill and Coppola then headed back out on the water.

Starting point is 01:22:05 A few hours later, O'Neill tried to steer his boat between two other craft on the lake. What he did not see until it was too late was that one of the boats was disabled and being towed by the other craft. The tow line struck Gio, which is Coppola's son, and knocked him off his feet, his head hitting the back of the boat with tremendous force. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. His death attributed to massive head injuries. O'Neill, who suffered only minor injuries, panicked when asked about the accident, telling police that Gio had been driving the boat when they struck the tow line. I didn't want to have to tell his mother, O'Neill would later say of his lie. I didn't want to have to carry that burden, which I will have to do for the rest of my life. At 22, Gio Carlo Coppola, son and brother, was dead. I realized that no matter what happened, I had lost, Francis said.

Starting point is 01:23:08 No matter what happened, it would always be incomplete. I could have all of my fondest dreams come true, and have my dream of dreams of dreams, and even if I did get it, I lost already. There was no way I could ever have a complete experience because there will always be part of me missing. I was in a dream or a nightmare. I didn't know what to do. I dreaded the nights and specifically the morning most of all because what had happened would always hit me anew in the morning. It went on like that for over seven years, until I could wake up and that wouldn't be the first thought that hit me.

Starting point is 01:23:57 And that part was absolutely devastating to read. I had tears in my eyes immediately. I put the book down, and my son was napping at the time. I just went and laid and stared at him for a while. I just could not imagine what it's like to have to suffer through that. Like he said, I lost already. Nothing, I'll never be complete again. Gio was like his best friend.

Starting point is 01:24:20 He wound up taking his son out of school early, letting him not go to high school anymore and just becoming his apprentice he they worked together almost every day for years for almost six years up until that point and so i think that's why in the epilogue it talked about like did his son's death have him re prior like reset his priorities in life and i think the answer is clearly has to it has to and so some of that is the fact that um he talks about like what he really wanted to do he just mentions what i'm about to read to you really frequently and people are talking about oh there's francis making investments in uh and wine wine and his n Valley estate, like this is going to wind up just like the magazine and the radio station and all the other stuff.

Starting point is 01:25:11 And so it says Coppola wasn't so sure if the critics were right. His product, meaning his wine, was starting to gain recognition. Coppola dreamed of how much more simple his life might become if he lived at his Napa estate, produced good wine, and made small art films that didn't depend upon huge box office figures to be considered successful. And so he tells us exactly several years later what he wants. I want to be free. I don't want producers around me telling me what to do. The real dream of my life is a place where people can live in peace and create what they want. And another benefit of reading these books is you just see that the fear that you have, it just never goes away. Coppola spent the summer

Starting point is 01:25:58 wrestling with self-doubt and uncertainty that seemed to turn up with each new project. Throughout his career, Coppola had spoken candidly with interviewers about the fears he encountered whenever he was directing a picture. Fear of failure, fear of embarrassing himself, both would act as strong motivators, even though Coppola knew that he was by no means alone in confronting these demons.

Starting point is 01:26:20 These things are common to all artists, he said. The self-doubt, the panic attacks. Go easy on yourself. It is not necessary to suffer. And then we have the older version of Francis Ford Coppola. He's about 60 when the book comes out, giving us advice. He's giving us advice to himself. But it's too late for him to take us on advice.

Starting point is 01:26:41 So we think about he's giving advice to us. All I feel is why didn't someone tell me back in those days when I was so depressed and feeling so untalented? I wish someone had said, you know what? Everyone's going to like you 10 years from now. So go out and have dinner. So it takes about 10 years, but he eventually scratches his way out step by step. He's out of debt. He's wealthy again. He finally gets to a point where he's the most settled that he's been. For all his ambition, he was in no hurry to direct another picture. He spoke once again of taking a sabbatical from filmmaking.

Starting point is 01:27:16 There's no distress for me. For the first time in 30 years, no worries. It's time to rejuvenate myself. I've done one movie after another. Now with the success of Dracula, it has given me and my wife security. We don't have to worry about the future and I'm not worried about covering my ass anymore. I'm totally clear, totally debt-free. I can have much time to rest. Coppola was feeling on the top of his game. His vineyard and chateau had reached a point where the wine production and tourism could support his family. His last three movies had made enough money to lead him to believe that he might finally be able to pursue the personal film he had been promising for so long.

Starting point is 01:27:58 As monumental as some of his failures had been, Coppola was now in the position where he could be philosophical about them. I would say in my career that my failures are among anyone's most interesting failures, he admit, knowing full well that he had given more ink to the press than just about any director in the business. He was always good copy, whether he was standing on the mountaintop planning his flag in another successful endeavor or jumping off the cliff hoping that somehow by some unforeseeable miracle he would beat the odds and survive the fall it was the story of his life and that is where i'll leave it there is so so much more to the story It is an absolutely giant story about one of the best filmmakers to ever do it.

Starting point is 01:28:50 If you want the full story, read the book. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes in your podcast player, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. If you want to support the podcast even more, you can give a gift subscription to a friend or a coworker. That link is down below in the show notes, and it's also available at founderspodcast.com.

Starting point is 01:29:06 That is 242 books down, 1,000 to go. And I'll talk to you again soon.

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Founders - #242 Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life

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