If you stumble, you’ll get crushed” – Weekend
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On April 7, director Francis Ford Coppola, who directed, among other things, the Godfather trilogy and the main anti-war film in the history of cinema, Apocalypse Now, turns 85 years old. For the director’s birthday, we re-read his interview and found out what filming taught him.
1
I’m not at all interested in violence and gangsters. I’m interested in power. Legitimate, constructive, Faustian power.
2
A necessary component of any art is risk. If you don’t take risks, how are you going to create something beautiful that hasn’t been seen before?
3
One day, while filming The Godfather 3, a security guard came to my trailer and said, “John Gotti (Gambino mob boss.— Weekend) here and wants to pay his respects.” And I remember what Mario Puzo said: “Never, never get to know them, don’t date, don’t be friends – because they are very charming.” And I told the guard: “Tell me I’m busy.” And Gotti just left. I think the mafioso is like the vampire from the old stories: he can only enter your life if you invite him to cross the threshold.
4
A film is always a question for me, and I only know the answer when I finish it. But if you tell the producer, “I have a question but no answer,” you won’t get any money, so keep it a secret.
5
When you make a film, you need to find a word, a couple of words that define its theme. I always had these words for my films: in “The Godfather” – continuity, in “The Conversation” – private life, in “Apocalypse” – morality.
6
During filming, the director makes decisions all the time. Is your hair long or short? Dress or pants? With or without a beard? Often you don’t know the answer, but the word you use to describe the film helps you find it.
7
I don’t believe in genres in cinema. I don’t think there is a thriller, a horror film, a love story: everything in life is not like that. Choosing a genre means accepting the rules. But in fact they don’t exist, you install them yourself.
8
Apocalypse Now is definitely a crazy movie that we almost lost the same way Americans lost the Vietnam War.
9
I think it’s better to be too ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in your mediocre endeavors. I was very lucky – I failed my life.
10
Making a movie is like running from a train: if you trip, you’ll get run over.
eleven
Dusan Makaveev taught me the main rule. He said: during filming, choose what turned out best, what was simply the best, and what was good. Put the best at the end, the best at the beginning, and the good in the middle of the film. And it’s actually very clever: the film’s ending costs twice as much as the rest of the material.
12
I know that all the work a person does is about himself, about his life, his understanding of modernity, but I’m embarrassed to be the center of attention. All my life I have been afraid of embarrassing myself in public.
13
I fully admit that every film I make is filled with what I learned from the films of the greats who made them before me.
14
When you find yourself in a corner while filming, it can do a lot of good for the film.
15
During Apocalypse I was absolutely terrified, I was terrified for the entire five months of filming. This is what saved me. I had a rule: if I had to leave for more than 10 days, I would pick up the children from school and drag everyone with me. So the family was with me, and my wife also began filming a documentary about the “Apocalypse.” I came from the set and said: “God, I’m making a terrible movie, this is the worst movie in the world, it’s going to be a complete mess.” I hoped that she would console me, say: “No, honey, it will be wonderful, I believe in you.” Instead, she would say, “Wait, I’ll put a microphone on you. Now say it again.”
16
Everything needs to be looked at in terms of your life expectancy.
17
Good is when everything is in abundance. This is my approach. If I cook, I cook a lot of food, too much. But I recently watched Cecil DeMille’s Cleopatra and noticed how many parts of her story he left out. The art of cinema is to do less. Strive to do less.
18
10 or 15 years after the release of Apocalypse Now, in some English hotel I came across its broadcast. I thought I would only watch the beginning, but I watched the whole film. He turned out to be not as crazy as I thought. In some ways, it expanded a little on what people could live with in cinema.
19
It’s dangerous to try to compete with your younger self. The best thing to do is to start over.
20
In the end, all cinema is an attempt to recognize oneself. That’s why I never turned down the opportunity to make a film.
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