Francis Ford Coppola Quotes
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I became quite successful very young, and it was mainly because I was so enthusiastic and I just worked so hard at it.
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The essence of cinema is editing. It's the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.
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Anyone who’s made film and knows about the cinema has a lifelong love affair with the experience. You never stop learning about film.
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I think C, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.
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Art depends on luck and talent.
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I was always the black sheep of the family and always told that I was dumb, and I had a low IQ and did badly in school.
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I just admire people like Woody Allen, who every year writes an original screenplay. It’s astonishing. I always wished that I could do that.
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Films and hotels have many aspects that are the same. For example, there is always a big vision, an idea.
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Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.
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A number of images put together a certain way become something quite above and beyond what any of them are individually.
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When that happens – when risk is taken and the filmmakers dive into the subject matter without a parachute – very often what you get is something with those qualities that make it age well with the public.
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In a sense, I think a movie is really a little like a question and when you make it, that’s when you get the answer.
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You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you’ll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost.
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I like simplicity; I don't need luxury.
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The stuff that I got in trouble for, the casting for The Godfather or the flag scene in Patton, was the stuff that was remembered, and was considered the good work.
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That’s part of the requirement for me to be an artist is that you’re trying to share your personal existence with others and trying to illuminate modern life, trying to understand life.
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I like to work in the morning. I like to sometimes go to a place where I’m all alone where I’m not going to get a phone call early that hurts my feelings, because once my feelings are hurt, I’m dead in the water.
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You ought to love what you’re doing because, especially in a movie, over time you really will start to hate it.
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I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.
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To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, ‘Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.
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When I adapt a novel, I don’t really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material.
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I always found the film world unpleasant. It's all about the schedule, and never really flew for me.
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My film is not a movie; it’s not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.
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Everything I do is personal. I have never made a movie that didn’t have very strong personal resonance.