The Path to Paradise

Or, I love the smell of contracts in the morning.

In the 1960s Francis Ford Coppola had a vision. A vaguely hippieish, possibly-naive concept for a new kind of movie studio. One that operated outside of Hollywood’s nepotism and backstabbing executives and the unions that had conspired to drag movie-making into a soul-sucking hellscape. Coppola foresaw a creative space for writers, directors, cinematographers, sound designers, visual artists, musicians, and actors. A place—rhetorical and literal—where adventurous minds could come together to create personal movies. The dream was born of youthful idealism. Based out of San Francisco, it was called American Zoetrope.

In 1970 Coppola was helping his good friend and Zoetrope co-founder George Lucas (I’m assuming you know who these people are) with THX 1138, Lucas’s debut feature. Coppola, acting as producer, delivered an initial cut of the film to Warner Brothers’ executive John Calley. Warner Brothers, you see, had acquired seven scripts written by Coppola and Lucas and John Milius and others for $300,000. Their money seeded the Zoetrope dream. Warner Brothers was, quite literally, invested in Coppola’s success.

The screening didn’t go well. Warners executives found THX 1138 inscrutable, dull, and not a filmed version of script they’d purchased (I’ve seen THX 1138. It’s visionary, but it ain’t Star Wars). In November of 1970, WB severed all associations with Coppola’s company. Lucas’s debut was unceremoniously dumped into a few theaters. America Zoetrope received an invoice for $300,000.

That money, turns out, was a loan.

To that point, the only film produced under the Zoetrope banner was Coppola’s forgettable The Rain People. Craftspeople scattered, desperate to find paying work. WB passed on four American Zoetrope scripts. The company had no money, few prospects. It liquidated assets; editing equipment, cameras, desks, even hole-punches. Coppola was personally on the hook for that $300,000. Bleak times, indeed. Then Peter Bart called. Paramount Pictures needed a director for its adaptation of a trashy mobster novel. Director after director had passed. Coppola initially turned the job down, too. But he needed the cash, and, after some prodding from Lucas, agreed.

The Godfather was released in March of 1972. It quickly became the biggest movie in Hollywood history. Coppola’s story, though well-known among cinephiles, is detailed in Sam Wasson’s tremendous new book on Coppola’s life and career, The Path to Paradise. I’m reading it now, and it’s gotten me thinking.

I’ve long been fascinated with what makes a satisfying artistic life. Years ago, when I was detective, my colleagues and I frequented a restaurant in the South Bronx. One of the servers was an aspiring musical theater performer. I asked her one night what, for her, would comprise professional success. Her answer was enlightening: “A steady gig that pays me enough to quit working here.”

Simple, right? But honest? I’m not so sure.

I’ve got some writer friends with Big Five publishing houses. From where I’m sitting, they’re successful. They’re can walk into a bookstore and find a hardback copy of their novel, a physical thing in a brick-and-mortar store, able to be handled by readers and—God willing—purchased in exchange for currency (though how much of that $27 the writer sees is depressingly small). Though they’re not getting rich, they’re doing the thing.

I’ve posed to all of them this question: if you could write one novel (or make one movie, or record one album, or paint one painting) that becomes a classic, or have a long, steady-but-unremarkable career, which would you choose? The majority choose the latter. And I get it, they’ve got families and kids and real world obligations. They claim they’ll be happy if writing pays the mortgage.

A steady gig that pays me enough to quit working here.

Thing is, most of those writers find that, once they’ve gotten in the club, the metrics for success change. They start comparing themselves to others. Questions arise. Why doesn’t Netflix want to make my book into a movie? Why does that author get a Times Square billboard ad? Why aren’t I going on a book tour?

Recent research indicates that, once one’s basic needs are met, money doesn’t increase one’s happiness. In fact, it can have the opposite effect. Increased wealth impacts family dynamics. It can seed jealously, doubt, and lead to loneliness. Prompt questions of oneself and those around them (why did our publisher book him on that podcast?!). Or, for that aspiring actress slinging beers in the Bronx, why’d she get the lead role?

Like Biggie said, mo’ money, mo’ problems.

Which brings me back to Coppola and his dream of total creative freedom. There’s no question Coppola is a filmmaking legend. He won an Oscar for writing 1970’s Patton. From ‘72 to ‘79 he directed The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now. One of the best Hollywood runs, ever. Four stone cold classics that I watch and rewatch and study and unpack and that always—above all—make me think. These works leave me in awe and I know I will never create anything even close to those four movies.

And unless Coppola’s next—and last?—movie, the long-gestating, soon-to-be-released Megalopolis, hits big, neither will he.

Coppola’s filmography since Apocalypse is, I think most fans would agree, pretty average. The Cotton Club. Peggy Sue Got Married. Godfather Part III. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Jack. After 1997’s The Rainmaker, things get real weird: Youth Without Youth. Teatro. Twixt. Solid if unspectacular work, some of it interesting, but nothing approaching the heights of Colonel Kurtz in the jungle or Michael Corleone dismissing Senator Geary. But how do you follow up on perfection? Do you even try?

Meanwhile the great filmmakers of Coppola’s generation have had a late-period renaissance. Scorsese with The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon, Paul Schrader with First Reformed and The Card Counter, Ridley Scott with The Martian and The Last Duel (I also had a blast watching Napoleon, a weird, imperfect, hilarious movie).

Beyond writing and directing, Coppola was—and remains—a prolific producer. He has seventy-seven credits in IMDb, some of which I was shocked to learn he played a role in—Jeepers Creepers 2?!—and others I’d never heard of (anyone seen Alden Ehrenrich’s short Shadow Brother Sunday?). American Zoetrope still exists, though since the mid-2000’s it appears to have become almost exclusively a family business. The majority of its films have been directed by someone bearing Francis’s last name.

The unkind reading is Coppola came out strong and got winded young. A more generous take is the industry doesn’t know how to accommodate a talent like his. Though that angle doesn’t explain everything. Two of his four classics—The Godfather and Apocalypse—were notoriously difficult productions; the former because of studio limitations, the latter because Coppola had none. He financed Apocalypse himself, and the movie nearly killed him. A contradiction there. Coppola working within the constraints of the studio system generated cinematic magic, and Coppola working outside Hollywood’s confines also produced magic. But since then…?

To me, Coppola’s career arc is simple. He made three of the Greatest American Movies Ever Made (The Conversation is a classic, but doesn’t make that list). He has earned the right to give zero fucks about what we want. Everything Coppola’s made since he’s made for him. Profit from The Godfather allowed him to buy a winery. His winery is financing the $100 million Megalopolis. At 82 years old, he’s once again pushing all his chips in. The art has funded the art.

A steady gig that pays me enough to quit working here.

To be clear, Coppola is not a struggling actor working at a South Bronx bar. He’s a wealthy man, and he’s earned it. Reading Wasson’s book it’s clear every movie, every shot, every screenplay page written is the product of a man digging deeply into himself, wrestling with who he is versus who he wants to be versus what the world wants him to be.

That question, again: make one classic or do what you love as long as you can?

Francis Ford Coppola chose both.