Francis Ford Coppola didn’t have the career he wanted. As a young man, he saw himself as a personal filmmaker in the tradition of Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini, someone who’s make many small films with the same group of people, an ever-expanding family of actors, technicians, and craftsmen. The Godfather was an assignment, and by all accounts a miraculous accident; it’s hardly ever mentioned that he won an Oscar for writing the Screenplay for Patton before all this happened, and have you seen You’re a Big Boy Now? What about The Rain People, or on the other end, Tetro? Twixt? Did you know Coppola directed Robin Williams in Jack? That was 1996, still “paying off [his] debt obligations.” After directing The Rainmaker in 1997 (featuring Teresa Wright’s last performance), Coppola stopped working in Hollywood and, then in his mid-50s, finally started in on his original goal of making small, personal films with friends and family.
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