Francis Coppola Quotes & Sayings

I have more of a vivid imagination than I have talent. I cook up ideas. It's just a characteristic. — Francis Ford Coppola

I had a number of teachers who hated me. I didn't do well in school. — Francis Ford Coppola

I grew up on film sets and I had a ball. It wouldn't have had nearly as much fun if my dad had been working behind a desk somewhere. I remember being on the set of 'The Godfather: Part III,' and all the kids were running around and doing crazy things, and Francis Ford Coppola just embraced that. — Dominik Garcia-Lorido

I think a sequel is a waste of money and time. I think movies should illuminate new stories. — Francis Ford Coppola

The great hope is that people who wouldn't normally make films will be making them. Suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father's camera and for once the so called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever - and it will really become an art form. — Francis Ford Coppola

I liked to work in a shop down in the basement and invent things and build gadgets. — Francis Ford Coppola

Whom God wishes to destroy, He first makes successful in show business. — Francis Ford Coppola

Wine is so much more than a beverage. It's a romance, a story, a drama-all of those things that are basically putting on a show. — Francis Ford Coppola

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. — Francis Ford Coppola

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians. — Francis Ford Coppola

I always found the film world unpleasant. It's all about the schedule, and never really flew for me. — Francis Ford Coppola

Although knowledge of structure is helpful, real creativity comes from leaps of faith in which you jump to something illogical. But those leaps form the memorable moments in movies and plays. — Francis Ford Coppola

Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos. — Francis Ford Coppola

I've been failing for, like, ten or eleven years. When it turns, it'll turn. Right now I'm just trying to squeeze through a very tight financial period, get the movie out, and put my things in order. — Francis Ford Coppola

When I do 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. — Francis Ford Coppola

Frank Capra was a prop man, I think. John Ford was a prop man. It was a little bit of a father and son thing, and you kind of worked your way up. — Francis Ford Coppola

Steven Spielberg is unique. I feel that the kinds of movies he loves are the same kinds of movies that the big mass audience loves. He's very fortunate because he can do the things he naturally likes the best, and he's been very successful. — Francis Ford Coppola

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. — Francis Ford Coppola

I don't think there's any artist of any value who doesn't doubt what they're doing. — Francis Ford Coppola

It's ironic that at age 32, at probably the greatest moment of my career, with The Godfather having such an enormous success, I wasn't even aware of it, because I was somewhere else under the deadline again. — Francis Ford Coppola

I had been a kid that moved so much, I didn't have a lot of friends. Theater really represented camaraderie. — Francis Ford Coppola

Listen, if there's one sure-fire rule that I have learned in this business, it's that I don't know anything about human nature. — Francis Ford Coppola

The internet in hotels should be free - and I really resent it when they charge you five dollars for a bottle of water beside your bed. — Francis Ford Coppola

Movie-wise, there is nothing I wouldn't do again. It's not possible to make one perfect movie every time. — Francis Ford Coppola

I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life! — Francis Ford Coppola

I believe that filmmaking - as, probably, is everything - is a game you should play with all your cards, and all your dice, and whatever else you've got. So, each time I make a movie, I give it everything I have. I think everyone should, and I think everyone should do everything they do that way. — Francis Ford Coppola

Martin Scorcese is probably America's greatest living director, and while he is not a titan like John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock or Federico Fellini, he is certainly consistently more interesting than Steven Spielberg, Brian de Palma, Francis Ford Coppola or Woody Allen. Even a failure like Gangs of New York or a curiosity like The Aviator is more interesting and ambitious than Munich, The Black Dahlia or Scoop. — Joe Queenan

Most filmmakers can't afford to try something out that doesn't work. — Francis Ford Coppola

One of the most important tools that a filmmaker has are his/her notes. — Francis Ford Coppola

An essential element of any art is risk. If you don't take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn't been seen before? — Francis Ford Coppola

I was terrible at maths, but I could grasp science, and I used to love to read about the lives of the scientists. I wanted to be a scientist or an inventor. — Francis Ford Coppola

When newspapers started to publish the box office scores of movies, I was horrified. Those results are totally fake because they never include the promotion budget. — Francis Ford Coppola

There can't be art without risk. It's like saying No Sex, and then expecting there to be children. — Francis Ford Coppola

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. — Francis Ford Coppola

Art depends on luck and talent. — Francis Ford Coppola

A number of images put together a certain way become something quite above and beyond what any of them are individually. — Francis Ford Coppola

You'd get on the plane; and every single person is somebody really, really famous. It just killed me. On one flight you'd have Linda Gray, O.J. Simpson, Robert De Niro, Carol Burnett, Loni Anderson and Burt Reynolds ... and Francis Ford Coppola. — Paul Reubens

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. — Francis Ford Coppola

It takes no imagination to live within your means. — Francis Ford Coppola

Lots of people have criticized my movies, but nobody has ever identified the real problem: I'm a sloppy filmmaker. — Francis Ford Coppola

People feel the worst film I made was 'Jack.' But to this day, when I get checks from old movies I've made, 'Jack' is one of the biggest ones. No one knows that. If people hate the movie, they hate the movie. I just wanted to work with Robin Williams. — Francis Ford Coppola

Sequels are not done for the audience or cinema or the filmmakers. It's for the distributor. The film becomes a brand. — Francis Ford Coppola

I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories. — Francis Ford Coppola

When a movie is about to come out on its initial debut, there are a lot of people involved - the financiers, the studio and the producers and also, many times, the foreign distributors. So it is a time of tremendous pressure and uncertainty. — Francis Ford Coppola

Everyone knows the phenomenon of trying to hold your breath underwater - how at first it's alright and you can handle it, and then as it gets closer and closer to the time when you must breathe, how urgent the need becomes, the lust and the hunger to breathe. And then the panic sets in when you begin to think that you won't be able to breathe - and finally, when you take in air and the anxiety subsides ... that's what it's like to be a vampire and need blood. — Francis Ford Coppola

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. — Francis Ford Coppola

Ten Days That Shook The World, by Eisenstein, I went to see it, and I was so impressed with this film, so impressed with what cinema could do. — Francis Ford Coppola

Death is what makes life an event. — Francis Ford Coppola

When I was about 9, I had polio, and people were very frightened for their children, so you tended to be isolated. I was paralyzed for a while, so I watched television. — Francis Ford Coppola

Time is the lens through which dreams are captured. — Francis Ford Coppola

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. — Francis Ford Coppola

I have much to learn from my daughter Sofia. Her minimalism exposes my limitations: I'm too instinctive and operatic, I put too much heart into my work, I get lost sometimes in bizarre things - it's my Italian heritage. — Francis Ford Coppola

I was interested in the idea of succession - showing a father and a son both in their own time and drawing a contrast — Francis Ford Coppola

As long as I can make lots of money in other businesses, I'll continue to subsidize my own work. — Francis Ford Coppola

They needed someone to write a script of The Great Gatsby very quickly for the movie they were making. I took this job so I'd be sure to have some dough to support my family. — Francis Ford Coppola

Of all the human evils, of which we have thousands of years of record and our own contemporary experiences, the most horrible evil of all is hypocrisy. It's this idea that there are those who do bad and there are those who do good, when, in fact, even the people who supposedly do good are saying they do good to mask the fact that they do evil. — Francis Ford Coppola

If the movie works, nobody notices the mistakes ... If the movie doesn't work, the only thing people notice are mistakes. — Francis Ford Coppola

In kindergarten that used to be my job, to tell them fairytales. I liked Hans Christian Andersen, and the Grimm fairy tales, all the classic fairy tales. — Francis Ford Coppola

I had to get a job, and of course, the job was 'The Godfather.' That made me be something I didn't know I was going to be. I became a big-shot director. — Francis Ford Coppola

'Godfather' was very classical - the way it was shot, the style - the whole driving force of it was more classical, almost Shakespearean. — Francis Ford Coppola

IMDB is ridiculous ... First of all, they had me down as my height being 5ft 7ins. I'm 5ft 10ins. But now they've got me down as 6ft 1ins and three quarters. They also have me down as doing Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I wish they had me down as doing Francis Ford Coppola's next film. That would be a great rumour. — Skandar Keynes

I like simplicity; I don't need luxury. — Francis Ford Coppola

By working in the morning, I find a sense of peace; it's isolated peace, but I can definitely be in touch with my feelings, and then I just start. — Francis Ford Coppola

Without a doubt, I was born to want to make cinema, but the kind of cinema I want to make is not like commercial movies, which I enjoy myself, but I wanted to be the kind of filmmaker who wrote original work, sort of like a novelist would who deals with who we are and our times or our relationships. — Francis Ford Coppola

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.' — Francis Ford Coppola

I remember teachers who really singled me out for their discouragement. — Francis Ford Coppola

I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten. — Francis Ford Coppola

Anyone who's made film and knows about the cinema has a lifelong love affair with the experience. You never stop learning about film. — Francis Ford Coppola

But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money? — Francis Ford Coppola

I've been offered lots of movies. There's always some actor who's doing a project and would like to have me do it. — Francis Ford Coppola

Everything I do is personal. I have never made a movie that didn't have very strong personal resonance. — Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola observed, "The way to come to power is not always to merely challenge the Establishment, but first make a place in it and then challenge and double-cross the Establishment. — Adam M. Grant

I live near San Francisco in the most beautiful spot on earth and enjoy myself in many ways. Yes, I love to work, which for now is to think and read and write, so it's all a dream come true. — Francis Ford Coppola

When you make a film it is like asking yourself a question. When it is finished, you know the answer. Ultimately with all of cinema, we are just trying to learn about ourselves. I have always used the opportunity to make a film to learn more about myself, which I am still doing. — Francis Ford Coppola

I was a pretty shy, lonely kid. I blossomed about age 17, when I went to college. — Francis Ford Coppola

There's a story that during the filming of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola had a sign on his trailer: Fast, Cheap, Good: Pick Two. — Maria Semple

I always think upon Lee Strasberg with warmth, and reviewing his wisdom is a pleasure. — Francis Ford Coppola

In America, even the critics - which is a pity - tend to genre-ize things. They have a hard time when genres get mixed. They want to categorize things. That's why I love Wes Anderson's films and the Coen Brothers, because you don't know what you're going to get, and very often you get something that you don't expect and that's just what a genre's not supposed to do. — Francis Ford Coppola

A lot of the young people make beautiful films or big films or are able to finance them, but they can't get anyone to distribute them, they can't get anyone to see them, so they go to these thousands of film festivals. So I still believe that even though a young kid might be able to make a masterpiece or something that changes the direction of cinema, the issue of how to get it to people is still not solved. — Francis Ford Coppola

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. — Francis Ford Coppola

The professional world was much more unpleasant than I thought. I was always wishing I could get back that enthusiasm I had when I was doing shows at college. — Francis Ford Coppola

There's nothing creative about living within your means. — Francis Ford Coppola

A director is the ringmaster of a circus that's inventing itself. — Francis Ford Coppola

My film is not a movie; it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. — Francis Ford Coppola

I chose to tell a personal story. When you tell a movie like this that's as emotionally charged as this is, it's a risk. As one of my great cinematic heroes, Francis Coppola, would say, "If you aren't taking the highest, greatest risk, then why are you a filmmaker?" — Christian Bale

Always make your work be personal. And, you never have to lie ... There is something we know that's connected with beauty and truth. There is something ancient. We know that art is about beauty, and therefore it has to be about truth. — Francis Ford Coppola

When that happens - when risk is taken and the filmmakers dive into the subject matter without a parachute - very often what you get it something with those qualities that make it age well with the public. — Francis Ford Coppola

I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In 'The Godfather' it was succession. In 'The Conversation' it was privacy. In 'Apocalypse' it was morality. — Francis Ford Coppola

When I was sixteen or seventeen, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a playwright. But everything I wrote, I thought, was weak. And I can remember falling asleep in tears because I had no talent the way I wanted to have. — Francis Ford Coppola

We teach our boys to firebomb villages, but we won't let them write fuck on the side of their planes because it's obscene. — Francis Ford Coppola

Some critics are stimulating in that they make you realise how you could do better, and those are valued. — Francis Ford Coppola

Movies are the art form most like man's imagination. — Francis Ford Coppola

Cinema without risk is like having no sex and expecting to have a baby. — Francis Ford Coppola

I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission. — Francis Ford Coppola

Work on nothing less than epic scale — Francis Ford Coppola

My big goal in life was always to figure out how I can make a lot of money so I can go off and make films irrespective of the opinion of the three or four critics who seem to rule the roost. — Francis Ford Coppola

We finally settled on Francis Ford Coppola's version of Dracula, which, unfortunately, Gabriel seemed to think was a comedy. I think it was the combination of Keanu Reeves's British accent and Gary Oldman's elderly Count Dracula hairstyle. They're just misleading. — Molly Harper

We do things for good reasons that are bad. — Francis Ford Coppola

So much of the art of film is to do less. To aspire to do less. — Francis Ford Coppola

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food. — Francis Ford Coppola