Top 166 Quotes & Sayings by Francis Ford Coppola
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American director Francis Ford Coppola.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
You're in a profession in which absolutely everybody is telling you their opinion, which is different. That's one of the reasons George Lucas never directed again.
Art depends on luck and talent.
Most Italians who came to this country are very patriotic. There was this exciting possibility that if you worked real hard, and you loved something, you could become successful.
It is a little disappointing to see that your legs are not as strong. But I like the idea of growing old, and the thought of approaching death is not particularly daunting to me.
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.
We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane.
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.
I used to love going into local hardware stores, to look at little things they made locally. Nowadays it's harder, though you can still do it in Vietnam.
Sequels are not done for the audience or cinema or the filmmakers. It's for the distributor. The film becomes a brand.
I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue.
Sound is your friend because sound is much cheaper than picture, but it has equal effect on the audience - in some ways, perhaps more effect because it does it in a very indirect way.
My film is not a movie; it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.
I was never sloppy with other people's money. Only my own. Because I figure, well, you can be.
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.
If you're a person who says yes most of the time, you'll find yourself in the hotel business and the restaurant business.
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.
'Godfather' was very classical - the way it was shot, the style - the whole driving force of it was more classical, almost Shakespearean.
I realized I probably wouldn't make another film that cuts through commercial and creative things like 'Godfather' or 'Apocalypse.'
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.
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.
I never went to a psychologist or psychiatrist in my life. Never. You know, Italians are a little prejudiced against that kind of thing.
I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories.
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.
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.
I don't think there's any artist of any value who doesn't doubt what they're doing.
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.
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.
As long as I can make lots of money in other businesses, I'll continue to subsidize my own work.
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!
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.
I was raised as a Catholic, but I didn't like the Catholic Church at all. I thought the nuns were mean.
I like simplicity; I don't need luxury.
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.
I think a sequel is a waste of money and time. I think movies should illuminate new stories.
Movie-wise, there is nothing I wouldn't do again. It's not possible to make one perfect movie every time.
Roger Corman exploited all of the young people who worked for him, but he really gave you responsibility and opportunity. So it was kind of a fair deal.
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.
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.
I probably have genius. But no talent.
I have more of a vivid imagination than I have talent. I cook up ideas. It's just a characteristic.
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.
I was the kind of kid that had some talents or ability, but it never came out in school.
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.
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.
Usually, the stuff that's your best idea or work is going to be attacked the most.
It takes no imagination to live within your means.
I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a guard. A teacher took away my guard button.
Films and hotels have many aspects that are the same. For example, there is always a big vision, an idea.
We do things for good reasons that are bad.
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.
You ought to love what you're doing because, especially in a movie, over time you really will start to hate it.
I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films.
I remember growing up with television, from the time it was just a test pattern, with maybe a little bit of programming once in a while.
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.
When I was going for my graduate degree, I decided I was going to make a feature film as my thesis. That's what I was famous for-that I had my thesis film be a feature film, which was 'You're a Big Boy Now.'
I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.
Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.
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.
'The Godfather' changed my life, for better or worse. It definitely made me have an older man's film career when I was 29.
I liked to work in a shop down in the basement and invent things and build gadgets.
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