A Quote by 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
I always found the film world unpleasant. It's all about the schedule, and never really flew for me.
I am a super nostalgic person in general. I think part of the reason that I'm in the film business is because, to me, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, it seemed like the most appropriate career I could have where I knew I wouldn't have to kill the little kid in me. I get to play around, and that's amazing. There's a quote from Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes that I always found really interesting. He said, "Anyone who is nostalgic about their childhood never had one." And I always found it fascinating.
When I was 20 years old, my mom flew me for my first Broadway audition for 'The Color Purple,' and I only found out about it because I knew that Fantasia was in it, and so I went online to ActorsEquity.com. I was not a part of the union, but I flew there for the audition, and the next week I made my Broadway debut!
On another level this film talks about that. We had tremendous freedom while making this film. We never thought about marketing. It wasn't a film made to sell merchandise or products or to reach millions of people around the world. It was a film made to say what I really felt.
I'm often asked, 'What was, for you, your greatest film experience?' And it always comes back to 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' aside from being a film that really handled subject matter in such a brilliant, brilliant way.
I have always found clowns really fascinating, especially on film. Even as a kid I was never scared of them.
We never really cared about all the things that other people cared about, you know? Like, people recognizing me on the street never interested me. I've always been kind of suspicious of the world, anyway, so it's pretty easy for me to live in my own little world.
The biggest difference for me is momentum. On a smaller film you get to shoot sometimes four or five scenes a day and you've got to do the tight schedule. I think I really feel the luxuries of a big budget film.
I don't think anything can substitute long talks, and long talks are somehow never as easy to schedule again as they were in school, when most people - at least in my little socioeconomic corner of the world - live not with their families or sexual partners, but with same-sex friends. I really miss that from college. I never really thought at the time about how things would never be that way again.
'The Thing from Another World' was the first movie that really scared me. But the one that made me want to make movies was 'The Tales of Hoffman.' That's my favorite film of all time. It's a fantasy film. It's an opera. I never get tired of it.
The day after the Oscars, I flew back to London to film a television play for Anglia. It was a big mistake because you never really get acknowledged for wanting to work in England, as I did.
My parents found tradition and ritual very important, because they were both brought up that way and found comfort in it. They thought it was important for children to be kept on a schedule. You went home for the holidays, you went to mass on Sunday - no ifs, ands, or buts. That was ingrained in me from a very young age, and I think that's informed who I am in so many aspects of my life. I crave stability and a schedule and the security that comes along with it.
When I see 'Sunshine,' I see a film that part of me is kind of very proud of and another part of me is very sad about, so it's a really complicated film for me. And I've never been really able to resolve all that in myself.
I'm so adamant that being a really good parent does not mean you have to be there 24/7. I find that I'm never not thinking about where they are, but instead of it stressing me out, it comforts me to know that I'm completely aware of their schedule, and they're with someone I trust.
I met Michael Snow and Stan Brakhage the second day after I arrived, you know. I had never seen or heard of Brakhage. For me, it was a revolution, because I was well educated in film, but American-style experimental film was known to me in the abstract, and I had seen practically nothing. I had seen a film then that Noël Burch had found and was distributing called Echoes of Silence. It was a beautiful film, three hours long. It goes forever and it was in black and white, very grainy, and I saw that film and I thought...it was not New Wave. It was really a new concept of cinema.
I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you've never made a film, you're not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.
My passions drive me to the typewriter every day of my life, and they have driven me there since I was twelve. So I never have to worry about schedules. Some new thing is always exploding in me, and it schedules me, I don’t schedule it. It says: Get to the typewriter right now and finish this.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!