6 Francis Ford Coppola Paves a Path to Paradise By Luis Polanco Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet William Butler Yeats had the meticulous and likely torturous habit of repeatedly revising and re-envisioning poems he’d already written. When he reprinted two early books of his poetry — The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems from 1889 and The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics from 1892 — in 1895’s simply titled Poems, all of the poems had been rewritten. Yeats continued to revise the poems in subsequent reprints up until 1929. To his friends, who saw how time-consuming and obsessive his extensive revision process was, Yeats had a rejoinder: “The friends that have it I do wrong / When ever I remake a song, / Should know what issue is at stake: / It is myself that I remake.” This quatrain, a stanza of four lines, was included in an edition of Yeats’ collected works published in 1908, and it hints that the pleasures of creating, rewriting, and revising are all mixed together and grounded in selfdiscovery. These lines from Yeats serve as the epigraph to Sam Wasson’s The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story (400 pgs., Harper $32.99), an ambitious book of biography and film history that covers Coppola’s career as a filmmaker, anchored primarily in the making of Apocalypse Now, released in 1979, and his dreams for the production company American Zoetrope. The lines from Yeats function as a motif throughout The Path to Paradise, echoing at various points to remind the reader that Coppola has embodied the ethos behind them, using his creative work to reinvent himself anew. Wasson is the author of Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M., about the film adaptation of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s; The Big Goodbye, about Roman Polanski’s Chinatown; and Fosse, a biography of the legendary director and choreographer. With The Path to Paradise, Wasson’s masterful touch as a storyteller is well suited to telling the tale of the ebbs and flows of Coppola’s career. Wasson is unafraid of expressing his deep reverence for his subject, leading to some moments of striking grandiosity, especially when commenting on Coppola’s contributions to cinema: “Francis Ford Coppola, leader, driving force of Zoetrope, sacrificed more than the normal man’s share to improve the world, the lives of the people in it, one filmmaking community at a time.” Wasson’s larger-than-life characterization of his subject is apt, once the reader is reminded of the highs Coppola reached with the critical and commercial success that he enjoyed from his breakthrough as a co-writer on the war drama Patton up through the tremendous achievements of The Godfather and The Godfather II, and the lows he faced the following decade with the box-office disaster of his subsequent films and the public collapse of one of the first iterations of American Zoetrope due to debt. Within this grand theater of Coppola’s career, certain characters weave in and out, each playing the role of friend, collaborator, and sometimes foe, ranging from his wife Elinor, whose artistic life is also portrayed in the book; his daughter Sofia, also a filmmaker; George Lucas, his protege turned commercial superior; and Jack Singer, who had loaned $3 million to Coppola for One from the Heart (which did not do well at all) and subsequently sued Coppola and purchased the San Francisco, California lot where American Zoetrope was located when it went to auction in 1983. One of the poles of the book is the making of Apocalypse Now. Loosely adapted from Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now is a woozy epic war film set during the Vietnam War about one Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, who embarks on a mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando. Wasson’s portrayal of the time is enticing and chaotic. Coppola filmed in the Philippines to recreate Vietnam, renting helicopters and planes from the Marcos, facing inclement weather and typhoons, and dealing with the increasing diva demands of Brando. Coppola had honorable aspirations for American Zoetrope. Wasson writes, “He would develop a training program for under-represented Zoetrope employees of the future. He would rent out space with no overhead charge to producers. He would offer two acting tracks, one for contracted actors in his repertory company, the other for freelance talent. He would do the same for writers and directors.” Wasson goes on and on elaborating on how Coppola would have wanted to carry out his vision, which sounds like utopia. In its early days, Zoetrope Studios consisted of “[n]ine soundstages, a few office bungalows, a mill, two project rooms, editorial facilities, executive and production buildings, grip and electrical storage, a paint shop…” Despite its reality at the time, the studio did accomplish Coppola’s dreams. “More than a production company,” Wasson writes, “it proved to be a heightened awareness for all, a path to new frontiers of life and film.” Coppola had the idea for the film Megalopolis since the early 1980s, and had tried to make it twice before he was finally able to complete it for its 2024 release. The film tells the story of an idealistic architect who has plans to revitalize New Rome, a city that resembles an alternate 21st century New York City, into the utopic Megalopolis. The parallels between the movie and Coppola’s journey with his studio become crystal clear in Wasson’s account. On the set in the studio outside of Atlanta, Wasson captures the then-84-year-old filmmaker’s diligence. Recalling Yeats’ line, “It is myself that I remake,” Coppola tells him, “I’m not making the film. It’s making itself.” Wasson’s book wonderfully conveys the filmmaker’s view that paradise is found in the process. Film historian Sam Wasson chronicles the acclaimed filmmaker’s career, charting highs and lows, from the making of Apocalypse Now to his dreams for American Zoetrope. Francis Ford Coppola, leader, driving force of Zoetrope, sacrificed more than the normal man’s share to improve the world. VIDEOAGE June 2026 Book Review
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI4OTA5