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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 14 august 2019
Q&A: Francis Ford Coppola on 'Apocalypse Now' 40 years later

NEW YORK (AP) — If film- lon Brando. But out of that 27, splits the difference at was drugs and it was rock imaginative. I don't have
making is a war, then tumult Coppola created a 183 minutes. 'n' roll so it was more of a talent that I wish I had. My
"Apocalypse Now" was masterpiece. And 40 years In its present and restored West Coast ambiance to talent was more enthusi-
very nearly Francis Ford later, "Apocalypse Now" form, the majesty and the war. In addition, there asm and imagination and
Coppola's Waterloo. has never looked so good. madness of "Apocalypse were many sort of odd con- a kind of prescient sense,
The battles Coppola fought Coppola has supervised Now" is more vivid and hal- tradictions that related to a sense of knowing what's
while making his 1979 epic a 4K restoration of the film lucinatory than ever. Cop- the morality involved. There going to happens before it
nearly destroyed him. A and, for the second time, pola considers it the defini- was a line I was once read happens.
typhoon wrecked a major tweaked the cut. Having tive version. It completes a that's not in the film but to AP: Did you emerge from
set. Harvey Keitel was re- perhaps gone too far in his four decade journey turn- me it sums up the meaning "Apocalypse Now" a differ-
placed by Martin Sheen. 2001 "Redux," which added ing what was almost a mess of the movie. It was: "We ent filmmaker?
Coppola searched des- 53 minutes, "Apocalypse into the masterwork he en- teach the boys to drop fire Coppola: Yeah, but no
perately for an ending. Now Final Cut," which visioned from the start. on people yet we won't let more than I was after the
He worked even harder to opens in theaters Friday In a recent interview, Cop- them write the word 'f---' on extreme experience of the
coax a few lines out of Mar- and on home video August pola, 80, spoke about their airplanes because it's "Godfather" movie. Every
film I have made has been
a new sheet of paper. I
rarely would repeat a style.
Every movie I worked on, I
came out of it being a dif-
ferent person.
AP: Is going back to your
films to get them just right
for you part of preserving
your legacy? Do you think
about how you want you
and your work to be re-
membered?
Coppola: I'm not so crazy
about my legacy. I want
people to know that I liked
little kids and I was a good
camp counselor when I
was a camp counselor in
1957, that I have a fam-
ily with wonderful children
that I find so fascinating
and very talented. But ul-
timately, to me, the great-
est legacy you can have is
that someone somewhere
saw one of the things you
did and it inspired them to
do something that goes
In this Sunday, April 28, 2019 file photo, director Francis Ford
Coppola attends a screening of the "40th Anniversary and and then inspired someone
World Premiere of Apocalypse Now Final Cut" during the 2019 else in the future. In a way,
Tribeca Film Festival at the Beacon Theatre, in New York. The film it's a form of immortality.
releases in theaters on Aug. 15. AP: Today, most directors
Associated Press would only have the op-
portunity of "Apocalypse
Now"-like scale in a super-
"Apocalypse Now" then obscene." hero film. Do you sympa-
and now, why he was "ter- AP: Eleanor Coppola, your thize for them?
rified" after making it and wife, wrote in her "Notes" Coppola: Absolutely. I feel
why he has trouble letting that you took on some of now we have this bifurcat-
go of his films. Kurtz' megalomania while ed cinema in our country
___ making "Apocalypse Now." being of independent films
AP: Did you consciously Coppola: Whenever I where we have the most
want to put your stamp on made a movie, I was al- wonderful wealth of talent
the war movie? ways personally compared and then the industry films
Coppola: The Vietnam War to the main character. which are pretty much su-
was different than other When I was doing "The perhero films. One has too
American wars. It was a Godfather," I was Michael much money — the studio,
West Coast sensibility rather Corleone, Machiavel- Marvel comic-type movies.
than an East Coast sensi- lian and sly. When I made They're basically making
bility. In war movies before "Apocalypse Now," I was the same movie over and
"Apocalypse," there was the megalomaniac. When I over again, and seducing
always a sort of Brooklyn made "Tucker," I was the in- all of the talent. Everyone
character, an East Coast novative entrepreneur. The is hoping to get a small
and Midwest personality. In truth of the matter is all my part in one of those movies
"Apocalypse Now," it was life if I have been anything because that's where the
LA and it was surfing and it I've been enthusiastic and money is. q