Some critics are stimulating in that they make you realise how you could do better, and those are valued.
— Francis Ford Coppola
The time a movie is made is unique, not only from the talent that is available but if the public was ready for it.
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.
I was a pretty shy, lonely kid. I blossomed about age 17, when I went to college.
My company and people think I'm wacky when I have an idea... I know if I have an idea, no one will want to go through it. But if I persist, people will go through it.
Films and hotels have many aspects that are the same. For example, there is always a big vision, an idea.
Sequels are not done for the audience or cinema or the filmmakers. It's for the distributor. The film becomes a brand.
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 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.
I don't go on set with an army of people because the most expensive elements of a movie production are the plane tickets, the hotel rooms, food and gasoline. If you're willing to discover new colleagues in the place that you are, you can save a ton of money.
Being a former theater student, of course, there is a part of me that is fascinated with stage crafts and what you can do with illusions and working within the confines of the studio.
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 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.
Anyone who's made film and knows about the cinema has a lifelong love affair with the experience. You never stop learning about film.
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.
'The Godfather' changed my life, for better or worse. It definitely made me have an older man's film career when I was 29.
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.
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.
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.'
My family were symphonic musicians and in the opera. Also, it was my era, the love of radio. We used to listen to the radio at night, close our eyes and see movies far more beautiful than you can photograph.
I think a sequel is a waste of money and time. I think movies should illuminate new stories.
I've been blessed with enough wealth that I can make a film myself up to a certain budget. So one way I thought I would reinvent myself was just to make these very small, personal films that I've financed myself.
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.
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.
Movie-wise, there is nothing I wouldn't do again. It's not possible to make one perfect movie every time.
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!
We support each other in the Coppola family. We love the idea of everyone getting his place in the sun.
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.
'Godfather' was very classical - the way it was shot, the style - the whole driving force of it was more classical, almost Shakespearean.
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.
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.
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.
Lots of people have criticized my movies, but nobody has ever identified the real problem: I'm a sloppy filmmaker.
I was never sloppy with other people's money. Only my own. Because I figure, well, you can be.
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.
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.
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.
I wanted to be a film student again, as a man in my 60s. To go someplace alone and see what you can cook up, with non-existent budgets. I didn't want to be surrounded by comforts and colleagues, which you have when when you're a big time director. I wanted to write personal works.
If you're a person who says yes most of the time, you'll find yourself in the hotel business and the restaurant business.
The only TV I would be interested in exploring would be live television. There's no substitute for a team of artists performing at their peak live when failure is possible. It's a high-wire act. That excites me.
If I have to be remembered for something, I want it remembered that I really liked children and was a good camp counselor.
I was raised as a Catholic, but I didn't like the Catholic Church at all. I thought the nuns were mean.
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 13, I worked for Western Union. When the telegrams came in, I would glue them on the paper and deliver them on my bicycle.
The whole reason one wants to do lower budget films is because the lower the budget, the bigger the ideas, the bigger the themes, the more interesting the art.
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.
Everything I do is personal. I have never made a movie that didn't have very strong personal resonance.
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.
I have more of a vivid imagination than I have talent. I cook up ideas. It's just a characteristic.
I probably have genius. But no talent.
