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| George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola source: American Zoetrope |
"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."
Francis Ford Coppola
Amazingly, the first film Francis Ford Coppola ever directed for the big screen also turned out to be his most well-known. Despite facing disheartening difficulties with movie giant Paramount, whose executives detested his choice of Marlon Brando for the role of Vito Corleone, Coppola ended up creating one of the most stirring and impactful films of all time.
Of course, I'm talking about 1972's mafia epic The Godfather.
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| Vito and his cat |
Coppola cemented his reputation for movie magic three years later, when in 1975 his sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974), again took the Oscar for Best Picture. It marked the first time a sequel had ever won best picture, and the only time an original and its sequel both won the award. Various critics consider the second Godfather movie to be the better of the two (a sentiment I do not endorse), and TV Guide ranks it as the best movie of all time. What's more, Coppola began the tradition of numbered sequels with his straightforward movie title.
Everything was on the up and up for the director, and then, in the words of my high school film teacher, he "went crazy" following the success of his previous films and directed 1979's Apocalypse Now- an adaption of Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness that offers harrowing and bleak insights to the Vietnam War. While the film was a huge success both critically and commercially, its production is infamous for such mishaps as severe weather, Martin Sheen's on-camera mental breakdown, and an "overweight and unprepared" Marlon Brando wreaking havoc on set. In the words of Coppola himself "we were in the jungle... we had access to too much money, too much equipment and little by little, we went insane."
Maybe it was the craziness of Apocalypse Now or the intimidating legacy of The Godfather films, but regardless, 1979 marked the end of Coppola's golden age in Hollywood. His biggest films are perfectly contained within the decade, making his work a quintessential part of 70s cinema.
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"The Force is strong with this one."
The original Star Wars (now Star Wars Episode IV- A New Hope) enjoys the distinction of being the third highest-grossing film of all time. And its director, George Lucas, enjoys the distinction of being the man behind the cultural phenomenon. The story of misfit-turned jedi Luke Skywalker has captured the imagination of millions of moviegoers since it first took to the screen in 1977, but it's a story that almost wasn't told.
At the time of Star Wars' conception, 20th Century Fox had recently disbanded their visual effects department, making the complicated filming of the movie nearly impossible. Faced with dim prospects, Lucas took matters into his own hands and assembled a crew of ragtag technicians who would eventually become Industrial Light and Magic- the company that effectively revolutionized filmmaking and continues to do so into the 21st century.
Thanks to Lucas's ingenuity, films like Iron Man, E.T., and Pirates of the Caribbean have been able to dazzle audiences with their special effects, and ILM claims both Pixar and photoshop as products of its creativity.
Moreover, Lucas's exhilarating space opera has become an important cultural link between generations and was a major player in the developing "blockbuster" movement of late-70s film. So what was Lucas's next step after Star Wars won six Academy Awards? Intriguingly, he decided to take a break from directing, and from 1977 to 1999 focused instead on producing such hits as Indiana Jones and the perennial classic The Land Before Time.
Despite maintaining a strong cultural presence throughout the years, Lucas too may best be encapsulated in the decade in which he found success as an innovator and visionary- in a time that both embraced and reflected his colorful characters and resilient themes.
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"It's funny how the colors of the real world
only seem really real when you watch them on a screen."
- Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
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All of time's chapters have their uncertainties, but few are as defined by them as the seventies are-- and this unique trait left the moods of the decade up to artists' interpretations. For Coppola, the harshness and corruptibility of capitalism set the tone for his devastating masterpiece of a family slowly torn to pieces by the pitfalls of power. His work is dark and authentic, and while it doesn't take its viewers to "a galaxy far, far away," the values by which the Corleones live do force us to imagine a new and harrowing vision of the American Dream.
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Ultimately, Lucas and Coppola made distinct and lasting impacts on the world of cinema, along with the likes of Spielberg and Scorcese, all of whom are figures of the 'New Hollywood' era that lead to the seventies earning its reputation as the golden age of cinema.
And the context of their work carries important meaning even today. When struggling to come to terms with the stifling and quite simply frightening uncertainty that is all too prevalent in the world, we would all do well to remember the power of artistic expression, its ability to take raw emotions and fashion them into something beautiful, and the effect that this can have on changing minds, feelings, and even history- just as it did in the 1970s.
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Thanks for reading and See you back here next week!
p.s. -- if you've been feeling down about yourself, you can take comfort in the fact that you didn't seriously consider titling your blog post "Lucas and Coppola: 'Star-Gods' of Cinema," like I may or may not have (evidently my creativity ends at the joys of reconstructing compound words)
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