Francis Ford Coppola: On Risk, Money, Craft & Collaboration

[Batutta]

Tucker was pretty good too, and Peggy Sue Got Married is more watchable than it has any right to be...I just think after nearly going mad on Apocalypse Francis started playing it safe and didn't put as much of himself into his movies. He'll always be a competent filmmaker, but those four masterpieces seemed like they were bled out of his soul onto the screen.

 

[robotsound]

His daughter, Sofia Coppola, is a fine filmmaker in her own right too.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

His daughter, Sofia Coppola, is a fine filmmaker in her own right too.

Yes yes.

I love Sofia.

 

[Nektonic]

Call me crazy, but I really enjoyed Coppola's version of Bram Stoker's DRACULA.

I agree with a lot of what he is saying in the posted article. Some of his ideas may not be practical, and I hope all art doesn't become free, because if that happens we'll loose a lot of talented painters, filmmakers, musicians, actors, writers, and video game developers. Maybe novels, paintings, and to some extent, rock/hip hop/electronica/pop music can be done on the extreme cheap or for almost nothing, but not films, theater, architecture, or interactive media like iOS/Android apps/games and PC and console games as well.

 

[Gord.T]

Art always has been free to look at or listen to. It costs something if you want to own it. Point: Ever seen anything on TV or heard anything on the radio?
That didn't cost the listener or viewer anything. Ever look at a picture in a art gallery or in a magazine or a web post? Mostly, unless they charge an entry fee, that's free to look at.

I've always thought of youtube as a promotional tool, not a copyright violation deal. Film and music studios should be promoting free samples, like Avril Levigne, on you tube for promotional purposes. That's a good idea.

As for artists pay, it's usually dirt cheap minimum, so in that sense they've never really been paid much, so in that sense it's sort of free work for them, which sucks. That continues today but hey...

//a couple last minute edits for details of explanation.

 

[arroway]

I would love to live my life poor and spend all my time making films, but the problem is that films do cost money to make.

Why would you want to "live your life poor"?

If you had a choice, wouldn't you choose to be at least financially secure?

 

[arroway]

Art always has been free to look at or listen to. It costs something if you want to own it. Point: Ever seen anything on TV or heard anything on the radio?

Not free. You are paying with your time, in the form of having to watch/listen to advertisements to get the content. It is truly free only if your time is worth nothing.

I've always thought of youtube as a promotional tool, not a copyright violation deal. Film and music studios should be promoting free samples, like Avril Levigne, on you tube for promotional purposes. That's a good idea.

People say this about P2P piracy too: it's promotion! The people behind streaming sites like spotify are on the same bandwagon: don't expect too much revenue from this, it's promotion! The end result is content creators are getting the run-around from the same businesses making obscene amounts of money from THEIR work, who then expect them to be thankful for the "promotion".

The problem is, where does the promotion end?

The fact is, you can't eat promotion.

And the other fact is, "owning" content is fast becoming an anachronism. Everything is going server-side, instant on-demand. Why buy when you can stream? A future in which only ownership is monetized and everything else is "promotion" is a future in which artists starve.

As for artists pay, it's usually dirt cheap minimum, so in that sense they've never really been paid much, so in that sense it's sort of free work for them, which sucks. That continues today but hey...

There's no "but hey..." about it. It's a problem. A big one.

Which is why I'm surprised you guys had such a casual response to this article and the views expressed within it.

 

[rsbush]

Which is why I'm surprised you guys had such a casual response to this article and the views expressed within it.

Really? Can you comprehend the difference between posing a question and stating a viewpoint? I think you need to revisit the article and read it without such a defensive subjective reaction.

 

[arroway]

Really? Can you comprehend the difference between posing a question and stating a viewpoint?

Can you not comprehend that posing a question can be the same thing as stating a viewpoint?

Take, for instance, what you literally JUST wrote: "Can you comprehend the difference between posing a question and stating a viewpoint?". When you wrote this little ad hominem barb were you really expecting me to answer in the negative or affirmative or were you merely trying to denigrate my intelligence and express your VIEWPOINT that I misinterpreted the content of the article?

For the sake of your own comprehension, may I suggest you do some reading on the subject of "rhetorical questions"?

(see what I did there?)

 

[rsbush]

(see what I did there?)

Got defensive, focused on a literal interpretation and missed the pertinent issue entirely?

 

[Jon Starr]

Am I the only one that doesn't like any of his works? I appreciate Godfather for what it is, but I didn't enjoy it. That's why I never saw godfather 2. Rumble Fish I really despised. Had to do an essay on it... Dracula I've seen some of the scenes in my Vampires in Media studies class, really didn't enjoy it... Apocalypse Now is maybe the only one I can bear to watch, but even then to me it's nothing more than a cool scene with Flight of the Valkyries and some awesome technical scenes.

Out of all the "masters" of Hollywood, he's the one I like the least.