Pre-Apocalypse Now (1979), Coppola was a god. He’s been off since. The Cotton Club (1984), Tucker (1988), Rumble Fish (1983) — these are good films. (The first five minutes of Dracula [1992] are his best work in a long time.) But none of them are sustained efforts.
Coppola is a writer. He directs to protect his scripts. Like Hal Ashby, he can band talent together; he has a discriminating eye. This makes him a director, though, not a king. He guides. He lets his films breathe.
But, for a time, he was king. He began to live his movies and second-guessed himself. Plus, he had a weakness for gimcracks. Does he perform best when his back’s against the wall? Hard to say.
Coppola had a dream. He’d be the titan at Zoetrope, his film house. Out of the desert (Old Hollywood), he’d lead the turks of New Hollywood. They would be independent. But the blandness of the studios got a spinal tap and a face lift: Because of their success, the anti-establishment became the establishment de novo. And Coppola was the spearhead.
Zoetrope was supposed to break the mold, but it broke the bank. Coppola tried to be the beneficent don, everything to everyone. Needless to say, he failed.
. . .
Apocalypse Now is the movie brats’ film. The highs exist in the finished product. The lows are documented in Hearts of Darkness (1991), a film about the making-of.
Apocalypse Now took a dump on the auteur theory it pumped. The personal fallout was bad, but folks enshrined Coppola for having lost it in the jungle. He’d used real corpses. He’d goaded Martin Sheen into getting drunk and cutting himself. (Said my dad: “Jack, this is NOT how you make a movie.”) Francis took his ego to the shedding limit. He willed the film, but I’d argue it cost him the rest of his career. I don’t think he can get it up anymore.
Now, deep in the heart of Alexander Valley, you can find him stomping on grapes and tossing feta cheese at the locals.
Kiss the ring — goodbye.