Francis Ford Coppola picks his favourite writers of all time
A look at the most iconic films of famed director Francis Ford Coppola reveals a deep connection to literature and the significant influence written works had on his filmmaking. The mastermind behind American cinema classics like The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now adapted these masterpieces from novels. Throughout Coppola’s career, the literary world has been a consistent and integral source of inspiration.
“When I was young, I wanted to be Tennessee Williams or Elia Kazan, so I would steal anything I could from them because that was my idea of greatness,” Coppola, now 85, told The Talks in an interview. “And the truth of the matter is that if a young person is influenced by something I do, he’s welcome to it because there’s no way you can steal from another person.”
Tennessee Williams, with plays such as A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, is one of America’s most celebrated playwrights with his most famous theatrical works adapted for cinema. Kazan, another major influence of Coppola, directed A Streetcar Named Desire, which starred Marlon Brando in both the stage and film versions for which he received an Oscar nomination.
Kazan directed many of Williams’ most famous plays, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth. Brando, of course, enjoyed a close relationship with Coppola for his performances as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, which earned the ‘Best Actor’ win at the Oscars. He also played the demented Colonel Walter E Kurtz, based on the original character in Joseph Conrad’s novel Apocalypse Now.
Coppola has been a prolific screenwriter and director throughout his illustrious career. His writing credits include the 1974 adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby and The Rainmaker, which Coppola directed in 1995 after writing the adapted screenplay from John Grisham’s 1995 novel of the same name.
Of course, Coppola is most associated with Apocalypse Now and The Godfather series, in which he wrote the screenplay and directed each film. The epic Vietnam film Apocalypse Now is loosely based on Polish-British writer Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness. Coppola co-wrote the three screenplays for The Godfather trilogy with Mario Puzo, who wrote the novel of the same name, published in 1969. He also directed Bram Stoker’s Dracula, based on the 1897 novel.
Coppola even adapted a screenplay directly from Williams’ one-act play This Property Is Condemned, which was released in 1966. The feature starred both Robert Redford and Charles Bronson.
“Even as hard as I tried to steal from Tennessee Williams, it came out some other way,” Coppola said of his literary hero. “And that’s the purpose of art. It means you live on in somebody else’s work, which is something very pleasant as a thought. So if something I did influenced another film or if I had some small part in encouraging them, then I am pleased.”
The Coppola family has a close association with adapting literary works into films. His daughter Sofia Coppola—who wrote the screenplay and directed Lost in Translation and, of course, starred in the third Godfather film as Michael Corleone’s daughter—wrote the adapted screenplay for The Virgin Suicides from Jeffrey Eugenides’s 1993 novel. Her 2017 film The Beguiled is also adapted from a 1966 novel of the same.
