IN CONVERSATION WITH FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
Francis Ford Coppola is a man who needs absolutely no introduction. A maestro of American cinema, he’s written and directed some of the greatest movies this country has ever seen. His run of films (and directing outfits) in the 1970’s is something to marvel at and learn from. He’s taken risks that no artist would ever dare to today. He’s built an empire, lost it all, and built it back up again more than a couple of times through his company American Zoetrope. I’m beyond honored to have spoken to Francis about his personal style, packing his wardrobe for Apocalypse Now, his Battistoni suits, Sofia Coppola’s flats, dressing for Megalopolis, the origin of Coppola shirts, his early career directing uniform, and his connection to Armenia.
His latest film Megalopolis is now available on demand.
Hagop Kourounian: Can you tell me about your personal style? What’s your relationship like with clothing? Would you say you have a uniform of sorts?
Francis Ford Coppola: In my earlier days when I was doing The Godfather, I pretty much didn’t want to think about how I was gonna dress. I had these corduroy suits, I had more than one and I would just wear that everyday. There's a funny story about how when I was working on The Godfather, I was in the bathroom and I heard a bunch of the crew come in saying stuff like “Wow where’d they find that director, he didn’t know what he was doing, how’d they ever pick him?” And I knew that in the bathroom it would be easy to know who I was, I always wore the same corduroy colors so I sort of lifted my legs up so they couldn’t see it was me overhearing this. Basically I wore what we could call a uniform. I didn’t want to think about how I dressed. I made a change when I got older. At that point I decided I should wear a suit and tie when I was directing a picture because then people would know that I was the guy in charge. The so called suits as they nicknamed them. I always wore a suit and tie and my son Roman took that up. When he directs he always wears a suit and tie but that’s deliberately to indicate that I’m the guy in charge. Also I was much overweight, not on Apocalypse Now, then we were all in such extreme weather and working conditions that both myself and my wife lost a lot of weight. We were in the Philippines and it was hot so I wore shorts and a t-shirt, anything to be comfortable in that weather.
As I said, after that period I adopted the suit and tie method. Also it seemed to happen that with each picture, and this is partly natural selection, there was a different hat that was appropriate for that climate. Whether it was a sort of Panama type hat or another, I pretty much wore the same hat every time. As you look at documentary footage of me during One From the Heart I’m wearing a Panama hat all the time. Like everyone I’m just more comfortable in whatever I’ve been wearing, especially for that particular climate.
But it eventually became a suit and tie at one point and then it was always a suit and tie. I think even on Megalopolis I’m pretty much always in a suit and tie. It’s the same for my son Roman.
Hagop Kourounian: What kind of personal items do you gravitate to on set? What makes you feel grounded, comfortable, confident on set? Is there something you’d feel lost without while shooting a film?
Francis Ford Coppola: The famous and great Jerry Lewis is the person who invented video assist. I was a student when I went to watch him make The Ladies Man and in those days his solution to video assist was these giant Ampex recorders on a big trolley. It was quite large, bigger than the size of a couch with monitors. I was very impressed as a student with this idea of a video assist and after Jerry Lewis it was never repeated again. When I did One From the Heart I redid his concept of video assist. Where the finder was on the camera I added a video camera. One From the Heart was intended to be shot almost continuously like a live Playhouse 90 which eventually we didn’t do despite the fact that we rehearsed it that way. After One From the Heart video assist was taken up by all the film companies and today it’s a matter of fact. The danger of it is that they put the director in some tent a mile away and even if you listen to the rushes on the movies you’ll always hear on a take “that was very good do it again, a little more energy!” My teacher who was the great woman director Dorothy Arzner told me that you always want to sit right next to the camera not only so you see the actors up close but so they can see you because they’re doing it for you. Today when I do video assist I just have a little teeny monitor at my feet when I sit next to the camera. I confess I like to have it down there at my feet because sometimes there’s more than one camera and I can see what the second camera is doing. I would like to think that what makes me comfortable is knowing there’s a teeny monitor that I can glance down and see but I look at the performances directly.
Hagop Kourounian: Can you walk me through your directing outfits for Apocalypse Now? What kind of clothes must you bring with you for a film of that scale in such treacherous conditions and environments? What about the graphic t-shirts you wore while filming Apocalypse Now? I especially love the Orson Welles Cinema shirt, the Media Burn shirt by Ant Farm, and the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair (Century of Progress) shirt.
Francis Ford Coppola: I can’t tell you anything about them except that when I packed I knew I was gonna be in a hot climate and someone either my wife or I just took every t-shirt I had. As you know the habit has become that movies tend to turn out a lot of t-shirts. Every department like the lighting guys have their own t-shirt and as the director they tend to give you one. There’s this array of movie t-shirts that’s evolved to be a tradition.
Hagop Kourounian: Can you explain what a Coppola shirt is?
Francis Ford Coppola: That’s a funny story. Some years ago when Hawaiian shirts had gone out of style, I mentioned I wanted to buy some and I noticed you couldn’t buy them anymore. I happened to ask the costume designer of whatever movie I was working on if she knew why you couldn’t buy them anymore and she said they’re just not popular. But she found some old fabric and offered to make me some. I ended up having around a dozen authentic, because they were made of real Hawaiian fabric, Hawaiian shirts and I used to wear these. In Brazil, they called them Coppola shirts even though they were Hawaiian shirts. After a while that type of shirt caught on again and they started making them again, you know Tommy Bahama and so on. My kids said to me “you always say you started this trend of wearing Hawaiian shirts, you always say you start everything, we don’t think you did.” And I said “well, if you don’t believe me look what I’ll do.” I took one of my socks off and put a different one on. “I’ll start wearing dissimilar socks and I bet you that starts itself.” Sure enough now you can buy socks with mismatched pairs. Basically these kinds of things happen when someone starts doing it then someone starts copying it. That's the story about my clothes.
Hagop Kourounian: You’re a trendsetter! It's well known that Sofia has an incredible reputation in the fashion world as well.
Francis Ford Coppola: Sofia did a great service to women by making it cool to wear flats to formal events instead of high heel shoes. High heels have been very attractive over the years but they’re very bad for the women wearing them. So the fact that Sofia made it ok to wear flats is a great service to womankind.
Hagop Kourounian: How did you prepare your wardrobe for Megalopolis? Does your directing attire change on a film by film basis or with age?
Francis Ford Coppola: During Megalopolis, I wore whatever suit fit me because I lost a lot of weight. I have good suits and I have less good suits. My good suits are of course more costly so I had them all resized and pretty much I wore all my good suits and a shirt and tie. The decision each day was which suit to wear and which color tie to wear. They were made by an Italian tailor who was famous for making the very finest. They’re very expensive and they’re made to order. The company is called Battistoni.
Hagop Kourounian: Megalopolis asks the question, “What is time?” The film starts and ends with time stopping. Do you think clothing plays a part in stopping time? I typically can date a photo taken of me or my loved ones through the clothes I’m wearing and many period pieces use clothing to portray a certain decade in time.
Francis Ford Coppola: I think all art basically is defined by something that defies or stops or reworks time. Sculptures, what is that? That’s a person in three dimensions that's frozen in time. There’s a big scene in Megalopolis where he explains this at length in the dialogue how architecture is frozen music. How one of the characteristics of art is its mastery over time, it always has been. The very first cave paintings which they found with adults and children's hands on the wall or a picture of a gazelle, those are moments of stopped time. All art is basically control of time.
Hagop Kourounian: Francis, I have to ask… I’m a proud Armenian and we always wait through the end credits of films to see if we can spot a fellow Armenian amongst the long list of contributors. I always notice a recurring name in your films, Anahid Nazarian. Can you talk about your connection with her? Have you learned anything about Armenian culture from Anahid?
Francis Ford Coppola: Well I’ve learned a great deal about Armenian culture from Anahid. I’m sure you know the name Anahid means Goddess of Wisdom. I also knew Kirk Kerkorian very well who was a famous Armenian. I know Armenians are really ancient and great people. Anahid always said if you’re ever on a jury selection and you see an Armenian name, always choose them because they’re such honorable people. Of course, like all honorable people they very often have had a terrible episode in their history. I have nothing but admiration for Armenian people, culture, and of course Armenian food which I know very well.
Hagop Kourounian: I like to end these conversations by asking who you think are some of the best dressed filmmakers? Did you have any style heroes growing up? Are any of them filmmakers? Were there any directors you looked up to and wanted to emulate?
Francis Ford Coppola: Well that’s an interesting question because the typical dress of filmmakers changed a lot over the course of history. Early on it was the style of people like Cecil B. DeMille to wear riding jodhpurs and to carry a horse whip in their hand. I changed the look of filmmakers because I was the first one with a beard whereas the typical cliche of the Cecil B. DeMille era was always horse riding jodhpurs. In my era the cliche was the young man with a beard so I changed the look of film directors. I only had a beard because I had grown one during a highschool production of Shakespeare play and I liked it because I thought I had a really big lower lip and I used to be teased about it. I sort of thought the beard helped hide it. So it was vanity that made me grow it when I was about 17-18.
Hagop Kourounian: Thank you so much for your time, Francis.
Francis Ford Coppola: You’re welcome and good luck to you and good luck to all Armenians.
For more on Francis Ford Coppola's outfits, check out this article we wrote about his Cannes Film Festival looks throughout the years.