Episode Details

The greatest American epic about organized crime was directed by a man who thought the source material was sleazy trash and only took the job because he owed Warner Bros. 400,000 dollars. This episode traces the turbulent life of Francis Ford Coppola, from a childhood bout of polio that confined him to a bed and pushed him to stage puppet theaters and splice 8mm film, through UCLA film school on ten dollars a week, to salvaging soft-core comedies and Soviet science fiction for Roger Corman.

The conversation follows the founding of American Zoetrope with George Lucas, the debt that forced him into The Godfather, the fights with Paramount over casting and lighting, and the unprecedented decision to number a sequel. It then heads into the typhoons, heart attacks and borrowed military helicopters of Apocalypse Now, the soundstage musical that cost him his studio, the years of directing for hire, and the pivot into vineyards, resorts and a literary magazine that finally bought him the independence he had chased since the 1960s.

• How the Kuleshov effect and Corman's salvage jobs taught Coppola the geometry of editing
• Writing Dementia 13 in a single night and shooting it in nine days with leftover budget
• Why Paramount hired a desperate, indebted director and how he turned their thriller into a family saga
• Two Palme d'Or wins, including one for the surveillance thriller The Conversation
• Why he stopped being a professional director so his wine and hotel profits could fund experimental films