Coppola, Francis Ford

Coppola, Francis Ford
born April 7, 1939, Detroit, Mich., U.S.

U.S. film director, screenwriter, and producer.

He worked under Roger Corman before achieving his first success with the low-budget but stylish You're a Big Boy Now (1967). He wrote or cowrote screenplays for several films, including Patton (1970, Academy Award). He won acclaim for writing and directing the Mafia epic The Godfather (1972, Academy Awards for best picture and screenplay). His other films include The Conversation (1974), The Godfather, Part II (1974, Academy Awards for best director, picture, and screenplay), Apocalypse Now (1979), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), The Godfather, Part III (1990), and The Rainmaker (1997).

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▪ American director and screenwriter
born April 7, 1939, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.

      American motion-picture director, writer, and producer whose films range from sweeping epics to small-scale character studies.

      Confined to bed with polio at age nine, Coppola devised puppet shows for his own entertainment. After taking a graduate degree in film at the University of California at Los Angeles, he worked for a time with director Roger Corman in the production of low-budget horror films. Coppola's first independent directorial efforts—Tonight for Sure (1961), Dementia 13 (1963), and You're a Big Boy Now (1967)—met with mixed critical and popular reaction, but the musical Finian's Rainbow (1968) enjoyed considerable success. Coppola received an Academy Award for his screenplay of Patton (1970), a film about the controversial American general of World War II.

      Coppola directed and cowrote The Godfather (1972). This film, which was based on a novel by Mario Puzo, won virtually unanimous critical acclaim and numerous awards (including three Academy Awards) and proved enormously popular at the box office. The epic drama, remarkable for its accomplished performances and visual authenticity, transformed the inner workings of the organized-crime subculture into a metaphor for corruption on a larger scale. It was followed by The Conversation (1974), a penetrating portrait of one man's involvement in the electronic-surveillance business. The Godfather, Part II of the same year received seven Academy Awards. Another sequel, The Godfather, Part III, appeared in 1990.

      Coppola's most controversial—and, at the time, most costly—film, Apocalypse Now (1979), was a transposition of Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness to a Vietnam War setting. The film won two of the eight Academy Awards for which it was nominated. In the decades following that success, Coppola directed such films as One from the Heart (1982), a musical set in a soundstage re-creation of Las Vegas; Rumble Fish and The Outsiders (both 1983), which treated themes of underprivileged adolescence; The Cotton Club (1984), noted for its jazz score; Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), a retelling of the vampire legend; and The Rainmaker (1997), which adapted a legal thriller by novelist John Grisham. The surrealistic Youth Without Youth, Coppola's first directorial effort in 10 years, was released in 2007. The film, which he also cowrote, centres on an elderly professor whose youth returns after he is struck by lightning.

      Coppola's extended family includes several in the motion-picture industry, such as his nephew Nicolas Cage, an actor, and his daughter Sofia, also a filmmaker. Coppola produced many of the films he directed and, even when not directing, had many producerial successes, including American Graffiti (1973), directed by George Lucas (Lucas, George); The Black Stallion (1979), directed by Caroll Ballard; and Lost in Translation (2003), directed by Sofia Coppola.

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Universalium. 2010.

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Coppola,Francis Ford — Cop·po·la (kŏpʹə lə), Francis Ford. Born 1939. American filmmaker who won an Academy Award for his direction of The Godfather, Part II (1974). * * * …   Universalium

  • Coppola, Francis Ford — • КО ППОЛА (Coppola) Фрэнсис Форд (р. 7.4.1939)    амер. режиссёр, продюсер, сценарист. По происхождению итальянец. Окончил Калифорнийский ун т. В 1962 стал ассистентом реж. Р. У. Кормена, а в 1963 пост. ф. Безумие 13 , после чего вернулся к… …   Кино: Энциклопедический словарь

  • Coppola, Francis Ford — ► (n. 1931) Director cinematográfico estadounidense. Formado en la Universidad de California, sus películas han tratado temas tan variados como la Segunda Guerra Mundial (Patton, 1971), la mafia italo norteamericana (la saga de El padrino:1972,… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Coppola, Francis Ford —   (1939 )   see film + cinema and image …   The Baudrillard dictionary

  • Francis Ford Coppola — Coppola at the 2011 San Diego Comic Con International. Born April 7, 1939 (1939 04 07) (age 72) Detroit, Michigan …   Wikipedia

  • Francis Ford Coppola — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Para otros usos de este término, véase Coppola (desambiguación). Francis Ford Coppola …   Wikipedia Español

  • Francis Ford Coppola — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Coppola. Francis Ford Coppola …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Francis Ford Coppola — (Januar 2007) Francis Ford Coppola (* 7. April 1939 in Detroit, Michigan) ist ein US amerikanischer Regisseur, Produzent und Weingutsbesitzer. Als Regisseur von Klassikern wie Der Pate und Apocalypse Now zählt er zu den bedeut …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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  • Francis Ford — may refer to:*Francis Ford (actor), American actor, writer and film director *Francis Ford (cricketer), English cricketer, who played cricket in the late 19th century *Francis Ford (politician), Canadian Liberal party politician who was involved… …   Wikipedia

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