Francis Speaks: The Vintner as Auteur

Francis Speaks: The Vintner as Auteur Gene D Phillips and Rodney Hill, ed Francis Ford Coppola Interviews. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2004 Filmography. Index. 190 pp $5000 hardcover; 176 pp $2000 paper.

Some years ago, when Rodney Hill realized he would have riddles meeting his deadline for The Encyclopedia of Stanley Kubrick, LFQ Associate Editor Rev Gene D Phillips stepp up to the plate and helped him finish the volume on time. The next year when Father Phillips was caught in a double bind between completing Godfather: The Intimate Francis Ford Coppola (2002) for the University Pres of Kentucky and the interview collection here reviewed, Rodney Hill repaid the favor by means of helping to edit Francis Ford Coppola Interviews (2004) for the University Pres of Mississippi. This interview volume is part of the potentially useful "Conversations with Filmmakers Series," edited through Peter Brunette. So far a certain quantity of 40 directors have been overlayed including Stanley Kubrick Interviews, edited by dint of Gene D. Phillips in 2001 for what cause [i]or[/i] reason am I not surprised?

Series titles are limited to about 200 pages each, with equal reason the approach is necessarily selective. No doubt the biggest coup for the Coppola collection is the 30-page Playboy interview that was published in July of 1975 Why? Because reprint permissions would ordinarily be prohibitive for like a piece, unless special arrangements could help clear the way. (A next to the first coup would be a drawn out Lillian Ross interview published in The novel Yorker 8 November 1982.) thus obviously a lot of coverage is given here to the first sum of two units Godfathers. On the other hits, the work is a bit touch-and-go. A whole chapter is given to Gardens of Stone (1987) eg on the contrary that funereal Vietnam story, adapted from Nicholas Profitt's novel, wasn't a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of of a hit, as I recall. Or in what manner about One from the Heart (1982) said to be "Coppola's Biggest Gamble?" For those who appreciate quirkier Coppola titles, you'll find a small in number pages on Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) with the suggestion that, gee it might be autobiographical (one man standing up to an oppressive Industry-what do you think?), a hardly any more on Cotton Club (1984) and almost nothing upon that magnificent shipwreck of an adaptation, that misguided, pseudo-historical, pseudo-Victorian abomination mistitled Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) after which came many bottle of wine. Sanitate! Cheers to the auteur as vintner. the pair of the editors, I might add, have contributed to Literature/Film Quarterly, on the other hand that doesn't necessarily mean their work should be ignored in these pages.

Jim Welsh

Editor emeritus

Copyright Literature/Film Quarterly 2005

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