The anniversary of the King of French Francis Koppoli Mafia. Masterpieces chips: from "baptized father" to "Dracula"
The focus will tell what formulas the director accompanies success. The best paintings of the master are about the branch of hell on the ground. Why? Nine -year Francis became infected with polio: the boy had a paralyzed left hand, left leg and back. The child for three years became an exile - too contagious so that friends can visit her. Only the older brother of Augustus and his younger sister's waist made up the company.
To get out of the hell of the disease was helped by the imagination (read a lot), will and family. Francis argued that after such trials - people become different. So it is not surprising that first he began to shoot the choirs. His teacher was directed by Roger Korman - "King of Class B" - a low -budget horror tape and militants (he released many famous students except Koppola - James Kemeron, Martin Scorssez, Jonathan Demmy).
In the first years in the profession of Coppol, he put several projects: from the mountain "Madness-13" (1963) to "People of Rain" (1969)-a family drama about an infantile young woman, not ready to accept fate: in the final bloody solution with shooting . But in general, the paintings of Koppola in the 1960s passed neither shaky nor Valko. The case and Italian origin allowed Francis to get a director's chair in the "baptized father" (1972).
The novel Mario Pjuzo "The Baptist Father" in 1969 became a bestseller. The book told about the life of the most powerful mafia clan in the United States-the American-Italian family, where Don Corleone presented. The writing of Mario's book was inspired by the public testimony of Mafiozo Joe Valachi, which was broadcast in the early 1960s on TV.
Puzo learned about Mafia from various information sources, not being personally familiar with the members of the gangs, but in the image of Vito Corleone inspired his own mother, who raised her numerous family with an iron hand. Coppoli slept the idea to look at the novel as a family chronicle, not as a gangster saga - the topic of his family is close to him. Francis Francis insisted on the role of mafia's godfather, Marlon Brando. Why? Brando is a tiger, it always hides the danger.
It is unknown from Marlon what to wait. That is why the paramaunt studio's bosses were horrified by the director's ideas: working with Brando in Hollywood went to a gloomy rumors of Koppoll, he declared home to the actor. He came out of the bathroom in a robe: back combined blond hair. Which of him is the Sicilian? But in addition to the fact that he is unpredictable, he is also talented.
Quickly dyeing the hair in black and inserting napkins for the cheeks, he began to talk hoarsely-a kind of restrained rick. Marlon in his 47 perfectly depicted the Tiger in the pre -retirement age. Frames with such Brando conquered the producers. The director invited Al Pacino to the role of Don Corleone's son, seeing him as a drug addict in the not very well-known movie "Panic in the Nidl Park"-the second in the actor's career. The bosses of the studio again were against: little actor, fuzzy.
But Koppola lay on the embrasure and won. In Al Pacino's eyes, the director saw something from the cold rage of the snake. According to the plot, Vito Corleone marries her daughter. At this time, his beloved son Michael returned from the war. The latter does not want to have anything to do with the criminal family business, but on Don Corleone there is an attempt. Michael is involved in a cruel game, wanting to take revenge on his father.
Michael from the noble (like) veteran of the war, the Marines, turns into a merciless new leader of the criminal clan. The very moment of transformation happened when he at a meeting in a restaurant with the organizers of the attempt on his father, shoots them in their heads - close. At the beginning, he had a confused face and then a sudden throw of a cobra. Interestingly, at this point, we hear the sound of a train that is inhibiting as if before a disaster.
Friend and colleague of Koppola Steven Spielberg also loves catastrophe, but he has a formula: the inhabitant - a catastrophe - survival. Koppola also shows the warrior with whom the moral disaster happens. This is his voluntary descent into hell. The formula of "godfather": a warrior - getting into hell - transformation into a beast. My father, Professor, Doctor of Technical Sciences, accidentally came to the festival "godfather" in the 1970s (in the USSR the tape did not get a wide rental).
And Batya with his eyes enlarged with his eyes told his little son (or me, whether it is): "There one type gets a gun and shoots the enemy directly into the forehead. " I remember this "film story" so far. Not surprisingly, this rigid scene entered the world's annals: we will not forget that the Ethical Code of Gais was only canceled in 1968 in 1968 - this made it possible for Koppoli to "walk".
This act of the protagonist became a point of non -return for Michael Corleone, who became an increasingly merciless punishment of both other people's apostates and his own. The classic of cinema was the scene of the shooting of Michael (not personally, but at his instruction) of criminal bosses of five families. They were invited to baptize the baby. Corleone Jr. used a family holiday to kill them. The director combines scenes of baptism in the church under the organ - with episodes of shootings.
Moreover, even a replica sounds when the priest asks Michael "Do you renounce Satan", he replies "Yes, I reject him. " And at this time there is a cruel massacre: the top of cynicism! The film had a terrific success: at a budget of $ 6 million, its world fees amounted to almost $ 300 million. No one expected such turnover: neither Francis nor producers. Koppola instantly from an unknown director turned into a superstar: the formula of his success was found.
Coppola showed that Vito Corleone allegedly two families: native and "family" in the form of a gang - mafia. The "baptized father-2" (1974) compares the path of Don Corleone (young Vito is played by Robert de Niro) and Michael. Vito chose the result - his native family, and a heartless Michael is a mafia: he will even kill his brother. Payment-the death of his bride and daughter-is already in the "baptized father-3" (1990), where Michael tried to legalize the criminal business.
Interestingly, Frenis Coppola uses the style of Rembrandt for the first time in this movie cycle: golden faces on a black background. The Dutch artist came to this contrast-inhabitant but expressive manner after a large number of deaths in his family. The joyful paints seemed to leave his palette, leaving only these. In addition, in the footage with Michael Corlione in the course of the tape - light is getting smaller, and darkness - more and more.
Divinity in the picture is represented by the famous music - the "theme of love" by Italian composer Nina Rota. By the way, my father already mentioned above was bought by accident in the commission, where things were handed over by those who visited the West, Bobin of Sony, where various performers played a shame "Theme of Love" from "Baptized Father" for over an hour - this thing was so totally popular In the 1970s.
In 1979, Koppola released the most amazing anti -war movie in the world "Apocalypse today", which received a "Golden Palm Branch". The basis for him was the story of Joseph Conrad "Heart of Darkness" in 1902 (!). It described the trip deep in Africa by the river of an employee of the company who illegally produced ivory. An employee should find a famous agent of Kurtz, who has a ivory. How did he achieve this result? Barbaric rituals and native murders. In the final, Kurtz, repenting, dies.
Coppola suffered this story in the realities of the US-Vietnamese war. Therefore, Captain Willard (Martin Shin) needs to penetrate the river deep into the country to eliminate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has become a neutral Cambodia jungle of something like a cruel deity that is not even able to control the CIA.
On the way, Willard witnesses the destruction of the Americans of the Vietnamese village from combat helicopters under the broadcasting "Walcairi" Wagner: the strongest episode (Valkyria, who is not aware-mythological winged Virgo-warriors flying over battles). Residents are burned with the jungle. One American Lieutenant Colonel says to the protagonist already the famous phrase: "You smell? It is a napalm, a son. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
Once we bombed one height of twelve hours in a row, no one left, even the corpses. Only the smell of napalm! It's a smell . . . Victory. " Willard gets to Kurtz, who is almost crazy, discovering that violence is a dead end. Willard realizes that Kurtz wants to die as a warrior. The Kurtz people perform the rite, sacrificing a bull, and Willard kills Kurtz with a machete. Kurtz accepts death with dignity and, dying, whispers "horror . . . horror . . . ". The captain is offered to become a new "leader".
But Willard, realizing that this path is nowhere, leaves the camp. Brando is known to have been staring before shooting. Coppola found a way out: to remove only the illuminated face of the actor. The episode turned out to be absolutely brilliant - a radical Rembrandt. The Apocalypse formula is the same as that of a "baptized father": a warrior - getting into hell - a transformation into a beast, but here a warrior understands that it is a hopelessness and refuses to such a "result".
Oddly enough, in the movie "Dracula Brem Stoker" (1992). The film begins with an episode of 1462, when the glorious Romanian warrior Vlad Dracula (Gary Oldman) wins the Turks. But the insidious basurmans, along with the arrow, send a false message to his castle - about the death of the owner. The beloved but trusting wife of Count Elizabeth (Winona Ryder) ends his life with suicide.
After learning from the priests that the soul of his wife is damned, the Earl renounces God, which condemns himself to eternal torment. From the fierce Dracula, he takes different blasphemous actions and turns into a vampire. Already in 1897, a young real estate agent Jonathan Harker (Kian Rivz) appeared in the Transylvanian Count Dracula in the case. He accidentally saw a photo of his bride and recognized him . . . his wife Elizabeth.
We will not retell the plot, but the main thing is that the bloodthirsty Dracula still seek mine-elizabeth. And the mine, for its part, recognizing through the centuries of Dracula, in the finale kisses it and at the same time pierces the sword in the chapel, where candles from the presence of God flash out in a wonderful way. The graph finds his love again, and the forgiveness of Dracula and Elizabeth go to paradise. Another Faust story.
That is, in the formula: a warrior-getting into hell-transformation into a beast, warrior again becomes light under the influence of love. Coppola showed that getting out of the dead end is only love. By the way, regarding the love of the director himself, he has been happily married for 61 years. Francis, in addition to his wife Eleanor, loves his other relatives without memory - he made a actress from his daughter, and then a decent director.
The native nephew (the son of his older brother) helped to become a star named Nicholas Cage (alias). Dzhia Koppol's grandson - also not missing: it is an actress and a director. Even a dad, who does not have a great talent, his dad-Flutist and composer Karmaine Coppol (1910-1991)-Francis was attached to the "second composer" to Nina Roth in "Baptized Father. " And then he instructed writing music to the Apocalypse today.
In principle, he "did not hurt" his work with the tunes of the mouth and Wagner. And he could not do it: his son Francis Ford was still Superproth. In general, in life, he is a "godfather" for his numerous relatives, who was called in the movie business "Koppoli's family". Francis knows exactly that in love - salvation.
You ask: why so little in Francis masterpieces, despite dozens of projects? Do you think it's easy to dive into hell (if you follow the formula)? It is clear that it is a wild tension every time. And Koppola was able to live safely to the elderly. And, by the way, it is now busy shooting the movie "Megapolis", where the budget of $ 120 million and a bunch of stars: Adam Driver, John Woit, Dustin Hoffman, Kate Blanchett and Michelle Pfeiffer.